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Analysis Of Students Remember What They Think About By Daniel T. Willingham

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In the article, Students Remember… What They Think About, Daniel T. Willingham examines the components of memory and previous experiments conducted by Hyde and Jenkins, using cognitive science to show readers that “memory is as thinking does”. Willingham discusses the cognitive scientific approach to how students learn, comprehend, remember, and create material in the classroom, cognitive processes influence the nature of what is being learned and being processed (Ormrod, p. 162). 1Unlike rote knowledge, shallow knowledge has meaning, yet it is understood in individual fragments. This being an early stage of learning, shallow knowledge lacks the ability to join and connect material for in-depth comprehension of how facts relate. 2 Shallow knowledge is caused by the absence of meaning as it relates to the functions of memory. Therefore, what the student thinks about while obtaining the material is key. If the learner does not think about the meaning of the material when exposed to the material, then the meaning will not stick in one’s memory. Having the meaning comprehended is essential to preventing shallow knowledge and once meaning is considered then deep knowledge can be constructed by the learner. 3 The primary experimental findings of Hyde and Jenkins show that people are keenly involved in their learning. The experiment explored how students thought about the material in correlation to the effect of memorizing that material. Simply having two groups of students

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