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Re: [Phys-l] SuperMemo



Supermemo probably can not help everyone remember everything. For example:

1. What happens if the memorization does not seem to last long enough to be
refreshed? I have tried to remember names of people using all kinds of
systems. I find that I can go down a row of students, and look at the names
& faces. By the time I get to the end the first one is gone. It also seems
that I have difficulty in recognizing faces from pictures. But the one
thing that does help is having pictures of all students, and referring to
them occasionally. Unfortunately I have had name aphasia from a very early
age, this includes people I have known for 30 years! Incidentally I had the
same problem with math facts, so I generate them from algorithms. It seems
that I remember names if I have a personality to associate with it. So I
don't ever get the illusion that I am learning names well!

2. This system can not help people remember things that are apparently
contrary to the way they perceive the world. This happens all the time in
physics. Students do remember things much better if their paradigms change.

Concepts when properly learned do not exhibit the usual decay. Priscilla
Laws has evidence that after active learning the scores on conceptual tests
actually go up for the following 2 weeks rather than down. Likewise scores
on the FCI seem to be stable up to 3 years after an IE course according to
research published in The Physics Teacher.

The facile ability to memorize may actually stand in the way of good
learning. I know a number of dyslexics who are good at science because they
make connections between ideas rather than rote random memorize. I also
know a teacher who memorizes everything you say. He has a "phonograpic
memory". But he has great difficulty with concepts in science and can't
transfer very well. Being slightly dyslexic, I remember concepts well, but
random facts or names poorly.

So the software may only work under certain circumstances. The article did
have some good tips that might have helped my dyslexic daughter memorize a
useless list of states and capitals which she forgot 2 weeks later. However
personal experience has helped her remember geography much better. Once one
has traveled through these states you know them much better. Having
interest in the dances of various countries has helped me remember where
they are located much better. Is it more important to know where Bulgaria
is located, or Montana hmmmm?

One way of making you remember something is to place greater emphasis on it.
I remember this quite clearly because a psychologist said it and then said
dramatically "I am going to ruin you for life .... pause....hippopatamus".
But that doesn't help with Newton's laws, or rather the application of them.
Incidentally I do not remember any other things from his series of lectures,
so he was right. Students remember when the rocket was fired across the
lecture hall, but not what it was demonstrating.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


...a piece of software called SuperMemo that is
supposed to help you remember things. See:

<https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/archives/2008/4_2008/msg00262.html>

... I decided to give SuperMemo a go and with the exception of
about 4 or 5 days along the way, I've been using it every day since. I
went with the version that came out in 1998 since it is free. (Google
"supermemo freeware" if interested.) It's not magical, but I find that
it works... Thanks Brian. Jeff Schnick

You are most welcome. Faced with your enthusiasm, I reread Gary Wolf's
article at the
URL in question:
<http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-
05/ff_wozniak?currentPage=1>
...though I had all but forgotten it. I found this paragraph specially
interesting:

"Precisely those things that seem to signal we're learning well - easy
performance on drills, fluency during a lesson, even the subjective
feeling that we know something - are misleading when it comes to
predicting whether we will remember it in the future. "The most
motivated and innovative teachers, to the extent they take current
performance as their guide, are going to do the wrong things," Robert
Bjork says. 'It's almost sinister.' "