Could you understand what you have been memorizing?
Students usually encounter lessons that need to be memorized but have they gone to understand it? They also had been having hard time absorbing all the teachings that their professors have taught them. Most of the students who excel during either oral or written exams that need memorization have good memory. However, there are those who don’t because they could not soak in the lessons for some obvious reasons and one of it is laziness.
On the other hand, lessons are supposed to be understood by the students but some or many of the lessons, nowadays, become customarily memorized. Though there are still some who come across for ideas and information that they have read and later realized that they are actually learning something, there are others who just plainly read for the sake of examinations and not learning anything.
To better understand the difference between plain memorization and pure learning, let me give you a hint on the distinction between memorization and actual learning. Read it carefully and understand why students could not learn something they have read, and if students benefit on memorizing with the lesson or understanding the lesson itself, and/or understanding while memorizing.
Rote learning
Merriam Webster Online defines the word rote as “the use of memory usually with little intelligence, and routine or repetition carried out mechanically or unthinkingly.” However, wikipedia.org described rote learning as a learning technique that concentrates only to plain memorization but keeps away the idea of understanding the subject matter. Such ideas only suggest that learning of the subject is not concentrated well but instead the repetition of the subject for memorization.
Rote learning also teaches students to be able to have a good memorization technique about certain lessons but not understanding the lesson itself. There are quite a number of students who frequently take their lessons memorized but after making an examination almost perfect, lesson learned just fly away from their head while there are those who stock it up in their memories and even shares the ideas to others.
Applied learning
There are classes that spends long period of time on lessons that is only repeated but in the long run, learning is not really taking place. There are those who believed that rote memorization is a better way in learning lessons but it does not apply to all individuals. Some memorized their lessons and learn after but there are others that just forget them.
Learning lessons engages with the acquisition of knowledge while commonsense suggests that learning information and ideas from a specific subject needs to be assessed that’s why teachers apply it with testing them such as oral recitations and examinations, to see how students have gone far with the subject and understood it.
Memorized or understood?
Here are some obvious facts about lessons if they are just plainly memorized or fully understood:
Own words/word for word. It is memorization with the ideas given were learned from what is written and provided on the material, word for word or phrase for phrase, alike. But if understood, one could be able to manipulate own words and put it on action.
Explanation is hard/easy. Ideas could be difficult to explain to somebody else if it is just memorized because the words written are just the one that could be remembered. But it is easy to explain it clearly to others if put into ones’ account and understanding.
Application beyond classroom. If memorized, ideas found and provided are difficult to be relayed and be seen in real-life setting while importance of such ideas is hard to imagine and typically not sought. But ideas could be applied to real-life situation if it is completely understood with only one’s very own perspective.
Struggling for identification/not. If memorized, differences and similarities, and implications of ideas could not be identified, and just understands it literally. But with good understanding, differences and similarities of ideas and its implications could be recognized with abstract knowledge as well as one’s literal interpretations.
One answer/more than. Memorized idea when asked is believed to have only one exact answer and if there is only one missed out word or interchanged; there is already struggle in between. However, if understood, ideas could still be organized even if one word is not in place while recognizes that there may be more than one answer to a question depending on circumstances given.
Memorization technique helps
Traditional memorization and recitation techniques help students build up strong acquisition of knowledge and ideas taught by professors. Though others believed that understanding will be absent every time memorization takes place, there are circumstances that prove that memorizing an idea more than once gets to be understood.
Memorizing through repetition and recitation is a useful step to develop understanding an idea or information especially with voluntary action. Some professors try to work out with techniques that could make students easily associate and learn the material at hand by applying the memorized and practiced method to realistic situations.
Throughout the history of organized and formed education, students have been asked to memorize and recite certain information and ideas as part of the traditional technique of teaching and learning.
It really pays to have good memory, though ideas are memorized but if repeated, it is later understood. Let’s put it this way, if an idea is presented once, it will likely be forgotten. The second time, it would sound familiar. On the third time around, it would start to stick up in the head and becomes available for practical use.
Students usually encounter lessons that need to be memorized but have they gone to understand it? They also had been having hard time absorbing all the teachings that their professors have taught them. Most of the students who excel during either oral or written exams that need memorization have good memory. However, there are those who don’t because they could not soak in the lessons for some obvious reasons and one of it is laziness.
On the other hand, lessons are supposed to be understood by the students but some or many of the lessons, nowadays, become customarily memorized. Though there are still some who come across for ideas and information that they have read and later realized that they are actually learning something, there are others who just plainly read for the sake of examinations and not learning anything.
To better understand the difference between plain memorization and pure learning, let me give you a hint on the distinction between memorization and actual learning. Read it carefully and understand why students could not learn something they have read, and if students benefit on memorizing with the lesson or understanding the lesson itself, and/or understanding while memorizing.
Rote learning
Merriam Webster Online defines the word rote as “the use of memory usually with little intelligence, and routine or repetition carried out mechanically or unthinkingly.” However, wikipedia.org described rote learning as a learning technique that concentrates only to plain memorization but keeps away the idea of understanding the subject matter. Such ideas only suggest that learning of the subject is not concentrated well but instead the repetition of the subject for memorization.
Rote learning also teaches students to be able to have a good memorization technique about certain lessons but not understanding the lesson itself. There are quite a number of students who frequently take their lessons memorized but after making an examination almost perfect, lesson learned just fly away from their head while there are those who stock it up in their memories and even shares the ideas to others.
Applied learning
There are classes that spends long period of time on lessons that is only repeated but in the long run, learning is not really taking place. There are those who believed that rote memorization is a better way in learning lessons but it does not apply to all individuals. Some memorized their lessons and learn after but there are others that just forget them.
Learning lessons engages with the acquisition of knowledge while commonsense suggests that learning information and ideas from a specific subject needs to be assessed that’s why teachers apply it with testing them such as oral recitations and examinations, to see how students have gone far with the subject and understood it.
Memorized or understood?
Here are some obvious facts about lessons if they are just plainly memorized or fully understood:
Own words/word for word. It is memorization with the ideas given were learned from what is written and provided on the material, word for word or phrase for phrase, alike. But if understood, one could be able to manipulate own words and put it on action.
Explanation is hard/easy. Ideas could be difficult to explain to somebody else if it is just memorized because the words written are just the one that could be remembered. But it is easy to explain it clearly to others if put into ones’ account and understanding.
Application beyond classroom. If memorized, ideas found and provided are difficult to be relayed and be seen in real-life setting while importance of such ideas is hard to imagine and typically not sought. But ideas could be applied to real-life situation if it is completely understood with only one’s very own perspective.
Struggling for identification/not. If memorized, differences and similarities, and implications of ideas could not be identified, and just understands it literally. But with good understanding, differences and similarities of ideas and its implications could be recognized with abstract knowledge as well as one’s literal interpretations.
One answer/more than. Memorized idea when asked is believed to have only one exact answer and if there is only one missed out word or interchanged; there is already struggle in between. However, if understood, ideas could still be organized even if one word is not in place while recognizes that there may be more than one answer to a question depending on circumstances given.
Memorization technique helps
Traditional memorization and recitation techniques help students build up strong acquisition of knowledge and ideas taught by professors. Though others believed that understanding will be absent every time memorization takes place, there are circumstances that prove that memorizing an idea more than once gets to be understood.
Memorizing through repetition and recitation is a useful step to develop understanding an idea or information especially with voluntary action. Some professors try to work out with techniques that could make students easily associate and learn the material at hand by applying the memorized and practiced method to realistic situations.
Throughout the history of organized and formed education, students have been asked to memorize and recite certain information and ideas as part of the traditional technique of teaching and learning.
It really pays to have good memory, though ideas are memorized but if repeated, it is later understood. Let’s put it this way, if an idea is presented once, it will likely be forgotten. The second time, it would sound familiar. On the third time around, it would start to stick up in the head and becomes available for practical use.
No comments:
Post a Comment