Focus, focus, focus

In order to achieve better learning it’s important to understand how our brains process information. It’s also important to be aware of the primary challenges our memory faces before effective learning can occur.

Whenever we are exposed to new information we have two options: disregard the information or keep it. If the brain decides to keep it, the information will be encoded and placed into the short-term memory (STM). After it arrives to the STM it must be transformed and manipulated if we want to keep it in the long-term memory (LTM). Once in the LTM, we should be able to retrieve it when necessary.

This is, in a nutshell what educational psychologists call the information processing system (IPS) or information processing model (IPM). The following graphic is a representation of the IPS:

If this process of storage and retrieval feels so “simple”, why learning in college is so hard? Ok, the answer to that question has many possibilities but a very common one is LACK OF FOCUS.

When sitting down to study you need to make sure that your attention and focus is not divided. Are your friends hanging around? Do you have the TV on? Are you listening to music? Are you engaging with your friends in social media? Any distraction will prevent you from processing and storing the information effectively. And that’s the first barrier to learning. So, before you ask why can’t you remember, you might really want to ask, why can’t you focus.

In the following Ted Talk, Peter Doolittle explains some common challenges of our memory and how to address them: