Remembering and Forgetting

Remembering and Forgetting

One of the most distressing experiences for students is not remembering what was studied. I, myself have sat through tests and exams racking my brain, trying to remember things I know for sure that I studied. And the worse part was coming out of the exam room, and discussing with my friends when it all came back to me.

It was not until I attended teacher’s college and studied cognitive theories of learning that I understood how the brain processes information, what caused people to remember and forget and memory strategies that can be used to learn and make information more meaningful.

According to Robert E Slavin, information constantly enters our minds through our senses. Most of this information is almost immediately discarded and we may never even be aware of much of it. Some are held in our memories for a short time and then forgotten. For example, we may remember a phone number until we dial it and talk to someone, at which point we will forget the number. However, some information such as our date of birth is retained much longer, perhaps for the rest of our lives.