EDUC 776
Discussion Assignment Instructions
You must reply to both of the classmates post below with at least 150 words each. Replies are not required to have citations. Any scholarly resource cited must have been published within the last five years. Acceptable sources include the course textbooks and articles from scholarly journals. Please avoid the use of websites.
For your replies, note that responses such as “I like what you said,” “That is a good comment,” and “I disagree with your comment” do not count as complete replies in and of themselves. Rather, state why you liked or disliked a peer’s thread, present additional thoughts or ideas, and provide alternative ideas/thoughts when you disagree. Courtesy in any disagreement is expected; however, you are expected to know and maintain proper online etiquette as outlined on the Student Expectations page in the Course Overview.
Classmate One: Nancy
I found this week’s research helpful, and I was able to immediately apply it to my daily life and my academic studies, which, in all honesty, only happens about 50% of the time. For example, I read that a division of attention is detrimental to the storage and recall of information, so much so that people struggle to encode and recall important information while attempting to complete multiple tasks, (Murphy and Castel, 2022). This was helpful to me as I tend to prefer to concentrate on one subject at a time so that recall is easier and now, I understand why. Generally, information that I find personally interesting becomes the most useful to me, however that could be because the topic is one in which I already find pleasure. I suppose that is also why information on subjects I enjoy is the most helpful in everyday life and the most easily applied. I find Information that I do not use often or which I personally deem unimportant is of little value to me.
Memory and recall are not my strongest attributes; however, I’m finding the lessons in this class and the information I’ve been gathering from the related research articles incredibly valuable. For instance, this last week I discovered that when an overabundance of information is presented our memory and recall tend to sacrifice that which we deem to be of lesser importance for information which is understood to be of greater importance, (Schwartz et al., 2023). And yet another valuable tool in my memory arsenal gleaned from this class is that people tend to remember information in sequence, for example researchers Dillon et al., (2024), state that individuals will most likely recall the first or last item of information in a presentation. Another interesting and helpful tip was found in the research of Healey et al., (2019), when covering the topic of close temporal proximity which states that recall tends to take place in close proximity, that is information is remembered not only in the time frames in which it was received but also in the order in which it was studied, (Healey et al., 2019). These lessons have also helped my spiritual wellbeing and my walk with God as I consider the Biblical verse, “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, (King James Bible, 1769/2008, Isaiah 46:9 KJV). This week’s class has helped me realize the importance of remembering what God has done in my own life and the lives of historical characters.
References
King James Bible. (2008). Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1769)
Dillon H. Murphy, Shawn T. Schwartz, & Alan D. Castel. (2024). Value-Directed Retrieval: The Effects of Divided Attention at Encoding and Retrieval on Memory Selectivity and Retrieval Dynamics. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 50(1), 17–38. Healey, M. K., Long, N. M., & Kahana, M. J. (2019). Contiguity in episodic memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 26(3), 699–720.
Murphy, D. H., & Castel, A. D. (2020). Responsible remembering: How metacognition impacts adaptive selective memory. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 228(4), 301–303
Schwartz, S. T., Siegel, A. L. M., Eich, T. S., & Castel, A. D. (2023). Value-directed memory selectivity relies on goal-directed knowledge of value structure prior to encoding in young and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 38(1), 30–48.
Classmate Two:
Sabrina
Part I:
How often do you apply the information and skill you’ve learned in school to real-life situations? Which information and skills have been most useful? Which have been least useful? Why are some things more easily applied than others?
I have often applied the information and skills I learned in school to real-life situations. When I was a physical therapy student, we were provided with authentic experiences periodically throughout and after our didactic program. This allowed for a deeper understanding of the material and facilitated spaced and interleaved practice because of the variety of patient diagnoses presented in the clinic. Recently, I have had an opportunity to apply the skills I learned in this program within my role as a professor. Specific examples include teaching students about effective study strategies and instructional design that address motivation and cognitive load.
As a physical therapy program professor, I have noticed a growing trend of providing too much material in a curriculum. Unfortunately, this can increase cognitive load and the risk of burnout (Smith et al., 2022). Understanding the Information Processing Theory and the associated research behind learning and memory provided insight into why curriculum developers should avoid overloading the curriculum with extraneous material. Transitioning the focus from breadth to depth of information can give professors more time to emphasize essential concepts and skill development.
I do not have an example of a skill that is least useful from my time in this program. Each semester has introduced concepts and skills with immediate application. Skills are more easily applied because they are relevant to daily tasks or connected to previous experiences. Further, skills taught from a conceptual perspective and expressed in varying or practical ways allow for a deeper understanding and improved likelihood of use over time.
Part II:
Other things being equal, are students more likely to transfer something they’ve learned recently than something they learned a long time ago? Explain this principle in terms of what you learned in Module 2: Week 2 about retrieval and forgetting.
If learners were encouraged to attend to and apply previously learned information to personal experiences, they would be more likely to transfer that information to new knowledge. This is supported if the learner engages in meaningful learning strategies, including organization, imagery, and retrieval (Ormand & James, 2023). Each strategy is essential for storage in long-term memory and is relied upon for transferring knowledge and skills.
References
Ormond, J.E., & Jones, B. D. (2023). Essentials of Educational Psychology (6th et.). Pearson.
Smith, A., Ellison, J., Bogardus, J., & Gleeson P. (2022). Factors contributing to burnout and well-being in physical therapist students. Journal of Physical Therapy Education, 36(3), 217-224. 10.1097/JTE.0000000000000238
