The Importance of Understanding

In order to remember, you must first understand the information.  To ensure understanding you might want to articulate ideas into your own words.  If you struggle with transforming an idea into your own words, chances are you do not understand the information well enough to store it in your memory.  Without a clear understanding of material, the information will be hazy and difficult to retrieve.

 

To increase understanding, don’t be afraid to ask your professor or tutor to explain the idea or concept further or in a different way.  If you are unclear about information, others are probably confused as well.  Supplemental Instruction sessions (offered in numerous Miami courses) may also help you in understanding the material better.

 

Avoid Re-Learning

Your brain will remember and grab onto both correct and incorrect information.  If at first you incorrectly remember information, you will need to spend time reprogramming your memory.  To avoid having to unlearn or relearn material, be careful about how you take in information.

 

Before encoding information into long-term memory, make sure you analyze and evaluate the material and your understanding of the material.  Ask many questions of the information you are trying to remember.  Compare and contrast the material to other ideas and concepts you already know.  Search for flaws in the information.  In going through this evaluative process, the information has a greater chance of being solidly encoded into your long-term memory and the probability of the information being correctly remembered will greatly increased.

 

Recitation:  Not Thinking

In order to get information from short-term to long-term memory you must practice understanding and remembering information.  In the process of repeating or reciting, understood information has the ability to be encoded into long-term memory.  Many think that repeating or reciting information is merely thinking about it for long periods of time.  Unfortunately, just thinking about something is a very ineffective way of remembering.

Memory Guidebook