Classmate Responses, Research Paper Example

Question: Explain the three stages of memory. How might understanding how your memory works help you learn? What type of things can negatively impact your memory abilities?

Classmate Response: The sensory memory is the first part of the memory process. The sensory memory stores all stimuli that register on the senses, holding literal copies for a brief moment. The initial, momentary storage of information is typically forgotten within 1 second. Short-term is the second stage in the memory process. It can hold up to 7 items of information for about 30 seconds. In this stage of memory information is being encoded into long-term memory. Long-term memory is the third part of the memory process. This stage of memory is capable of storing unlimited amounts of information indefinitely. Information that is stored in this stage of the memory can later be retrieved for use. Some information can be lost with the passage of time. Understanding how my memory works is important for my learning process. By understanding how my memory works I will know what I need to do in order to probably store the information that I am learning in my academics. I will also be able to fix any issues in my memory so it does not affect my learning. Dramatic situations can affect the ability of my memory because they happen so fast and because I tend to block them. Trying to memorize too many things at the same time can affect my memory negatively. DQ1WK3 Lopez

The three stages of the memory process, namely, the sensory, the short-term and the long-term memory process, seem to be based upon a priority conferred to the initial sensory stage. For this schema implies that the sensory can thereafter become short-term or long-term; however, without the initial short-term phase, then the subsequent stages become impossible. Nevertheless, the question remains open: how does a sensory memory, for example, become a long-term memory? The answer of my classmate accurately addresses the importance of memory for learning: this can lead to academic success. However, arguably, what remains open is the following question: if we want to make a memory a long-term memory, what are the processes that allow this to happen? As my colleague writes, negative traumatic incidents may block “useful” memories – yet the question remains open, why do such traumatic sensory incidents become long-term memories, instead of something more useful to the organism? Here, it seems theories of memory must interact with theories of psychology and perhaps psychoanalysis.

Question: Explain the three stages of memory. How might understanding how your memory works help you learn? What type of things can negatively impact your memory abilities?

Classmate Response: The three stages of memory is first the sensory store which is the first part of the memory process. This section stores all stimuli that register on the senses and holds it for brief moments. The second stage is short term memory. This area has a limited capacity on what it can hold and will store up to 7 different items of information for about 30 seconds. Last is long term memory. Here is an unlimited memory store that holds information indefinitely.
I think that better understanding our memory and how it works will better help us learn by allowing us to explore what types of ways we learn best. Once we know this then we can stick to the best learning style we know. I also think that fully understanding and knowing a subject will better help us to understand all of it.
One of the main things that can negatively impact my memory abilities is when I am doing too many things at once. When this happens I tend to forget little things that I have done along the way and these things can end up being important areas that I need to remember. I can not overwhelm myself and add too much to my plate that I am forgetting important details. DQ1WK3 Burling

There seems to be, as my classmate points out, an undeniable connection between learning and memory. Basically, it comes down to an epistemological question: what does it mean for us to know something? As my colleage writes, “fully understanding and knowing a subject will better help us to understand all of it”; but what does fully understanding mean? For example, let us say I know all the processes by memory of how to drive a car with a gear-shift as opposed to an automatic car. I know in my memory from experience how this is done. However, if I cannot actualize this in practice, this memory is for naught. Therefore, understanding or knowing would seem to contain an element of being able to put this into practice: what negatively impacts our memory abilities can only be judged in this regard of our failures to practically actualize these same memories.

Question: Determine your memory style and explain how you might apply this information at work and at school.

Classmate Response: According to the questionnaire, my main memory style is visual. It states that my preference is to remember things in terms of the way they appear. In a past course I did a similar questionnaire. The questionnaire was to determent what kind of learner I am. That questionnaire stated that I am a visual learner. Both coincided that my preference is visual. I have always known that I am a visual person. If I see something or visualize something a couple of time it will go into my long-term memory. At school I can apply my memory style by taking notes to remember what I hear and to remember main things in my reading. For example, I can print transcript on video or audio in order to memorize the information. Most of my career is going to be based on paper work. Because of this paper work I will be able to memorize things. Social work has a lot of visualization, so it fits me good. For example, when I am at a meeting I will take notes to remember what happened during the meeting. DQ2WK3 Lopez

The memory style of my client is visual, and this means that an emphasis on, for example, visual stimulants is crucial to the learning process. However, what are the limits of visualization? For example, when we read a textbook, this information is presented to us in a visualized form according to the words given. However, the mere visual sensory perception does not mean that we understand what the words themselves mean. An element of speculative, critical and rational thinking seems to be part of understanding: it is not merely that we “photocopy” the visual elements before us in our memory, we must also critically and rationally think about them in order to grasp them and truly state that we have learned.

Question: Determine your memory style and explain how you might apply this information at work and at school.

Classmate Response: The test showed that my memory style is a tie between visual and kinesthetic. This means that my memory style is best used through remembering things in terms of the way in which they appear and also remembering things using my sense of touch. This will best apply to the information I utilize during work and school by reminding me to take extra good notes. I can refer back to my notes and easily remember the lesson that was taught. I also can utilize tools such as videos or hands on experience that I received. I have always considered myself a hands on learner, in order to learn something best I need to try it myself and do it over and over. I also at first need to watch a person and I take notes either on paper or in my head which help me remember important steps so when I get to doing the hands on part I am somewhat prepared. DQ2WK3 Burling

The test that showed my classmate’s memory style is a cross between visual and kinesthetic perhaps more captures what is at stake in memory: we cannot merely remember things to say that we understand them, in order to how to apply this information for school. As mentioned above, there is a question of knowledge, as opposed to merely a question of recollection which is at stake in this learning process. In this sense, the emphasis on what kind of a learner one is perhaps overlooks the question of what it means to learn and truly master a subject matter: can memory styles tell us this? They certainly can tell us what kind of learning is better suited for the individual. But how to translate this is a question I think that cannot be reduced to the memory style model for the above reasons.

Question: Based on the Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment, in the social cognitive approach to earning, observation learning occurs by watching the behavior of others. What have you learned just by observation alone? Share your example.

Classmate Response: I observed a man giving an other man instructions on what to do with the doll when the child was present. The man hit the doll three different ways and each way had a different sound. The man punched the doll and kicked the doll. He also hits the doll with a wooden hammerer. He did all this while the child observed him. The child sat on the chair and keep his eyes on the doll and the man. The child kept close attention to what the man was doing. After the man stopped hitting the doll, the child got up and hit the doll. He copied every hit and sound the man made while he was hitting the doll. This video was very interesting, but the behavior of the child was noting new for me. As a foster parent I take a lot of classes on the was children behave. Plus, the experience as a parent has taught me a lot. For example, my husband always makes a distinctive sound with is throat when he is upset. Well, now my daughter does the same thing and it makes me laugh. Children are very easily influenced and they will copy anything they see or hear. DQ3WK3 Lopez

My classmate gives an example of the social cognitive approach that emphasizes learning from the behavior of others, whereby certain practices and reactions to phenomena dictate how the one learning reacts. In other words, we see behavior performed, and then perform in a similar fashion. However, how does this model understand diversity and originality in terms of our existences? The behavioral model, in other words, seems to be reductionist, reducing human existence to a human behavior that is always a copy of another previously viewed behavior. In this regard, we have to qualify what we learn from behavior, and distinguish it from instances of creativity that, to the extent that they produce something new, cannot be reduced to behaviorist model.