I want to talk to you this month about an educational project that’s been running for some years here in New Zealand. The Project on Learning spent three years (1998-2000) studying, in excruciating detail, the classroom experiences of 9-11 year olds. The study used miniature videocameras, individually worn microphones, as well as trained observers, to record every detail of the experiences of individual students during the course of particular science, maths, or social studies units.
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How many words do you need to learn?
An analysis of English vocabulary* has found that the first 1000 words account for 84.3% of the words used in conversation, 82.3% of the words encountered in fiction, 75.6% of the words in newspapers, and 73.5% of the words in academic texts. The second 1000 accounts for about another 5% (specifically, 6% of conversation, 5.1% of fiction, 4.7% of newspapers, 4.6% of academic texts).
There are two well-established strategies for remembering people’s names. The simplest basically involves paying attention. Most of the time our memory for someone’s name fails because we never created an effective memory code for it.
An easy strategy for improving your memory for names
We can dramatically improve our memory for names simply by:
There was an alarming article recently in the Guardian newspaper. It said that in the UK, diabetes is now nearly four times as common as all forms of cancer combined. Some 3.6 million people in the UK are thought to have type 2 diabetes (2.8 are diagnosed, but there’s thought to be a large number undiagnosed) and nearly twice as many people are at high risk of developing it. The bit that really stunned me? Diabetes costs the health service roughly 10% of its entire budget.
Two large-scale international studies have become established to compare countries' performance in the core subjects of literacy, mathematics and science.
TIMSS: Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study
TIMSS is an international study involving 50 countries that assesses math and science achievement at four year intervals. It has been running since 1995. Students are assessed in the 4th and 8th years of school, and in their final year. The next assessment round will be in 2007.
Although I’m a cognitive psychologist and consequently think that memory and cognition is mostly about your mastery of effective strategies, when it comes to age-related cognitive decline, I’m a big believer in the importance of diet and exercise. But while we know these things can play an important role in why some people develop cognitive impairment and even dementia as they age, and others don’t, we don’t yet know with any great certainty exactly what exercise programs would be the best use of our time, and what diet would have the most benefit.
Planning memory contains your plans and goals (such as, “I must pick up the dry-cleaning today”; “I intend to finish this project within three months”). Forgetting an appointment or a promise is one of the memory problems people get most upset about.
Humans are the animals that manipulate their cognitive environment.
There have been quite a few studies looking into the possible benefits of omega-3 fatty acids and fish (a good source of the oils), particularly for older adults. Several large studies have found that regular intake of oily fish is associated with lower rates of dementia, and some evidence that eating fish regularly slows the rate of 'normal' age-related cognitive decline.