Chinese Student Wins World Memory Championships 2010

Very Inspiring! And for us.... way to go!!!

Is it better to understand or to memorize?

Memory and understanding is not linear, it definitely is integrated. To memorize something, there might be some elements of information that need to be understood. And to understand, some important elements of the information might be required just to be memorized. Important rule: ask yourself, do I really need to understand this? Let’s take few examples:

Fact: With increase in temperature, the state of matter changes from solid to liquid to gas.

This piece of information has more of understanding elements which subsequently becomes part of memory. Such information could be remembered through verbal explanations, a few drawings on paper/board, watching a relevant video or by either conducting or by observing experiment(s) that validate the fact. With clarity, observation and attention to the underlying supporting information, one easily understands and thus remembers such information.

Fact: The atomic number of Beryllium is 4 and that of Boron is 5.

This simple statement has relatively lesser understanding elements (two elements and a relationship). While in the previous fact statement – temperature, increase, state of matter, solid liquid and gas are presumed to be known (already understood and remembered) and it makes a sense for the learner to know about these. If this fact statement is provided to an 8^th or 9^th grade student, to him/her understanding the meaning of Boron or Beryllium (or Argon or Scandium - some Greek or Latin scientific names) might not make any sense. At this point he needs to remember that for atomic numbers, Beryllium :: 4 and Boron :: 5 (and similarly 100+ such relationships, subsequently). So, s(he) is left to put into his memory such information (the technical names and some numbers) with hardly any better means than rote and repetitive methods.

This is where “making memory simple” through a toolkit (of memory principles, rules, policies and techniques) comes into play. And the good news is that with such a toolkit as your backpack, the burden of information overload gets relieved and the journey of learning and memory becomes such a fun! 

In the coming posts, we will gradually walk through some important principles of memory that could help making memory and learning a joyful activity. 

Feedback welcome and awaited :)

What do you think you forget about, often?

Hey!! There are so many areas as a learning and memory trainer that I find quite obvious that we can apply memory techniques to. Yet, I quite often find people with a different (or slightly different) areas in life (than the known and the famous) where memory ditches them.
 
With the relaunch of "The Neurons" and its programs, there are some initiatives that I don't want to be left behind with. One of them being - going out and asking people of all ages and different backgrounds about their situations of frustration out of forgetting something important or trivial. The question here is quite open ended (to start with) and that is:

What, according to you, are few important situations where you find it difficult to remember or to recall some information (e.g. events, dates, specific study subjects, names of people, tasks, maps, shopping list....etc.)?

This feedback would be of great help in understanding common and important areas where memory techniques could be applied or evolved to suit them. Also, it would help in developing our programs to cater to most of the audience with a wider applicability of the skills taught about.

And please keep visiting back and we shall definitely share a great deal of information. I am all EARS!! :)