• Memory at Work in the Classroom: Strategies to Help Underachieving Students, March/2014

Memory at Work in the Classroom: Strategies to Help Underachieving Students, March/2014

Author(s) Francis Bailey, Ken Pransky
ISBN10 1416617574
ISBN13 9781416617570
Format Paperback
Pages 215
Year Publish 2014 March

Synopsis

Why do some students struggle to understand and retain information, while other students don’t? This book answers that question and explains how to support learners—especially struggling learners—with instruction that responds effectively to their struggles with memory and its essential role in the learning process. Using real-life examples, the authors guide you through these memory systems and the teaching techniques that support them:

  1. Working Memory: the gateway for all learning.
  2. Executive Function: the ability to independently interpret, strategize, and problem solve.
  3. Semantic Memory: the facts students remember.
  4. Episodic Memory: personal memories of specific events
  5. Autobiographical Memory: your students' self-image and sense of self.

Deepen your understanding of the central role that memory plays in academic learning and discover classroom practices that align with the functioning of memory and the ways students learn.

About The Authors:

Francis Bailey is the Director of the Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) Master's program at the University of Kentucky. Francis has a doctoral degree from the University of Massachusetts. His primary educational focus is on issues in teaching English language learners in and outside of the United States. He has conducted research on second language acquisition and the challenges faced by culturally and linguistically diverse students due to differences between home (and community) ways of learning and knowing and the academic and social demands of schools. Francis has become increasingly interested in the ways that the cognitive sciences can inform our understanding of classroom learning.

Francis has conducted qualitative research on classroom learning, both in the US and internationally. His publications include research on Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment program, topics on sociocultural perspectives on learning and teaching, and research on Nigerian primary school education. Francis attempts to bring a perspective on educational issues that is informed by research and theory on both the cultural nature of learning and the diverse cognitive processes of learners.

Ken Pransky has been working in the field of multicultural education for 35 years. He has taught K–12, at the college level, and to adults. He has taught as an EFL teacher overseas and for 20 years was an ESL teacher in the Massachusetts public schools, where he became increasingly interested in understanding, researching, and writing about what causes underachievement and academic struggle. Since 2008, he has been a full time teacher trainer and instructional coach through the Collaborative for Educational Services in Northampton, MA.

In addition to his teaching and training work, Ken has presented at national and international conferences. He has authored and co-authored several articles published in leading education journals, such as Theory into Practice, Reading Teacher and Ed Leadership, about working with underachieving students, and in 2008 published Beneath the Surface: The Hidden Realities of Working with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Young Learners, with Heinemann.