Working Hard to Develop to an Effective Working Memory in our Students

Working Hard to Develop to an Effective Working Memory in our Students


Jeremy Turner
Jeremy Turner
Working Hard to Develop to an Effective...
Head of Faculty for Learning Support and SENDCo Mrs Seed provided staff with a very timely reminder on Monday morning at our Staff Briefing meeting in the main hall about how to support students with their working memory in lessons.
Working memory is a cognitive system inside our brains that provides us with a limited capacity to hold information on a temporary basis. Working memory is important for all of us as it supports our reasoning and guides our decision-making and behaviour.
 
Mrs Seed provided staff with some top tips for teachers and Learning Assistants to use in lessons to help students develop a good working memory. These included:
  1. Establishing clear links to previous learning.
  2. Making things visual through the use of mind-maps and photographs etc.
  3. Giving an overview of what the lesson is about at the start of the lesson.
  4. Keeping things clear and simple.
  5. Breaking down any information or instructions into shorter chunks.
  6. Structuring the lesson into short bursts.
  7. Carefully considering the working memory demands of the tasks set for children – so they only have to hold 1 or 2 pieces of information in their head at one time.
  8. Providing guides, step-by-step instructions and visual prompts to support learning.
  9. Supporting writing with personalised word banks, sentence starters, visual prompts and sequencing.
  10. Ensuring any reading materials are at an appropriate level.
  11. Displaying key information to support topics – using interactive displays.
All these tips make for a great lesson so it was well worth listening to the reminders. 
Head of Faculty for Learning Support and SENDCo Mrs Seed provided staff with a very timely reminder on Monday morning at our Staff Briefing meeting in the main hall about how to support students with their working memory in lessons.
Working memory is a cognitive system inside our brains that provides us with a limited capacity to hold information on a temporary basis. Working memory is important for all of us as it supports our reasoning and guides our decision-making and behaviour.
 
Mrs Seed provided staff with some top tips for teachers and Learning Assistants to use in lessons to help students develop a good working memory. These included:
  1. Establishing clear links to previous learning.
  2. Making things visual through the use of mind-maps and photographs etc.
  3. Giving an overview of what the lesson is about at the start of the lesson.
  4. Keeping things clear and simple.
  5. Breaking down any information or instructions into shorter chunks.
  6. Structuring the lesson into short bursts.
  7. Carefully considering the working memory demands of the tasks set for children – so they only have to hold 1 or 2 pieces of information in their head at one time.
  8. Providing guides, step-by-step instructions and visual prompts to support learning.
  9. Supporting writing with personalised word banks, sentence starters, visual prompts and sequencing.
  10. Ensuring any reading materials are at an appropriate level.
  11. Displaying key information to support topics – using interactive displays.
All these tips make for a great lesson so it was well worth listening to the reminders. 

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