How Learning Happens: A Simple Model of Memory
Presenting a sketch of a person’s head to help us organise our thinking about learning and memory
Clarity. Simplicity. Order. That’s what the human brain is after. Organisation. Long before the KonMari Method, our brains set about trying to tidy up reality. Hungry for patterns, we rely on mental models to cope with the complexity of everyday life. Learning is a complex and unpredictable process. It’s messy. We need a map to help us enjoy our exploration of this landscape…
A way of seeing the world
“Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.”
George Box and Norman Draper
and
“A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.”
Alfred Korzybski
Allow me to nerd out about maps for a bit. Maps rank among the most useful of human technologies.
We’ve come a long way since Ptolemy’s Geographia. Completed in 150 CE, this epic eight-volume atlas illuminated the planet. Ancient scholars had surmised, countless travellers had told their stories. The genius of Ptolemy of Alexandria lay in the way he projected it all onto the page.
Lost for 1000 years with the fall of the Roman Empire, Geographia was among the first works to be printed when the printing press inked its place in history.
Geographia flew off the shelves of Bologna, Italy, in 1477 CE, and intrepid explorers took to the seas. Although they soon discovered the fatal flaws in Ptolemy’s maps, Dias, Columbus, da Gama, Cabot, Vespucci, Magellan, & co all lined up to lasso the outer limits of Ptolemy’s world. The golden age of exploration and discovery!
While I’m confident you’ll never mistake me for a sailor, I do love studying maps. I can almost feel the horizons of my mind expanding (in an orderly fashion of course) with each passing second, minute, and degree.
Despite their limitations, maps give us a way of seeing and understanding the world. They help us to navigate complex territory by providing a simplified representation of reality. Obviously, the more accurate and up-to-date a map, the more useful it is.
Do you remember the first time you used Google Earth to zoom in on your street, or to spy on some remote village on the other side of the globe? I know I do! As vivid satellite imagery sparkled to life on the screen of my Pentium 4 at the bottom of Africa, I had a new lens through which to see the world!
Which brings us to a simple model of memory. It’s a way of organising ideas about learning and memory, and seeing the terrain with fresh eyes.
A map of learning and memory
“Poorly organised knowledge cannot readily be remembered or used.”
Frederick Reif
I didn’t have a map when I stepped into teaching 20 years ago. I didn’t have a way of organising my new discoveries about learning. I often felt lost, more of an expert bushwhacker than a seasoned navigator! Perhaps you can relate?
I needed an incisive framework to cut through the fog. I needed a travel guide to help me through unfamiliar territory.
Then, I came across the work of Oliver Caviglioli (aka. OliCav). His visual designs make the abstract lucid. I owe this dose of clarity to him.
While listening to a talk on Willingham’s simple memory model, Oliver sketched a graphic representation of learning and memory, centred around a human head. Who'd've thought?! Like a map of the territory, OliCav’s sketch put forward a simplified representation of reality.
Iterated and improved over the years, OliCav’s visualisation has helped me to organise my thinking about learning and memory.
When I spoke to Oliver about this model, he accounted for its usefulness.
“It’s not comprehensive… it’s not real, but it’s a story that helps us.”
Oliver Caviglioli
It’s a story that helps us by simply encapsulating multiple facets of the learning process. Here’s a summary of the plot…
A learner brings her existing memories into an environment buzzing with stimuli, all vying for her attention. A specific stimulus becomes the focal point of her attention. She dials in. Her working memory is already at work, converting her sensory perceptions into meaningful representations in her brain (encoding). Learning is underway!
New learning is connected with past learning experiences already stored in our learner’s long-term memory. Her existing schemas become more advanced through a complex process of reorganisation and consolidation (storage). Her well-organised knowledge can be easily remembered and productively used on both present problems and future fascinations (retrieval).
Then, on the other side of our learner’s memory, the fly in the ointment: forgetting. But, more on that in our next episode. We’ll explore our frustrating ability to forget things, and how we might go about limiting our learning losses.
Let’s hit pause for a few moments…
Resisting the urge to scroll back up, try to redraw Oliver’s visualisation. See what you can retrieve from memory. Then, when you’re ready, check your sketch against the OliCav original. How’d you do? Give yourself a score out of 10, and then make the necessary corrections.
“The map of reality is not reality. Even the best maps are imperfect. That’s because they are reductions of what they represent. If a map were to represent the territory with perfect fidelity, it would no longer be a reduction and thus would no longer be useful to us.”
Shane Parrish
It’s also worth pausing to acknowledge that there are many things missing from OliCav’s sketch and Willingham’s simple memory model. But, that’s okay. Even the best maps are imperfect.
A reduction is useful because it’s not comprehensive. Simplified representations of reality help us navigate complex territory.
For example, when we get to talking about Nick Shackleton-Jones’ affective context model, or John Sweller’s cognitive load theory, we’ll map those ideas onto the simple memory model.
Like the picture on the lid of a puzzle box, it will keep our thinking organised and help us to see where the various pieces fit in.
I wish I had this map 20 years ago! It would’ve been Google Earth, in place of the Geographia of my training.
Takeaways from this episode
As always, what we explore at The Learning Show is a means to an end.
Let’s replay a few of the ideas we’ve covered in this episode:
A model of learning and memory helps us to organise our thinking in these areas.
Well-organised knowledge can be remembered and used.
All models are wrong, but some are useful.
Oliver Caviglioli’s visualisation of Willingham’s simple memory model is useful because it’s a reduction, a simplification of reality.
Simplified representations of reality help us navigate complex territory.
Where do we go from here?
In the next post, in case you’ve forgotten, we’ll explore exactly that: our frustrating ability to forget things. Is forgetting inevitable? What can we do to limit our learning losses? We’ll put the simple memory model to work and discover how to design unforgettable learning. So much to talk about!
See you in the next episode.