A broadly evidenced fact acknowledged by many in the learning science field: memory, one of the five canons of Rhetoric, is seemingly not as important as it has epistemically been. With the rise of digital media and resources and advancements in computer and related technologies, we no longer need to memorize phone numbers, addresses, or even passwords, as the presenters note in this week’s video seminars. In fact, James Paul Gee speaks a great deal about memory, in the generic and popular senses of the word, and it is here that one can reasonably call for a re-conceptualization of, or at the very least, a parsing of long-term memory and its role in knowledge construction.

In short, Gee does not distinguish the general sense of “memory” (as in the popular usage of the term) from long-term memory and thereby reduces long-term memory to an unnecessary cognitive appendage. However, memory, working and long-term, are quite important to learning. In my week 1 post, I variously define learning, but here, I want to go in more detail, especially regarding learning, cognitive science, and multimedia.

Learning:

• “Learning is an acquired skill” (Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel 2).
• “[A]cquiring knowledge and skills and having them readily available from memory so you can make sense of future problems and opportunities” (Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel 2).
• “[E]xtracting the key ideas from new material and organiz[ing] them into a mental model and connect[ing] that model to prior knowledge” (Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel 6).
• “Learning is a neural change at its core” (Quinn 48).
• Taking the right action or doing the right thing at the right time (paraphrased from Allen as referenced throughout the cited work)
• “Learning is defined as an alteration in long-term memory” (Sweller 20).

Meaningful Learning:

• Mayer equates “meaningful learning to integrated knowledge” (12).
• “. . . meaningful learning [is] reflected to in the ability to solve transfer problems. . . . The goal of instruction is to help learn concepts and strategies that can be applied to new situations” (Mayer 11).

Multimedia Learning:

• “Multimedia learning: building mental representations from words and pictures” (Mayer 2).
• “. . . multimedia learning [is] knowledge construction” (Mayer 10).
• “Multimedia learning is a sense-making activity in which the learner seeks to build a coherent mental representation from the presented material . . . in novel ways” (Mayer 12, 13). Mayer also gives the same definition for “understanding” (13).

One insight we can glean from these definitions is that (meaningful) learning (i.e., knowledge construction) and memory basically define our cognitive architecture, hence the phrase and study of “learning ecologies.” Without working and long-term memory coordinating and being activated, we have no learning, no meaning-making, and no understanding, and so memory in the cognitive sense is very important to our process of building new knowledge and skills . . . of integrating new information.

In other words, we cannot construct mental models that make sense with our prior knowledge and experiences, which are already integrated into our long-term memory, and, therefore, we cannot augment our understanding of “things” (our communities, live, academic disciplines, textbook information, multimedia presentations, and so on) or meaningfully learn. Gee seems to bypass the significance of memory; simply because we can Google information does not mean that we should abandon the study of memory and process of memorization or that we should not remember even foundational information and instead just “Google it.” Just because we can, does not mean we should always do!

Fig. 1: Multimedia Learning Model, adapted from Mayer, "Cognitive" p. 37

Fig. 2: Details about Multimedia Learning Model

Works Cited:

Allen. Michael Allen’s Guide to e-Learning. Wiley. 2nd ed. 2016.

Brown, Roediger III, and McDaniel. Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Harvard UP, 2014.

Clark and Mayer. e-Learning and the Science of Instruction. Wiley. 4th ed. 2016.

Lang. Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. Jossey-Bass. 1st ed. 2016.

Mayer, ed. “Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning.” The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. Cambridge U P. 2001. 31-48. 2005.

---. “Introduction to Multimedia Learning.” The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. Cambridge U P. 2001. 1-16. 2005.

Quinn. Millennials, Goldfish & Other Training Misconceptions: Debunking Learning Myths and Superstitions. ATD. 2018.

Sweller. “Implications of Cognitive Load Theory for Multimedia Learning.” The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. Ed. Richard E. Mayer. Cambridge U P. 2001. 19-30. 2005.