Recommended Posts: The story method
In a recent conversation with a science teacher colleague, she stated that one thing that is important for her students to remember is the biological classification system: domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.
She used an awesome mnemonic already, “Do kids pick candy over fancy green salads?”
This is a perfect example of the type of mnemonics we like to highlight here at Teach Memory.
As solid of a mnemonic as it is, why not go further.?
I am a big fan of compounding techniques to deepen retention.
Let’s use the story method as an example.
As usual, turn the information you want to learn into an image. Then link them together in a story.
Remember, it is always best to have the students come up with their own ideas. This will strengthen their retention. On the other hand, it is still effective to give them examples as long as you stick to the rules: give it action and make it weird (memorable). Once they learn the process, they will become more autonomous.
Here is a quick story off the top of my head. It could stand to have more action, and it could be a bit sillier, but you get the idea:
It was the first day of school, and the children entered the domain of Ms. Smith. Mrs. Smith said, “Welcome to my kingdom!”
Opening the door, the students walked single file, like well-trained soldiers, into the class.
As they were entering the class, two students started arguing.
“There will be order in here!” Shouted Ms. Smith. “We will be one big happy family!” OK, repeat after me: Do kids prefer candy over fancy green salads?”
The students, in perfect unison, repeated the question. “Do kids prefer candy over fancy green salads?” they shouted.
“Are you a genius, Ms. Smith” asked one student.
Ms. Smith answered, “What a nice thing to say! I see you’re going to be a very special student!”
The story itself can be very effective, but adding the mnemonic, which students will have to repeat, should strengthen retention
Though each student coming up with their own idea would be ideal, putting them in groups could be fun for them as well. Each group could come up with their own story or even part of the story.
I have recently started adding AI to write activities, allowing the students to either draw out their scenes or us AI to create pictures of each scene.
Whatever you do, do not forget to use active recall. Have students repeat the story a couple times at least the first week. The images will move it to long-term memory in no time!
Check out the post on the Classroom Journey Method to get another idea on how to teach classification!
The possibilities are endless!
