Matthew,
Once you have found and used these concrete examples I know you are going to like the results. It will be easier for your students to make the connections between concrete and abstract and this will increase their content retention as well as skill development.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
My benefits will come in the form of excitement and freshness as I gain knowledge to help me to become a better teacher and seeing epiphanies lighting up the room. The greater benefit will be to my students who will have an exceptional learning experience from an instructor who can bridge the gaps between the the information and the filters through use of the "sirens and flashing lights" I can create to enhance their working memory.
Recently I developed a 56 slide powerpoint for herb and spice recall specifically for the Knowledge Bowl Team and later used it in class. The students were beginners and it overwhelmed them even though the material was available in their text books. This proved to me the neccessity of my role in the classroom. Later I displayed the ingredients which allowed the students to see, touch, smell, and in some cases taste the herbs and spices while relating to them the slide show to bridge the gap between semantic and episodic memory.
Marshall,
Great work on integrating the senses in learning about the different herbs and spices. You "read" the class and saw that they needed additional instructional input and you developed that input by providing the herbs and spices so they could see, smell, touch and taste them. With the slide presentation and the physical items you did a good job of blending semantic and episodic memory.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
