Kevin asks if it’s better to give students pre-made mnemonic examples or to have the students create their own custom mnemonics. I present the pros and cons of giving students ready-made mnemonic examples that they can use.
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Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.
Thanks for answering my question, Tim. I am finishing up my experiment now. I’ve already done the statistics on the two groups for short-term recall ability, in which I compare mnemonic imagery (as I described to you) versus iconic imagery with rote rehearsal (additional 3 times they have to repeat the word). I haven’t tested long-term recollection yet. However, just off of the first round of testing, I have found that the mnemonic group (n=20) did an average of 12% better than the non-mnemonic/repetition group (n=20) (p=0.02). So that is good news for mnemonics and my hypothesis was confirmed! 🙂
It was funny you mentioned the Cookie Monster, because he was in one of my images I created. The Japanese word is ‘kumo’ which means ‘cloud(s)’ and I associated it by making a portmanteau (KU-MO) and putting his image among the clouds. 😉
Thanks for the feedback, Kevin! That’s neat to hear. Keep me posted on the results as they unfold!