West Virginia State University

College of Professional Studies

Department of Education
Professional Development (PD) Reflection Outline
Name:
Caitlin Teetor
PD Topic/Title:
Education 202 Book Study on Marilee
Sprengers How to Teach so Students
Remember

Major Content
Area:
5-Adult Social
Studies
PD Date:
Fall 2013 Semester

Circle one:
FR SOPH JR
SR
PD Units:

Please respond to the following prompts:

1 Summarize the key points you learned from this Professional
Development experience.
Marilee Sprengers How to Teach so Students Remember demonstrates how a
teacher should instruct his or her classroom in order to help students
remember content for a long period of time (long-term memory) and to avoid
having information be forgotten after momentary use.
Sprengers book discusses seven steps for teaching how to make
students remember. The first step, reach, discusses the idea of what is the
student focused on at a given time. Attention for students is a more deeply
discussed area though. As discussed in Maslows Hierarchy, students have
needs such as safety needs and esteem needs that they must have before
they can even be worried about doing well academically. Emotions are also a
major part in a student. Using emotions can be used as a method of grasping
a students attention. Step two, reflect is used in correlating to the other
steps such as recoding and reinforcement. Reflection teaches a student when
to pay attention in quiet fashion while there being other times to verbally
speak. Included in reflection is The Seven Habits of Highly Reflective
Classroom that can be used to ensure reflection becomes a habit in the
classroom of both the teacher and students. Third, recoding helps a student
to look at a piece of information and to recode or put it in to ones own
words. This step is important because it can show if a student is having a
problem short-term memory. Recoding is very important as it allows for the
organization of information. Sprenger discusses seven processes for recoding
conceptual knowledge. Through each of these steps, a student can learn the
method for taking information and processing it so it becomes personal to
the individual.
Reinforce as the fourth step is providing some form of a reward for a
students behavior. This step like recoding is important. However this steps
importance comes from during this time a student can change any

misconception they may have before they rehearse from long-term memory.
Feedback is the main portion of reinforcement. The book discusses three
types of feedback: motivational, informational, and developmental. By giving
feedback to a student, it provide the means for which a student can either
proceed with information as they see it or to make changes as needed. The
fifth step is rehearse. During this step is when students will rehearse the
information so that it is not instantly lost. It is important so that students can
turn information into memory. Rehearsal such as homework should be used
in intervals to ensure the best result. A teacher should promote higher-level
thinking discussed as skills such as analysis, evaluation, and creation in the
book. Step six, review, is helpful in that it beneficial for students to look at
the information again in the case that, perhaps, an assessment is given.
Rehearsal ensures that information goes to long-term memory. Review takes
that long-term memory and allows the student to go towards the higher-level
of thinking. Reteaching the information may be important in that if students
cannot retrieve the information or even that the information cannot be store
in long-term memory then it is important that the instructor reteaches the
information. The last step, retrieve, is when a student can take a piece of
information that was stored in long-term memory and recall it. Retrieval can
be hard at times when test taking or even when false memories come into
play. Retrieval as a general statement is important because it allows a
student to see what they remember and if there is trouble in recalling, to see
what the problem may be.

2 Discuss how these key points connect to your content area.

This book is definitely a beneficial item for teachers. It shows what teachers
may already have an idea or of what they should at least try to include in
their classroom. Specifically speaking of the Social Studies classroom,
students often get overwhelmed down by names, dates, and events that
come with learning about history. Using this step-by-step process to ensure
that students master the material can be highly beneficial to the Social
Studies teacher.

3 Share how you might use this new information in your future
classroom.
I would use this information to guide my lessons to promote mastery of
content and to also understand how to break down the information so that
students can effectively learn the material. I definitely want to use
methods in my classroom to ensure that students will remember what I

teach them in a future time and not quickly forget what they have been
taught.

Note: Make sure you upload this document to your professional portfolio
along with your scanned PD letter and/or PD certificate.