Why drawing a diagram Chris Powell matters: making the link with cognitive science

• Published in: Teaching geography Vol. 48; no. 3; pp. 111 - 113
• Main Author: Powell, Chris
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sheffield Geographical Association 01.10.2023
• Subjects: Geography; Internet; Learning; Long term memory; Memory; Student teachers; Teachers; Teaching
• ISSN: 0305-8018; 2043-6831

Conversations revealed that most student teachers rarely drew diagrams on the board, due to a lack of confidence in their subject knowledge: they felt that to be able to draw a diagram on the board, you really had to know the process or concept well. Key to this is understanding Willingham's (2009) simple model of the mind (Figure 1), which consists of a working memory and a long-term memory. For us to learn new information, our attention must first be drawn to the relevant material so that our working memory can start thinking about it and then encode it into our long-term memory. Focusing student attention Willingham's (2009) model suggests that attention is a crucial element to learning: the working memory must attend to the content that is to be learnt, so the role of the teacher is to highlight exactly what students should be focussing on.