One professor will seek to provide solutions this weekend to students tired of cramming for exams and scouring notes time and time again.
Fred Chrisman, who holds a master's of dducational administration from Xavier University in Cincinnati, will be instructing a memory-training course Saturday at the Ohio University campus in Zanesville.
He has taught numerous teacher-oriented memory-training workshops throughout the tri-state area, in addition to courses, such as this one, that he instructs at many of OU’s regional campuses.
"Schools do not teach students how to learn," he said in an email. "Ohio University has given me the opportunity … and for that I am most grateful."
This "memory training" will provide participants with techniques to learn information more quickly and in a way that will be retained longer.
“Everything we do in the course is association of one kind or another,” Chrisman said.
These methods of association include intialisms, abbreviations created by the first letters of words in a phrase or list of terms, such as ADD, commonly known as attention deficit disorder.
Also included is the Peg Method, which teaches students to associate what they already know, such as the numbers 1 through 10 or the alphabet, with information that must be recalled in a particular order.
The course also will cover the story-tell method, grid method, one-on-one, initialing and definitions, according to a university news release.
The course is strictly voluntary and costs each participant $148. Those who attend both the workshop and an outside assignment will earn one graduate credit.
This course has flourished on the Zanesville campus, said Cindy Oliver of the Office of Continuing Education in Zanesville.
First offered a few years back, it gained popularity with students who raved that it helped them study and jolted their memories during exams, Oliver said.
Ever since then, the course has been offered twice a quarter.
“It is always full,” Oliver said.
She added that the course would be offered again during Spring and Summer quarters.
"There's always things that we need to tuck in our memory," Oliver said. "This is a way that's going to show the students how to pull those memories out when they need them.”
oh994610@ohiou.edu
