Psychology Assignment: Learning, Memory, and Educational Strategies

This assignment delves into the fundamental difference between learning and memory within an educational context, highlighting the issues surrounding rote memorization versus genuine understanding. It identifies the core problem as the over-reliance on memorization for examination purposes, rather than fostering long-term knowledge retention and practical application. The assignment proposes several recommendations to address this issue, including shifting the focus from grades to interactive, seminar-based learning environments, and reducing the psychological pressure associated with grades. It also suggests implementing creative assessment types that prioritize the understanding and application of concepts over rote memorization. Furthermore, the document emphasizes the importance of positive reinforcement and rewarding students based on their demonstrated learning outcomes rather than solely on grades. The ultimate goal is to promote a deeper understanding and application of knowledge, thereby enhancing student success and preparing them for real-world scenarios. The paper emphasizes the importance of understanding the material instead of rote memorization.

Running head: DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEARING AND MEMORY
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEARING AND MEMORY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEARING AND MEMORY
Introduction
The human brain is one of the most complicated organs in the human body. It consists
of over 100 billion neurons and is responsible for cognition and the various faculties related
to it. Both learning and memory are faculties of cognition; however, they are not the same.
This post will state the difference between the two and propose a solution to the learning
problem, which students face regarding weak knowledge retention and memorisation for the
sake of examinations. The central issue that is being identified is the reason behind the
popularity of rote memorization and reproduction in examinations instead of learning and
retaining for a long time. This post will attempt at suggesting a viable strategy at testing
whether students are actually retaining what is being taught in class and how this affects
learning in the future.
Discussion and recommendations
There has always existed a debate whether learning and memory are related and are
they similar when it comes to education. It is quite rampant that students tend to memorise
whatever is taught in class just for the sake of passing their consecutive examinations and
assessments. However, even though learning and memorising are similar, they follow very
different routes individually and extract different forms of involvement from the human
cognition system (Markovits & Weinstein, 2018). While learning and memorisation both
require the person to actively engage with the task at hand, the ultimate objective that the
person is aiming to achieve plays a vital role in determining whether that person will require
to memorise or actually learn. For instance, a person studying medical science has the
objective of providing sick patients with healthier living solutions. Given that medicines have
the potential to provide both positive and negative results, it is imperative that the person
knows as well as understands which medicine works well in a particular context and which
would cause worse complications for the patient. This is an aspect where memorisation for

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the sake of passing an examination can prove to be lethal. Same goes for most of the subjects
that teach life skills and professional development to the students. Practical implementation
of learned concepts in a professional setting is the ultimate objective of any major form of
education. This is why rote memorisation for passing the examination is so heavily
discouraged (Grove & bretz, 2012).
The first recommendation for appropriately addressing this issue should be an
amendment in the way class grades and overall academic performance is looked at in
educational institutions. With an emphasis on the importance of knowledge, making the
classes less pedagogical and more interactive and seminar based, can help in achieving this
outcome.
Alternately, from a completely psycho – social perspective, there are certain social
connotations associated with the whole aspect of assessment and grades. Students are
prompted to study harder not so that they can learn something, but because more studying is
seen to correlate with better grades. This puts a direct psychological pressure on the students,
who, on the other hand, look at better grades as a higher academic achievement (Boleslavsky
& Cotton, 2015). Rote memorisation of content for the purpose of reproduction in
examinations therefore occupy a higher value than actually learning something for its
practical and real life implementations. Research states that the students tend to approach
learning something either as something that is utilitarian and surface level in nature, where
simply memorization and reproduction is looked at as the primary outcome; or in a deeper
and more insightful manner where the students will be able to not only learn the content but
also be able to put their learned context into practice in a real life scenario, thereby fulfilling
the purpose of most education (Kirillov et al., 2015). Putting these two approaches into
perspective by looking at it from the viewpoint of a student, it can be seen that the deep

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learning approach, although has long term benefits, is often looked at as an unintentional by –
product of education.
As mentioned earlier, an interactive classroom can be promoted in order to make the
students more interested in learning and less in memorisation. A second recommendation can
therefore be, to reduce the importance of classroom grades. Using the grades as a method for
assessing the weaknesses and strengths of the classroom can provide better outcomes than
using them as the objective for progress. That way the students will focus on the grades more
than the learning.
The overall learning outcomes that are associated with any subject, are supposed to
serve as a guideline for the students to be able to understand how much they must study and
what kind of activities they must perform in order to reach the outcomes. Rote memorization
makes a student believe that he / she is actually learning the concept whereas his / her brain is
simply familiarizing itself with the sound, text and the context. This allows the student to be
able to write the solutions to the questions given in the examination without critical thought.
To be able to learn is to find a single template as a solution to the major problems and
questions that are being asked. Learning something engages the logical reasoning and
problem solving areas of the human brain wherein the students get to gather a better
understanding of the content as well as the subject matter, look for connections and parallels
between the different concepts and make logical and rational connections between the
conceptual areas, subject and application based problems (Kember, 1996).
The last recommendation therefore includes positive reinforcement and rewarding
based on how much the student has been able to learn instead of how much grades he / she is
achieving. This will need to be done with the help of creative assessment types where the
understanding of the concept will become the criteria for assessment. Attention span and
motivation can become relevant supporting factors in this case as it provides the student with

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a range of functionality within which the student is able to either learn something or
memorize something else (Lee, Ng & Ng, 2009).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be stated that in education, both learning and memorization
become important advisors for the students to meet their desired learning outcomes. However
the ever increasing pressure on the students from an academic perspective proves that the
grades and numerical assessment reports are the primary outcomes that the students are
mostly connected with. At the same time, learning and memorizing are more or less the same
cognitive concepts, except the fact that the second one lacks understanding and can therefore
often be counter – productive.

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References.
Boleslavsky, R., & Cotton, C. (2015). Grading standards and education quality. American
Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 7(2), 248-79.
Grove, N. P., & Bretz, S. L. (2012). A continuum of learning: from rote memorization to
meaningful learning in organic chemistry. Chemistry Education Research and
Practice, 13(3), 201-208.
Kember, D. (1996). The intention to both memorise and understand: Another approach to
learning?. Higher Education, 31(3), 341-354.
Kirillov, A. V., Vinichenko, M. V., Melnichuk, A. V., Melnichuk, Y. A., & Lakina, Y.
(2015). Higher education institutions grading: administrative and support
personnel. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 5(3S), 173-182.
Lee, K., Ng, E. L., & Ng, S. F. (2009). The contributions of working memory and executive
functioning to problem representation and solution generation in algebraic word
problems. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101(2), 373.
Markovits, R. A., & Weinstein, Y. (2018). Can cognitive processes help explain the success
of instructional techniques recommended by behavior analysts?. NPJ science of
learning, 3(1), 1-3.