Is it all just memorisation?

As a memory researcher and teacher-educator, I sometimes get a negative reaction when I talk about improving teachers’ understanding of human memory. Am I suggesting that school learning is just a matter of memory? And isn’t memorisation a bad thing? I think that using memory effectively isn’t a bad thing at all, and in fact it’s inevitable – all learning involves memory on some level. In this article I explore what cognitive researchers mean when they talk about memory, as well as discussing some promising research findings that have begun to be applied to education. Memory as viewed by cognitive science Cognitive science explains learning in terms of thought processes and behaviour. When something new is learned, a memory is stored or altered in a way that will impact on a learner’s ability to think or act. For example, practising spelling can make mistakes less likely to occur in future, while studying a concept in class should make it easier for learners to understand