THE UTILISATION OF SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM MEMORY IN TEACHING PHYSICS

Abstract

In this paper we are going to present the notion of short-term memory and how it is used by college students in physics, in the geometrical optics and mechanics chapters. I examined the utilisation and the reproduction of geometrical figures that describe the physics phenomenon. The experimental observations were of an empirical type, in humanistic classes, for three cases, out of which two were made during the regular classes (teaching and feed-back lessons) and one during individual supplementary training for students who had to catch up with the others. The students had to represent the forces and acceleration in an abstract drawing in order to render what is going on from a physical point of view. It is a quite difficult process for the students who used the short-term memory; for instance, during the teaching lesson the students just rendered/copied the drawing on the projector, without paying attention to the stages of reasoning/the logics of drawing.While describing the facts we will point out the mistakes the students made when using just short-term memory. Besides, we will show also the incorrect drawings, explaining why we believe they used this type of memory instead of the long-term one.Eventually, we will suggest some solutions, e.g. a plan with the stages to be followed when making the respective drawing that the students have to follow when achieving their own demonstration, so that they should avoid making the same mistakes as at the beginning, determining them to use both short-term and long-term memory.