The Memory Clock

Although revision, in all its different forms and guises, is an integral part of any a-level sociology (or psychology) course it’s sometimes difficult to know how to help students revise in the most efficient, effective and productive way – and this is where the Memory Clock comes into play.

The Memory Clock is a revision system developed by Dr Caroline Creaby of Sandringham School, a mixed Comprehensive situated in St Albans, Hertfordshire that’s fast-developing into a hot-bed of interesting teaching and learning research led by practicing teachers.

If you want to know more about the work they do inside and outside of the classroom have a look at the Sandagogy web site. The excellent Learning Journals they publish are well worth a read.

Anyway, back to the main point of this post.

The Memory Clock is an easy-to-learn revision routine designed to help students structure their time in such a way as to make revision focused and productive. The pdf I’ve posted is a cut-down version of a Training Manual that focuses on three things:

1. The various elements in the clock.

2. A short explanation of these elements.

3. A practice session based on a Sociological question. Although this example is “the future of childhood” you can obviously change this to whatever question you want your students to practice. Similarly, if you’re teaching Psychology just substitute your own question of choice.

Try it.

You (and your students) won’t regret it.

Update

If you want to save a bit of time (pun intended) there are a lot of “Memory Clock Templates” dotted around the web. Given the constraints imposed by having to stick to a clock system, however, these are much-of-a-muchness, so there’s probably no great advantage to be had searching for them. However, since some kind of pre-prepared template is better than none (unless you’re really into revision procrastination – making the materials you need to “properly revise” means you have to spend less time actually doing the boring revision part) I’ve found some examples you might find helpful:

• Revision Clock PowerPoint
• Revision Clock Picture
• Revision Clock PowerPoint templates (a selection of slightly different templates).