Tutor Contribution: Mnemonic Devices

In a Nutshell: This tutor contribution comes from Tutor Quality Manager Sharon Matsuoka and discusses how mnemonic devices can help students commit important information to memory.

Some of you have “heard” me tell my log joke.  For me, it’s less of a joke and more of a fun mnemonic device.  So, say you have a problem like 2^(x + 3) = 5 and we need to solve it.  We’d tell the student to take the log of both sides, ask what happens to the exponent, etc.  At this point, you can tell the student the joke: “How do you get an exponent out of a tree?”  “You hit it with a log!”  Lol!  You get it?  Because the exponent’s an exponent so it’s in the tree.  Yeah…I’ll stop now.  Anyway, my students would always chuckle at my antics and some would inevitably roll their eyes, but they’d always remember, even into the following year, how to solve these types of equations.  

So, what are mnemonic devices and when can we use them?  Mnemonic devices are phrases or acronyms that can help someone memorize something, like “Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally.” or “SOH-CAH-TOA”.  Many teachers use such mnemonic devices, so I feel that if the student has this knowledge base (which you can test by asking: “Are you familiar with the order of operations?” or “Are you familiar with trigonometric ratios in a right triangle?” and the student responds by saying the mnemonic device), then that can be one of the first things you talk about while/after probing for understanding.  However, if the student has no such recollection, because we are focused on complete understanding, we don’t want to introduce these right away.  Instead, after we do the problem and explain the theory and reasoning behind the steps we’ve taken, we can then say: “Here’s an easy way to remember _.”  

What about you?  What are some fun mnemonic devices you know of?  What are the most helpful ones you find yourself using all the time?