BY CRISTINE MIDDLETON
This article, written by Lawrence M. Schoen, discussed the results of using the popular board game, Monopoly, for a lesson in mnemonics. This teacher thought it was a very clever idea to teach his students mnemonics with "Mnemopoly". For this experiment he thought a monopoly board would be easy to use because you can visualize it's four sets of 10 locations, and a corner or railroad every fifth piece. The instructor reads a list of 40 words at a rate of 10 s per item. Before beginning the experiment each student is instructed to relate the word somehow to a location. Schoen compared this method of Mnemopoly, to that of both the loci and phonetic peg methods. The loci method involves the pairing of a place with information one wants to remember. The phonetic peg system involves using a code to which numerical values are replaced by phonemes. He found that only over time the loci method was more effective than Mnemopoly.
This idea of Mnemopoly sounds amazing. After playing the game, students remembered an average of 38.8 words. Even after a week, students could still recall 36. 3 words, out of the original 40. This game sounds like a fantastic way to get students interested and motivated to learn, even if they only think they are just playing a game. I think that finding ways to help children and adults memorize and learn information is helpful to any teacher's success. I specifically like the idea of Mnemopoly as a learning tool because it uses ideas from science to help the children learn, but it also incorporates some familiarity and fun. Because no teaching method can be 100% effective for every student, finding new ways to teach children and increase their interest levels seems necessary. I wish I would have had the opportunity to learn actively and have fun with a game like Mnemopoly. I remember up until I came to college, I really hated science. But, I think if I would have had a game like this that allowed me to learn from something other than a text book, my interest would have developed sooner.
REFERENCE
Schoen, L.M. (1996). Mnemopoly: Board Games and Mnemonics. Teacing of Psychology, 23, 30-32.