Chapter 4: Remembering as Instructional Work in the Science Classroom

“Do you remember what we did yesterday? Today, we are going to do things a bit differently….” This imagined teacher introduction to a lesson illustrates that remembering is a salient aspect of teaching when it comes to establishing how “the here and now” is related to the past as well as the future. In this chapter we explore the functioning of shared remembering in the institutional setting of a science classroom and how students and teachers share and make past experiences available for joint reflection in interaction.

Memories are often treated in education as entities being stored in the brain and which can be retrieved on demand. The famous quotation, “If I had to reduce all of educational psychology to just one principle, I would say this: The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly” of Ausubel (1968, p. vi) illustrates this. To teach, teachers need to assess the memories students have before teaching, and then again teachers need to assess them at the end to see what they have learned. Teachers teach and students learn and remember is the credo.