Welcome to the second podcast episode. Today we will focus on an exciting topic learning strategies and their development. From numerous studies we know that the pure capacity of our work memory does not explain everything. What is more important is which memory and learning strategies someone uses. But what exactly are learning strategies? It is understood as conscious intentional cognitive or behavioral activities which learn to use to better remember or understand content. We can divide these strategies roughly into three groups. Repeating strategies organizational strategies and elaboration strategies. Let's take a closer look at each of these groups. Let's start with the repeating strategies. This is the classic method of learning content by multiple statements or by going through it by heart. These strategies are observed relatively early. In a classic study children were shown pictures of their pictures and had time to remember them. It was observed whether the children moved their lips an indication of internal repetition. The result was conclusive. Only a small part of the preschool children showed such movements. There were much more in second graders and in fifth graders the majority. And the important point is that the children who used repeating strategies cut better at memorizing. Interestingly with age not only the frequency but also the quality of repetition improves. Younger children often repeat only individual words isolated. Older children, on the other hand, form so-called memorization loops, in which they repeat several words in a meaningful sequence. This cumulative repetition is much more efficient. Next, let's take a look at the organizational strategies. Here it is about sorting sorting and dividing material into categories. An example would be sorting terms according to the terms of the above, such as animals, flowers, tools or fruits. Younger preschool children often do not organize pictures systematically, neither when learning nor when calling. Ten to eleven-year-old children on the other hand begin to structure the material clearly according to categories and thus remember much more content. This shows us that organization is closely connected with language-based knowledge and with metacognitive knowledge about strategies. Children first have to develop a feeling that it is helpful to store material instead of keeping it in the head. Finally, let's come to the elaboration strategies. These are particularly demanding, because here learning content is clustered with the structure of knowledge. This can mean following while reading, inventing examples finding analogies or implementing mnemonics. Even younger children follow necessary steps when the text is very close to them. But voluntary additional elaborations, i.e. questions that go beyond the text or self-generated connections, are observed much more often in the youth. Primary school children can be stimulated to this but rarely do it spontaneously. Complex mnemonics such as the key word method when learning vocabulary are typically only consciously introduced and practiced in school. This brings us to an important point. Children do not automatically acquire learning strategies. The acquisition takes place in typical stages, which can be described as deficits and transition phenomena. First there is the mediation deficit. Here the requirement is missing to carry out a strategy in such a way that it can actually work. Even if you show children a strategy at this stage, there is no benefit of performance. It binds too much mental capacity, which is then missing for actual learning. This is seen especially with younger children and with very complex strategies. Then there is the production deficit. Children and also young people with learning difficulties do not use many verbal and elaborative strategies spontaneously, but can benefit significantly if you guide them to it. So here the problem is not the ability, but the spontaneous use. Often there is a lack of metacognitive knowledge. They do not know exactly when this strategy helps, or they write down the causes of success and failure and do not even realize how useful strategies can be. An intermediate step is the use inefficiency. Here children already spontaneously start a new strategy, but the performance does not improve at first. The reason is that the strategy is not yet automated and consumes so much memory that the actual learning process suffers. Only with practice the use becomes efficient and then there is a growth in performance. At the end there is the spontaneous efficient and flexible use of strategy. Learners set up strategies independently, adapt them to new tasks and link them with metacognitive processes. They plan, monitor and regulate their strategy use. A central role is metacognitive memory, the knowledge about your own memory and the ability to monitor and control memory processes. Declarative metacognitive memory includes the knowledge about which tasks are difficult which strategies are useful and when. Procedural metacognition means the ability to plan learning time, to assess your own performance, to select and adapt strategies. Studies show that metacognitive knowledge and memory performance are clearly linked. Training studies also prove that if children are explained strategies and they understand why they are helpful, they rather take them for themselves and benefit from them. For school, it is said that you cannot rely on that children somehow become good learning strategists. Especially in elementary school, the production deficit is still far-reaching. Here, it is the task of teaching to explicitly convey strategies, to practice together and to always remember their use. It also includes helping children to observe their own learning and to correct misjudgements. For example a too optimistic self-judgment that leads to the fact that necessary practice is left out. When learning strategies metacognitive memory and self-regulated learning come together a very powerful bundle of competences is created. Learners can then not only absorb new expertise, but also actively structure connect with previous knowledge and repeat it specifically. This is exactly what creates the basis for long-term learning success, far beyond individual class work.