Memory Games

A while back I wrote "Memory as SLO," about the possibility of developing short term memory as an intentional learning outcome. I came across an article that has a particular program for doing that. It seems like this would be a relatively easy bit of research: randomly select some first year students and have them go through a program based on the methods describes.

Read it for yourself at NYT in "Can You Make Yourself Smarter?" Here's a quote:

In a 2008 study, Susanne Jaeggi and Martin Buschkuehl, now of the University of Maryland, found that young adults who practiced [this method] also showed improvement in a fundamental cognitive ability known as “fluid” intelligence: the capacity to solve novel problems, to learn, to reason, to see connections and to get to the bottom of things. The implication was that playing the game literally makes people smarter.