While the act of writing the words and their definitions on index cards is not in itself useless, study should consist of more than reading the two over and over. Students should still engage in some sort of elaborative rehearsal strategy. The use of multisensory instruction continues to be important for enhancing memory and learning for all children. In addition to multisensory teaching methods, information should also be presented in multiple formats, such as in spatial and linear formats. The computer program Inspiration is useful for this purpose.
Inspiration enables students to create and modify concept map webs and other graphic organizers.
It also enables students to convert the concept maps they have created into traditional linear outlines. Additionally, it helps students prioritize and rearrange ideas to create essays and reports, as well as to organize information from their class notes or textbook chapters. Thus, it provides students with a number of ways to recode information, and this recoding facilitates long-term memory storage and retrieval. Both of these concepts are important ones for schools and teachers to know and address, particularly with regard to the length of class periods and instructional methods. When storage or consolidation of newly learned material is disrupted by prior learning, the phenomenon is referred to as proactive interference.