Mathematical Statistic

Honestly, this is the most difficult subject I've ever studied! Like, seriously hard! I love maths, and I love statistic too... But when these two came together, it just went over my head! (Admittedly, I was somehow curious about this subject which in a way motivated me to enrol for this subject).

Well, anyway, I want to share these lecture notes of mine, in hope they could be of any benefits to someone (though, I might not well versed or immersed enough in this subject). Here they are:

Human Brain: Hippocampus

Hippocampus is one of the many important components of human brain. The processes of long-term memory and emotional responses deal heavily on this part of brain.

Knowing hippocampus is particularly important to me because I have a great interest in the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage of sleep. REM is the part when we dream in our sleep. So, basically, studies have shown that our hippocampus is active during the REM stage because they are producing new cells and integrating these cells into the neural networks. Psychologists call these process as consolidation. Or to make it more understandable, consolidation is simply a process of integrating new information into previous information that we stored in our memory, i.e. making sense of the new information so that it can be stored in our long-term memory.

Researchers thus came up with a theory suggesting that the more REM we have, the more consolidation process happens; ie the better our memory is. What's more, not only can we benefit this REM stage at night sleep, it's applicable to taking a nap too as shown in a study done by neuroscientists at Harvard University. You can read more from this link.

Practical example:

Let say Ali and Abu have mathematic examination next week. They both allocate the same amount of study time; 4 hours, but they differ in their spacing time.

• Ali spends the whole 4 hours in a single study session (i.e. his revision is crammed in a day)
• Abu spaces his study time by spending 1 hour per study session (i.e. his revision is distributed in 4 days)

Whom do you think will score better in exam? Yes, Abu! Indeed, a lot of researches have been done to prove this. (If you are interested, you may want to look at researches on the spacing effect; viz. distributed practice and massed practice).

All in all, the take home message is; in order to enhance our memory consolidation, it's of great importance to sleep with dreams.

Questions to ponder:
- What happen if our hippocampus is damaged or worst, removed?
- How does this hippocampus removal affect our daily life?

** The most famous case study, not limited to just hippocampus study but in all of memory research involves HM (Henry Molaison). More interestingly, his hippocampus is still being displayed in a museum in California. 

Location of Hippocampus

Hippocampus of human brain compared to a sea horse

Latihan Matematik UPSR 2017: Ujian Bulan Mac

Kepentingan membuat latihan ulang kaji


Banyak kajian menunjukkan membuat latihan (practising retrieval) mempunyai kesan yang positif terhadap pembelajaran dan pengekalan ingatan pada jangka masa panjang (long-term retention) (Karpicke, 2007). Berbanding mengulang bacaan nota, pelajar dapat lebih mengingat bahan belajar apabila mereka membuat latihan ulang kaji.
Membuat latihan ulang kaji lebih berkesan daripada mengulang bacaan nota. Dan kesannya lebih mendalam, jika pelajar membuat latihan sebagaimana mereka akan diuji nanti. Contohnya, pelajar yang akan menduduki UPSR, sebaiknya mereka diuji dengan ujian yang menggunakan format UPSR sebenar - format kertas ujian dan masa. Ia adalah lebih efiktif, berbanding jika pelajar hanya membuat latihan mengikut topik-topik yang berasingan.