Chapter One

When working with a student with low working memory on the concept of elapsed time, the student had difficulty when given a start time and then asked what time it would be in 2 hours and 25 minutes. The student was able to elapse time in hours, but would forget how many hours she had elapsed on her plastic clock (had she elapsed one hour or two). The student would try writing down the start time, say 12:00, then 1:00 when she elapsed one hour on the clock, and 2:00 when she elapsed 2 hours on the clock, but this began to confuse her as well. In thinking about low working memory, instead of using just one clock, we used multiple plastic clocks. The student put the first clock at the original start time (12:00), the second clock she moved ahead 1 hour (1:00), the third clock she moved ahead one hour (2:00), and the fourth clock she moved ahead 25 minutes (ending at 2:25). Having multiple clocks allowed the student to keep track of the elapsed time and store the last stopping point in her working memory and work from there. The clocks used also had five, ten, fifteen noted at each five minute interval.