People’s brains often respond to the same stimuli in different ways. Some people are drawn to the written word. Some remember shapes and symbols better, while others respond particularly well to colors. Cal Poly's Academic Skills Center suggests organizing the information you want to remember in many different visual styles -- including lists, charts and pictures -- for a better chance of making that information stick.
Physically touching items you wish to remember increases the number of sensory associations you have with those items. If you walk around a room and pick up things you want to recall later or use your finger to trace the letters of a word you're trying to learn, the tactile sensations will aid your memorization effort.
Reading a list of items only stimulates the visual centers of your brain, but speaking the list aloud while reading it will stimulate both the visual and auditory centers. Singing the information can prove effective as well.
Xavier University recommends creating auditory triggers to help with information recall. If you listen to a particular piece of music while you study, then replay that piece in your head when you need to recall the information, your memory of the music will be associated with the information you studied.
Xavier University’s memory triggers also apply to your sense of smell and taste. One way to create a memory trigger is to wear a certain scent or suck a certain type of candy every time you study a block of information, then wear the same scent or suck the same candy when you need to recall that info. Using your imagination also triggers your smell or taste centers. If you’re trying to remember the name of a chemical compound, for instance, you might imagine how that compound would smell or taste.
A teacher who wants to quickly memorize the names of all her students could place a picture of each child, labeled by name, on each desk, and color code the names based on where they fall in the alphabet. She can then create a song, incorporating all the names she needs to remember. By singing the song as she walks around the room, touching each picture or name tag as she sings the name, the teacher combines sensory inputs and gives her brain more ways to recall that information later.