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Over emphasis underlining and re-reading can interrupt comprehension and retention and is viewed as an ineffective practice. Also for Paraphrasing and Reflecting I do this mostly in the classroom with the students to have them use the information and have a conversation to have it relate to everyday life. If they are given a reading if asked to give a summary about what it was about they should be able to summarize it in their own words to show understanding.

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"Spacing out study sessions—focusing on a topic for a short period on different days—has been shown to improve retention and recall more than massed practice."

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"Spacing out study sessions—focusing on a topic for a short period on different days—has been shown to improve retention and recall more than massed practice."

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The studying strategies that I grew up utilizing or hearing about are ineffective. Highlighting and underlining important things is ineffective. Spacing out study sessions—focusing on a topic for a short period on different days—has been shown to improve retention and recall more than massed practice.

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Multi-tasking is a distraction and produces less results.

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Multi-tasking is a distraction and produces less results.

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Asking questions - self quiz as studying occurs

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Paraphrasing and reflecting as a study technique is similar to how we "chunk" text in ELA. Taking longer texts and breaking them down into smaller parts gives the students a chance to better understand the text as a whole, especially if they are annotating as they read. Additionally, I think it is important for students to be aware that studying material for extended amounts of time doesn't mean that they understand it, and that they should identify areas of weakness and make that the target content to study across smaller periods of time.

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List of ineffective practices are the most common that students use

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In the good practices I liked the bit about studying smaller amounts on different days. I think thta relates to transferring short term to long term memories during sleep

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In the good practices I liked the bit about studying smaller amounts on different days. I think thta relates to transferring short term to long term memories during sleep

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list of ineffective strategies are perplexing

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list of ineffective strategies are perplexing

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was surprised that highlighting wasn't considered a good practice

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was surprised that highlighting wasn't considered a good practice

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cutting off social media and other distraction seems obvious but should be stressed

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cutting off social media and other distraction seems obvious but should be stressed

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most effective studying doesn't mean most time spent, avoiding multitasking or distractions!!

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Reading and rereading a text, highlighting concepts, and reviewing notes are all considered ineffective strategies which surprised me.

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Reading and rereading a text, highlighting concepts, and reviewing notes are all considered ineffective strategies which surprised me.

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HOW TO REMEMBER ANYTHING FOREVER-ISH

play/read time: 20 minutes

by nicky case · oct 2018

In Greek mythology, Mnemosyne, the goddess of Memory... ...was the mother of the Muses, the goddesses of inspiration. music theatre weird fanfic So, how's Memory and Inspiration doing in schools? bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla * all sources and links will be at the end of this comic! But what if I said there's a way to learn that's evidence-based and fun? What if I said there's a memory card game you can play, for 20 minutes a day, to store anything you choose into long-term memory, forever?* * until you die And it's awesome. I started using Spaced Repetition earlier this year to learn French. In two months, I learnt more words than I did in two years of high school French classes. Since then, I've used Spaced Repetition to remember all sorts of things... ukulele chords computer code friends' birthdays anything interesting i find in books, talks, articles, etc! ...and this lil' memory card game became a core part of my life. Spaced Repetition is free, evidence-based, and so simple you can do it with a shoebox. nicky shut up So, what's the catch? Why isn't everyone already doing Spaced Repetition? Well, the catch is that making any new habit is hard - especially a weird habit like Spaced Repetition. teacher's coming That's why I made this badly-drawn interactive comic. Also, throughout this comic, you can test yourself on what you've learnt, at spaced-out intervals. That is: you'll use Spaced Repetition to learn about Spaced Repetition.

Like so: Still, isn't "rote memorization" bad? Can't we look everything up these days? Shouldn't we learn creativity & critical thinking instead? There is no "instead". Cognitive science shows youneed memorization for creativity & critical thinking. (Imagine writing an essay if you know no words!) MEMORY art science ...to mother your own, inner Muse. Tony Stark nearly gasped as a gloved hand trailed down his spine. The steady pressure was smooth and almost reassuring. Obama chuckled. "You mean, the- Let's begin.

THE SCIENCE of SPACED REPETITION

THE FORGETTING CURVE He found that you forget most of what you learn in the first 24 hours, then - if you don't practice recall - your remaining memories decay exponentially.* * technically the curve isn't exactly
exponential, but, eh, close enough. Philosophers have debated about memory for millennia, but Ebbinghaus was the first to do actual experiments. (which have been replicated) plz... kill... me... For that reason, Hermann Ebbinghaus is known as the pioneer of the science of memory. Here's a playable simulation of the Forgetting Curve. Change the rate of memory decay. What happens to the curve? As you can see, the less the decay, the flatter the curve - that is, the longer the memory lasts. How fast a person's memory decays depends on the person and the memory... hi! sorry, what's your name again? haha. it's susan. But in general, a memory's "rate of decay" slows down each time you actively recall it. (versus passively re-reading it) susan. susan. susan. susan. susan. (although, when you stop practicing, it still decays.) okay bye sarah! susan. bye sandy! SUSAN. Here's the simulation again, with a single active recall session.
(grey line: what memory would've beenwithout the recall)
Change the recall timing to see how it affects the curve: A single recall boosts memory for a bit... but in the long run, due to exponential decay of memory, a single recall changes nothing. To understand this, think about training your muscles. You'll gain nothing with a weight that's too easy... ...nor one that's too hard. The same's true of training your brain. You need desirable difficulty: the sweet spot of just-hard-enough. comfort discomfort too easy just right too hard Same simulation as before, but now it shows the sweet spot - where you've forgotten just a little bit. Put the recall in the middle of the sweet spot. What happens? See? If you time a recall just right, you can slow down the decay by a bit! Now, what about multiple recalls? Let's say you're lazy time-efficient, so you're only doing 4 recall sessions. Question: what's the best way to spread out your recalls? susan Should you have evenly spaced gaps? Gaps of increasing length? Gaps of decreasing length? Or make it unpredictable, to keep you on your toes? = recall time even gaps: increasing gaps: decreasing gaps: random gaps: Give it your best guess, then when you're ready,flip the card over ↓ Which is very counter-intuitive! You can prove to yourself this is true, by playing with the sim below. Get all recalls into the middle of the sweet spot. What spacing do you get? (To prove this isn't a fluke, here's a sim where you can change the initial memory decay & sweet spot. Note how, in all but the extreme cases, the best schedule is still "increasing gaps"!) Why must the gaps increase? Because: each time you do a recall at the sweet spot of forgetting, the memory's decay slows down... it's SUSAN! -the fu ...meaning it'll take longer to hit the sweet spot next time! And speaking of doing active recall in order to learn, let's do some active recall on what we just learnt: Well that's nice, but actually finding a good Spaced Repetition schedule must be hard, right? Au contraire! It's actually so simple, you can even create your own automatic scheduler... ...using a shoebox.

THE ART of SPACED REPETITION

You don't have to use a shoebox for Spaced Repetition, but it's funnier if you do. and this is my private tutor ??? they're TRAINERS we're not friends anymore (Later, we'll look at some Spaced Repetition apps, like Anki & Tinycards) When you review a card, and get it right, it moves up one Level. (If you're at the final Level, congrats! Your card retires. Off it goes, to card heaven.) But if you review a card, and get it wrong... it has to go all the way back down to Level 1. (If it's already at Level 1, good news: you can keep testing yourself on it until you get it right, and move it up to Level 2) But when do we review cards? That's the trick. In the Leitner Box, we review Level 1 cards every day, Level 2 every two days, Level 3 everyFOUR days, Level 4 everyEIGHT days, etc... The pattern is: we double the gap (# of days between reviews) for each Level! Here's what the looping 64-day game calendar looks like: (Note: the reason we review Level 1 at the end is so you'll see your new cards and the cards you forgot from higher Levels.) (At the end of a daily game of Spaced Repetition, leave no cards in Level 1. Test yourself until you can get them all right, and move them up to Level 2!) (Note #2: Spaced Repetition apps like Anki use a more sophisticated algorithm...) (...but at its core, they work on the same principles as the Leitner Box) Now, to show the game in action! Here's a step-by-step simulation of the Leitner Box:(we'll see a month-by-month sim later) Each daily review takes 20-30 minutes. Instead of watching a TV episode, you could play a card game - and remember anything you want for life. That's why I recommend starting with 5 new cards a day. Once you're comfortable with that, you can do 10 new cards/day. Then 15. Then 20, 25, 30. And at 30 new cards a day, you can learn 10,000+ new facts/words/etc a year. na na na na na na na na na katamari damacy Now, here's the month-by-month simulation. Use this to calculate in advance how much you can learn with Spaced Repetition! That's it. That's how you can make long-term memory a choice. Let's let that sink in. Take a break, and recall what we just learnt: Spaced Repetition almost seems too good to be true.
And it is...IF you fall for some very common pitfalls. Memory isn't a bookshelf where you collect random giant tomes to impress others. a bunch of crap you'll never get around to reading That's to say: Spaced Repetition will fail if your cards feel bloated, disconnected or meaningless. Thus, to get the most out of Spaced Repetition, you must make your cards... SMALL CONNECTED & MEANINGFUL Let's see how. SMALL This card sucks: Facts connect to facts. But there's other, more playful ways for cards to be... CONNECTED This card is... alright. It's an English word on the front, French word on the back. It's the standard for most language-learning flashcards: The front now has a drawing of a cat (picture) with a fill-in-the-blank French sentence (context: grammar) about my childhood cat, Stripes. (personal) The back now has a symbol of the noun's gender (picture), its pronunciation (sound*), and a warning about the female version of the noun. (context: slang) * Obviously, paper cards can't play sounds. But apps like Anki/Tinycards can! But the most important connection of all, is to connect your learning to something that is... MEANINGFUL Personally, here's how I've learnt best: First, I try (emphasis on try) to do something. play the ukulele read french comics make a web game Inevitably, I'll get stuck. In that moment, I'll look up what I need, and learn something. how do you play F#? what's "attraper" mean? why is javascript such a piece of sh- And so on. Speaking of learning, let's practice recalling what we've learnt: (this will be the second-last time!) The consensus in the Spaced Repetition community is, after a while, you should make your own cards. This way, you can connect facts to what you know, what you love. That's why, in the final part of this interactive comic, you're going to make yourown cards! And those cards will be about... YOU

To help you get started with Spaced Repetition today, you need to answer four questions: WHAT? WHY? HOW? WHEN? You'll answer these questions by making flashcards! So, here's the front of our first flashcard, our first question: For example, you could use Spaced Repetition to help you learn... a new language a new instrument computer programming details of friends' lives anything interesting you find, anywhere! all the pokémon Now, you write your answer on the back: (note: you can scroll back here & change your answer later) However, recall that for Spaced Repetition to work, you need to connect it to something you care about. So our next question is: That may be too philosophical, so here's some concrete examples of a why behind a what: WHAT: a new language
WHY: to speak to friends, family, lovers in their native tongue WHAT: computer programming
WHY: to make money so you can eat WHAT: anything interesting
WHY: curiosity, for its own sake! So... what's your why? You now have your what and why... but we still need to pick a how! That is, what tool/app do you want to use? Our next card asks: I currently use The Leitner Box, but my friends useAnki, and for a while I usedTinyCards. (links open in new tabs) Here's how they compare: Leitner Box
Pros: arts-and-craftsy, easy to use
Cons: not as portable as an app Anki (app)
Pros: huge community, open-source, lots of powerful features
Cons: kinda ugly TinyCards (app)
Pros: beautiful design, easy to use
Cons: max 150 cards per deck, doesn't letyou decide if you got a card right (Want something else? Here's a few other tools: SuperMemo,NimbleNotes,Mnemosyne) * anti-disclaimer: i am not affiliated with any of these. i just think they're cool & helpful! So, what's it gonna be? Just one card left! Now: doing Spaced Repetition is actually quite easy... however, doing it as a daily habit is hard. Why? Because getting the ball rolling on any new habit is hard. Hard, but straightforward. The science of habits shows that if you do the same thing, given the same cue, over and over... have a nice day! thanks, you too! happy holidays! thanks, you too! here's your change! thanks, you too! ...it'll become a habit, for better or worse. So for a Spaced Repetition habit, our question is: For example, you could play the Spaced Repetition game... after you wake up on your commute before sleeping It doesn't really matter when you do it, as long as you do it daily and consistently (more or less - you can skip a day once in a while). Now, let's fill out that final flashcard: Et voilà, here's all four of your flashcards, all about you!

But like I said, I want to help you take control of your memory today. Not "eventually", not "tomorrow", TODAY. so to help... let's download some COOL GOODIES FIRST: to remind you to play the Spaced Repetition game daily!

SECOND: And finally,THIRD: a .zip of all the flashcards you've been practicing in this interactive comic! (These can be your first few days' worth of Spaced Repetition cards, to help you get started! And as a plus, you'll get to remember everything you learnt here today, forever-ish.) Which reminds me... one last goodbye, for old time's sake, the final swan song! ...let's review our flashcards, all of them: Sniff... It's always so hard to say goodbye... HONK If you're a student, I hope Spaced Repetition helps you be more confident, and take learning into your own hands. If you're a teacher, please oh please tell your students about Spaced Repetition (& other evidence-based study habits) early on. (Want to learn/play more? Further reading & credits below!)
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

Also, this interactive comic is PUBLIC DOMAIN meaning you can freely use this thing for educational, personal, or even commercial purposes. You already have my permission! (Download the code) (Translate this comic)

However, I'm only able to do this thanks to my 1,000+ Patreon supporters. They let me keep doing what I love. Thank you! 💖 (Wanna chip in too? Click here!)

Further Reading

Something something shoulders of giants. Here are the reads that made Spaced Repetition a part of my daily life:

🤓 Augmenting Long-Term Memory by Michael Nielsen showed me that Spaced Repetition wasn't just a tool for memorization, it's a tool to build deep understanding. It could even be a way oflife.

💬 Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyner convinced me to finally (re)start learning French, and create a Leitner Box. (my 64-day calendar was adapted from this book)

🃏 20 Rules for Cards by Piotr Wozniak taught me how to squeeze the most out of Spaced Repetition. (Note: the author also invented the algorithm used by Anki!)

And my favorite reads on the science of learning:
And if you want to learn-by-playing more stuff, check out Explorable Explanations! 🕹️

More Thanks

👀 Thank you to all my playtesters for making this project not suck: Aatish Bhatia, Adam Filinovich, Aimee Jarboe, Alex Jaffe, Amit Patel, Andy Matuschak, B Cavello, Chris Walker, Frank Lantz, Gal Green, Glen Chiacchieri, Hamish Todd, Henry Reich, Jacque Goupil, James Lytle, Jez Swanson, Josh Comeau, Kayle Sawyer, Levi Robertson, Marcelo Gallardo, Martyna Wasiluk, Michael Nielsen, Mikayla Hutchinson, Mike Gifford, Monica Srivastava, Owen Landgren, Paul Butler, Paul Simeon, Philipp Wacker, Pontus Granström, Rowan, Sebastian Morr, SpacieCat, Tanya Short, Tim & Alexandra Swast, Tom Hermans, Toph Tucker, Will Harris-Braun, Zeno Rogue

📹 Thank you Chris Walker for making the Leitner Box crafting video! (P.S: Chris makes interactive stuff, too!)

🐞 Thank you Omar Rizwan for helping me figure out Mobile Safari's endless pit of bugs

🔊 This project was made with Creative Commons assets from Wikimedia Commons and FreeSounds. (See full credits)

💖 And again, huge thanks to all my Patreon supporters who made this possible:

🙏 And finally, thank you for being the kind of person who sits through the credits! You can play more of my stuff, follow me on Twitter, or support me on Patreon. I sincerely hope this comic could help you, in whatever small way.

Happy learning!
~ Nicky Case

done for now! keep scrolling that's all, folks! review Levels [N] ( recall [N]% of cards a video, by my dear friend Chris Walker, on how to craft your very own Leitner Box! a link to a link to links to tutorials on crafting a Leitner Box Intro · The Science · The Art · Get Started! · Credits try to recall ↑ then flip ↻ (cards left: [N]) did you remember this? nah, try again yup, onwards!
↓
↓ strength of memory → time → decay: sweet spot: timing of recall: timing of recalls: auto-optimize! On Day [N]... (and then loop back to Day 1!) Day [N] to review: Level review Level [N] add [N] new cards total: [N] cards! ([N] retired) next step in that order) next day next week next month [N] new cards a day RESET Q: type your answer here or pick one of these suggestions: WHAT: WHY: DO ME! wallpaper a wallpaper for your desktop, a lock-screen wallpaper for your phone, DOWNLOAD ALL CARDS wrong DONE! Check your Downloads folder.

Anything interesting!

A language

For people I love

For my own sake

Leitner Box

Anki

In the morning

On my commute

In the evening

(other)

TinyCards

(other)

For curiosity's sake

(other)

Music

Coding

Personal

(other)

download Anki! And here's a video tutorial on how to use it:
TinyCards! (i recommend checking out their geography decks) [video] [pdf], the Anki app, and TinyCards!

(And here's a similar tutorial, in IKEA form:)
and the name of this game is...

Spaced Repetition = ____ + ____

3 common but ineffective learning/teaching practices are...

click to download PDF
...lectures, cramming, and re-reading

In Greek Mythology, the goddess of ____ was the mother of the goddesses of ________

Memory is the mother of Inspiration

the best way to space out your recalls is...

The pioneer of the experimental science of memory was...

The Forgetting Curve ( without any recalls) looks like...

(note: it decays quickly, then slowly - "exponential decay")

The Forgetting Curve ( with well-spaced recalls) looks like...

(note: the gaps between recalls increase in length)

In the Leitner Box, we ______ the gap (# of days between reviews) for each Level

The Leitner Box game:
when you get a card right, you move it ______ .

The Leitner Box game:
when you get a card wrong, you move it ______ .

According to some random comic-game on the internet, my Spaced Repetition flashcards should be ______ , ______ , and ______ .

small, connected & meaningful

This organelle is called "mitochondria". Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. They're found in almost all eukaryotic (nucleus-having) organisms. The most widely-accepted hypothesis for the origin of mitochondria is Endosymbiotic Theory: around ~1.5 billion years ago, a prokaryotic (nucleus-lacking) cell that was "eaten" by another cell, somehow survived, and has continued to live inside them ever since.

Mitochondria is the _______ of the cell

powerhouse // bonus note: seriously though, we'd all be dead without 'em.

Mitochondria is found in almost all ____ organisms.

Eukaryotes are cells that...

have a nucleus // bonus note: "eu"=good, "karyon"=kernel

Prokaryotes are cells that...

DON'T have a nucleus // bonus note: "pro"=before, "karyon"=kernel

The most widely-accepted hypothesis for the origin of mitochondria is...

Endosymbiotic Theory // bonus note: "endo"=inner, "sym"=together, "bio"=living

According to Endosymbiotic Theory, mitochondria arose around ____ years ago

According to Endosymbiotic Theory, mitochondria first arose when...

when a prokaryote was eaten by another cell

then back to learning... ↻

WHAT do you want to learn?

WHY do you want to learn?

HOW do you want to do Spaced Repetition?

WHEN do you want to do Spaced Repetition?

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HOW TO REMEMBER ANYTHING FOREVER-ISH play/read time: 20 minutes by nicky case · oct 2018 In Greek mythology, Mnemosyne, the goddess of Memory... ...was the mother of the Muses, the goddesses of inspiration. music theatre weird fanfic So, how's Memory and Inspiration doing in schools?

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Host interactive online meetings | Poll Everywhere

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Formative assessment has never been faster.

Plickers is the free card activity your students will love.

Join millions and play in your next lesson.
Sign up for free
Used by K-12 teachers in over 100 countries

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Formative assessment has never been faster. Plickers is the free card activity your students will love. Join millions and play in your next lesson. Sign up for free Used by K-12 teachers in over 100 countries

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Interview with Megan Smith and Yana Weinstein ( transcript):
What does the word "study" mean to you?
Have you ever told your students to study for a test? Have you ever actually taught them how to study?

It turns out studying can be taught. And t wo cognitive psychological scientists, Yana Weinstein and Megan Smith (whose name has changed since this post to Sumeracki), have made it their mission to teach people how to study better. On their new website, The Learning Scientists, they use infographics and videos to share strategies and other insights about how we learn.

Here we will explore six research-based learning strategies that Weinstein and Smith teach on their site. If we can work these methods into our instruction, and teach students how to use them on their own, our students stand a much better chance of actually remembering our material.

One final note before we dig in: Although performance assessments and project-based learning allow students to show what they know with more depth and authenticity, most content areas still need to measure some learning with tests. When you are teaching that kind of content, these six strategies will help your students perform better on the test AND retain that information long after the test is over.
Space out your studying over time.
Far too many students wait until the night before a test to study for it. Similarly, teachers often wait until the day before a test to review. When enough students score well on the test, it appears they have learned the material. But a few weeks later, most of that information has vanished from students' minds. For more durable learning, the studying has to take place in smaller chunks over time.

"Every time you leave a little space, you forget a bit of the information, and then you kind of relearn it," Weinstein explains. "That forgetting actually helps you to strengthen the memory. It's kind of counterintuitive, but you need to forget a little bit in order to then help yourself learn it by remembering again."

Teachers can help students apply this strategy by helping them create a studying calendar to plan out how they will review chunks of content, and by carving out small chunks of class time every day for review. In both cases, plan to include current concepts AND previously learned material: Many teachers know this as "spiraling."
Practice bringing information to mind without the help of materials.
Many people think of "studying" as simply re-reading notes, textbooks, or other materials. But having the information right in front of us doesn't force us to retrieve it from memory; instead, it allows us to trick ourselves into thinking we know something. Recalling information without supporting materials helps us learn it much more effectively.

"Put your class materials away, and then write out or maybe sketch or speak everything you know and try to be as thorough as possible, and then check your materials for accuracy," Smith advises. "You're bringing information to mind almost like you're testing yourself; though it can be a practice test, it doesn't have to be. You can just sort of go through and explain what you know, or teach a friend or a pet or even an inanimate object everything that you learned in school. By bringing that information to mind, you're changing the way that information is stored so that it's easier for you to get to later on."

Teach students how to do retrieval practice in class: Have them turn off their devices, put all their notes and books away, then ask them to write everything they know about a particular term or topic, or share their thoughts in a think-pair-share. When the practice is done, have students check their understanding by revisiting their materials and discussing misconceptions as a class. Once they learn how to do this in school, they can then apply it at home.
Explain and describe ideas with many details.
This method asks students to go beyond simple recall of information and start making connections within the content. Students should ask themselves open-ended questions about the material, answer in as much detail as possible, then check the materials to make sure their understanding is correct.

Here's how Smith and Weinstein explain elaboration:

Teachers can apply this strategy by having brief class discussions where these kinds of questions are explored and asking students to work elaboration into their own study plans.
Switch between ideas while you study.
Common knowledge tells us that to learn a skill, we should practice it over and over again. While repetition is vital, research says we will actually learn that skill more effectively if we mix our practice of it with other skills. This is known as interleaving.

"Let's say you're doing a bunch of math problems," Weinstein says. "What's fairly typical is ... five of the same problem, or 10 of the same problem. Instead of doing that, try different problems in different orders." So if students are learning to calculate the area of a triangle, instead of having them do 20 problems with triangles, have them do one of a triangle, then one of a circle, then a triangle, then a square.

"The thing about that," Weinstein notes, "is that it's actually harder. So they'll be getting more wrong, they'll be making more errors, but they'll also be learning something very important, which is how to choose a particular strategy for each problem, as opposed to just repeatedly doing the same thing."

When planning exercises for students, resist the temptation to have them repeat the exact same process multiple times in a row. Instead, have them do a few of the new process, then weave in other skills, so that the repetitive behavior is interrupted and students are forced to think more critically. Explain this strategy to students so they can apply interleaving to their own studying.
Use specific examples to understand abstract ideas.
Most teachers already use this strategy in their own teaching; it's a natural part of explaining a new concept. But what we don't necessarily do is help students extend their understanding by coming up with examples of their own. Here's how Weinstein and Smith explain this broader use of concrete examples as a study practice:

Teachers can apply this strategy by using concrete examples when teaching abstract concepts, then asking students to come up with their own, correcting any examples (or parts of examples) that aren't quite right, and looking for more. Encourage students to continue this practice when they study.
Combine words and visuals.
When information is presented to us, it is often accompanied by some kind of visual: An image, a chart or graph, or a graphic organizer. When students are studying, they should make it a habit to pay attention to those visuals and link them to the text by explaining what they mean in their own words. Then, students can create their own visuals of the concepts they are learning. This process reinforces the concepts in the brain through two different paths, making it easier to retrieve later.

"And when we say visuals," Smith explains, "we don't necessarily mean anything specific, so it depends on the types of materials. You could have an infographic, a cartoon strip, a diagram, a graphic organizer, timeline, anything that makes sense to you so long as you're sort of depicting the information both in a way with words and a way with pictures."

"This isn't just for students who are good at drawing," Weinstein adds. "It's not about the quality of the drawing. It really just needs to be a visual representation as you can depict it."

In class, regularly turn students' attention to the visuals used in textbooks, on websites, and even in your own slideshow presentations. Have students describe the visuals to each other and make connections with what you're learning. Then have students create their own visuals of the content to further reinforce it. Remind students to include diagramming, sketching, and creating graphic organizers when they study at home.

Two more pieces of advice on how to maximize these strategies for learning:

Combine them. These strategies don't necessarily work in isolation. You can space out your retrieval practice, and when doing retrieval practice, try to recall concrete examples, elaborate, or sketch out a concept. When doing retrieval practice, you can interleave between different concepts.

Make them part of your class vocabulary. If you just use these strategies in your teaching, you'll see improvement. But if you actually explain the research to students, teach them the terminology, and use that terminology when teaching-"Okay, we're going to spend a few minutes on retrieval practice"-students will not only have a clearer understanding of why you're doing what you do, but they may be more likely to carry those skills with them into future classes.

The Learning Scientists site is full of useful information about how people learn, and more is being added every week. To learn more, visit learningscientists.org, and to download this free chart and other materials about the strategies, click the image below.
Other resources mentioned on the podcast:
Learning Scientists on Twitter: @acethattest

Learning Scientists on Facebook: facebook.com/acethattest

Make It Stick, The Science of Successful Learning, by Brown, Roediger & McDaniel
Teaching How2s simpleshow.com

Learn something new every week.
Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. You'll also get access to my members-only library of free downloadable resources, including my e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, which has helped thousands of teachers spend less time grading!

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6 Powerful Learning Strategies You MUST Share with Students

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Studying can be taught. Learn how retrieval practice, interleaving, elaboration, and other research-based study strategies can help your students learn better.

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Listen to my interview with Pooja Agarwal ( transcript):

Sponsored by Raymond Geddes and Kids Discover

We've talked about retrieval practice two other times on this site: First in 2015, when we read the book Make it Stick. Then in 2016, I interviewed cognitive psychologists Megan Smith and Yana Weinstein about the Six Powerful Learning Strategies You Must Share with Students.

In both cases, I noticed that although we were discussing collections of techniques, retrieval practice was at the core of both groups. Because it's such a powerful technique, I would think that by now it would have really taken off, that I'd hear teachers talking about it and see the term crop up in lots of education spaces, but I don't see that happening.

So I wanted to give it one more push by carving out a designated spot for it here. My goal is to help retrieval practice become a regular part of classroom practice and part of our common vocabulary as teachers. To help with this cause, I interviewed Pooja Agarwal, Ph.D., cognitive scientist and founder of RetrievalPractice.org.

What is Retrieval Practice?

Retrieval practice is the act of trying to recall information without having it in front of you. Suppose you're studying the systems of the human body-skeletal, muscular, circulatory, and so on. You could do retrieval practice by attempting to name those systems without looking at the list. Once you've listed all you can remember, you'd open up your book or notes and check to see if you got them right.

You might be thinking, This is nothing new. The whole concept of flashcards is built on retrieval practice, and flashcards have been around forever, right?

What's new is the research: In recent years, cognitive psychologists have been comparing retrieval practice with other methods of studying-strategies like review lectures, study guides, and re-reading texts. And what they're finding is that nothing cements long-term learning as powerfully as retrieval practice.

The Research

Agarwal and her colleagues studied the effects of retrieval practice with students in a middle school social studies course (McDaniel, Agarwal, Huelser, McDermott, & Roediger, 2011). Over the course of a year and a half, while the teacher continued teaching as normal, students were regularly quizzed on the material with no-stakes quizzes, meaning they wouldn't count against their grades. These quizzes only covered about one-third of what was being taught. The teacher left the room for every quiz, so she had no knowledge of what was included in the quizzes.

On end-of-unit exams, students scored a full grade level higher on the material from the quizzes than on any of the other material. The other concepts had been taught and reviewed by the teacher as they normally would; the only difference was that some things also appeared on the no-stakes quizzes, and those were the concepts students retained more fully when tested on the exam.

The very act of being quizzed actually helped students learn better.

Here's what this means for teachers: When we teach something once, then want to do something else to help students learn it better, instead of just reviewing the content, we're much better off giving something like a quiz instead. In other words, if we do more asking students to pull concepts out of their brains, rather than continually trying to put concepts in, students will actually learn those concepts better.

To read about other studies on retrieval practice, click here. For now, let's look at some ways you can incorporate retrieval practice into your instruction.

Ways to Use Retrieval Practice in the Classroom

Think-Pair-Share
This quick, low-maintenance strategy can be used at any time to have students recall information, then share it with a partner. You can use think-pair-shares with single-answer questions, or make them more open-ended, like "Think of one thing you learned yesterday about cells." Be sure to have students think on their own before turning to a partner. "It's important for students to retrieve individually as much as possible," Agarwal advises. "If you jump right into pairs, then we all know as educators that some students are retrieving and some may not be." One way to make sure all students retrieve is to have them jot responses down on paper before sharing them with a partner.

Low-Stakes Quizzes
These can be given on paper, in a Google Form, with an individual response system like clickers, Plickers, or Poll Everywhere; or by using a game like Kahoot or Quizziz. It's important to note that these quizzes are a learning strategy: Ideally, students wouldn't get scores on them at all, but if you must give some points, make them an almost negligible part of students' overall class grade.

Brain Dumps
Have students get out a sheet of paper and, within a certain length of time, write down everything they know about a topic of study. This can be done at the beginning of a unit (similar to how you'd use a K-W-L Chart), partway through as a way to reinforce learning, or near the end of a unit. Once students have completed theirs, they can exchange them in a think-pair-share or use them to compile a whole-class brain dump. Then they can return to their texts to see what they missed or what needs correction.

Flashcards
These can be a powerful retrieval tool in class or at home, but students need to be taught to use them correctly:

Once a card has been mastered, keep it in the deck a while.
Research has shown that students tend to "drop" cards out of their decks too soon after they have mastered them (Karpicke, 2009). Ideally, a fact should be successfully retrieved three times before a student moves on from it.

Actually retrieve.
Karpicke's research also found that when students see a familiar prompt on a flashcard, they have a tendency to tell themselves they know it, then flip it over to see the answer, rather than taking a few extra seconds to actually recall the answer-and ideally, say it out loud-before flipping the card over. The difference in timing is subtle, but important: Students will not get the same benefits from flashcards unless they actually retrieve the answer before seeing it.

Shuffle the deck.
Keeping the cards in the same order makes them predictable. Once a deck has been gone through a few times, it should be shuffled to make it more challenging.

For more tips, take a look at College Info Geek's excellent post on effectively using flashcards.

Tips and Cautions

Retrieval practice is not the same thing as assessment.
Although some retrieval activities might allow you to formatively assess student understanding, remember that retrieval practice is a learning activity. Again, if you must assign points for practices, make sure they will have a very low impact on student grades.

Space your practice.
Retrieval practice is even more effective if it's done in short bursts over time, rather than in a single long session. This spacing causes students to forget some of the material, and the struggle involved in trying to recall it strengthens their long-term learning.

Include feedback.
If students retrieve the wrong information, the practice won't be much good unless they find out the right information, so be sure to give them feedback as they go. This can be as simple as providing the correct answer or letting students check their texts after they have attempted to retrieve. "Part of that isn't just so students know if they got their answer correct or incorrect," Agarwal says, "but it adjusts students' metacognition," helping them get "better at estimating or judging what they know and what they don't know."

Match your practice to your assessment.
If your summative assessment for a chunk of content will be basic recall of facts, then the retrieval practice can be that simple. But it you're going to include some higher-order questions as well, then be sure to ask those same types of questions in retrieval practice.

Does it Fit with Inquiry Learning?

If your classroom is built around more hands-on, inquiry-driven approaches to learning that don't prioritize retaining specific content-structures like Genius Hour and project-based learning -you might wonder whether retrieval practice is relevant to your teaching.

Consider this: Within any of those frameworks, students still have to learn and retain discrete information. Take, for example, a student who has decided to learn Arabic as his focus for Genius Hour, or students who are studying soil pH as part of a gardening project. Both students will need to study and remember concrete information in order to make progress, so even if your instruction isn't set up in a traditional way, understanding how retrieval practice works can help you help your students learn better.

A Little Goes a Long Way

Agarwal's final piece of advice is to start small. "If a student just writes down two things or one thing they learned, and then you move on, that's okay," she says. "You'll still get benefits of retrieval without spending five minutes in a classroom discussion."

It can be a bell-ringer. An exit slip. A sponge activity. Something you do while students stand in line for lunch. Don't overthink it. Agarwal advises teachers to ask themselves this: "What is one way we can flip from reviewing information to students retrieving information? What can we do tomorrow?"

What will you do tomorrow? ♦

Learn More

Dr. Agarwal and her colleagues have put together this comprehensive guide to using retrieval practice. Visit RetrievalPractice.org/download to get a free copy for yourself. And be sure to follow Retrieval Practice on Twitter at @RetrieveLearn.
References:
Karpicke, J. D. (2009). Metacognitive control and strategy selection: deciding to practice retrieval during learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 138(4), 469.

McDaniel, M. A., Agarwal, P. K., Huelser, B. J., McDermott, K. B., & Roediger III, H. L. (2011). Test-enhanced learning in a middle school science classroom: The effects of quiz frequency and placement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(2), 399.

There's a lot more where this came from.
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Retrieval Practice: The Most Powerful Learning Strategy You're Not Using

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Nothing cements long-term learning as powerfully as retrieval practice. Learn how to incorporate it into your classroom.

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Strategies like connecting new information to students' prior knowledge guide them to store what they're learning in long-term memory.

We've all been there. Weeks of carefully planned lessons, and at the end of the unit, the students take the test, and the results are disappointing. How can that be? How is it possible that the students didn't learn the content after all that teaching? It's simple, really: They didn't transfer their learning to long-term memory.

Thanks to advances in neuroscience and cognitive psychology, we now know a lot about how memory works. Here are the basics: First, we engage different types of memory depending on the task. Second, being able to retrieve information stored in long-term memory is an essential part of learning. Third, forgetting is a natural process. Our brains regularly sort through information when we sleep (and while we're awake) to determine what's important to save and what isn't.

When it comes to instruction, it's helpful for teachers to understand the different types of memory, when and how to engage them, and how to instruct students in such a way that they can move new information from their working memory to long-term memory.

The Types of Memory Involved in Learning

The first type of memory engaged when learning is our short-term or working memory. Working memory is temporary storage with limited capacity. Generally speaking, the younger the student, the smaller the capacity. Children who are the same age can have widely varying capacities for working memory. We see this when we ask them to pay attention and follow directions.

In the book Uncommon Sense Teaching, the writers describe working memory as a juggling octopus: "Too many balls at once, and poof, everything falls away!" So, depending on the complexity of the direction or task, it's important to support students who have different capacities for working memory. We can do this by repeating directions, writing directions down, and supporting tasks with visuals.

The second type of memory engaged while learning is our long-term memory. It exists in the cortex and, unlike our working memory, has an unlimited storage capacity. Long-term memory is broken into two main categories: explicit and implicit. Explicit memory uses the conscious recollection of information, experiences, and concepts. Implicit memory is unconscious memory or performing activities without having to think about them, such as riding a bike. The trick is being able to retrieve the information once it's stored.

Research on memory shows that our rote memory is very limited, and it's easy to forget things. When presented with information in isolation or in random order, our brains have a very difficult time encoding it into our long-term memory. According to the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, we forget a lot of what we learn over time. The more time that passes, the more we forget. This happens relatively quickly, and it'll be lost forever unless we consciously review the information over time. So just because you taught it once doesn't mean your students are going to remember it.

How can educators enhance students' ability to remember? Several strategies supported by research can have a significant impact on a student's ability to remember new learning.

Research-Backed Strategies

Activating background knowledge: Background knowledge is super-important for learning-there may already be a neural pathway in the brain for the new information to connect to and strengthen. We need to activate those connections before we begin teaching the new content or skill. Concept mapping, word webs, KWL charts, think/pair/share activities, and videos are all strategies that awaken previous knowledge and enhance the process of encoding new information.

Having strong background knowledge can actually improve our working memory. Research on schema-based learning reveals that new learning can embed more easily in the neocortex.

Using retrieval practice: If we can't recall the information, we haven't learned it. Students can utilize helpful retrieval practice strategies such as using flash cards, writing down a summary of the day's learning, and reacting to the lesson by stating three main points and their importance. Try using entrance and exit tickets, giving frequent quizzes, and using programs like Kahoot and Quizlet.

Turn and talk to a partner

Do a demonstration

Incorporate active learning or hands-on learning intermittently

Summarize or draw a picture that encompasses the main points of the learning

Use concept mapping or story mapping strategies throughout a lesson

Contextualizing learning: Make learning relevant and interactive. Mix up lessons so that your students don't have to listen to you talk for more than 10 minutes at a time. They have to use their working memory, which has a very limited capacity, to follow a lecture, so stop and have them do the following:

Using interleaved practice: Make connections. When teachers use interleaved practice, they help students make connections to different topics while learning. For example, they may be learning about a particular historical event, but you then connect it to something else that was going on at the time that was also impacted. This term also describes mixed practice, so maybe your students are revisiting addition and subtraction facts when they practice new multiplication facts. Research shows that interleaving improves retention of new information and results in faster acquisition of the information.

Learning depends on our ability to store new information in our long-term memory and our ability to retrieve that information when we need it. Understanding and applying foundational research on memory can help teachers enhance student learning by improving students' ability to move new learning from working memory to long-term memory.

When students transfer information into long-term memory, their working memory doesn't have to work so hard, and they are able to grapple with novel, complex topics quicker and more efficiently. Learning becomes less of a struggle, and students may feel smarter and more confident. When students feel this way, they're more willing to stick with difficult concepts and problems-allowing them to learn deeply. Ultimately, teachers can see better learning outcomes on assessments, which makes them energized and confident too.

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How to Engage Students' Memory Processes to Improve Learning

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Strategies like connecting new information to students' prior knowledge guide them to store what they're learning in long-term memory.

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If we hope to construct enduring understanding in our students, it's critical that, now more than ever, we know their strengths and interests. By incorporating students' strengths and weakness into authentic learning experiences from the beginning of each unit, while at the same time including opportunities for feedback, metacognition and revision, we promote a variety of cognitive and emotional benefits that can lead to academic success.

For example, students with interpersonal learning strengths find that cooperative group work increases perseverance. Students with artistic, computer, dramatic or organizational skills benefit from appropriate opportunities to engage in building knowledge through their strengths and interests.

It follows that assessments should also provide opportunities for each student's unique learning strengths to access his or her highest performance success level. A variety of assessment modalities and some student choice in assessment type can bring students to the assessment with less anxiety, increasing the positive learning experience as well as providing the opportunity for them to demonstrate what they know -- not simply what they memorized, forgot or never learned.

The First 3 Assessment Forms

What Might These Look Like?

These should be assessments that students prepare and the teacher can alter so that the answers are not just memorized. For example, in a history unit, after studying the different agricultural products in the northern and southern colonies, the self-test questions a student writes might be:

What were the crops from the colonies in the north and from the south?

How are the climates, land and water supply different in one northern city and one southern city?

When the teacher rewrites the question, it could prompt more analysis and executive function connections if it is rephrased as:

Give an example of how the climate, water supply and soil influenced the agricultural products in one northern and one southern city during the Colonial Era.

In this example, the teacher knows that the student has reviewed the facts necessary to make the higher-level connection and analysis and therefore has the tools for successful higher-level thinking.

4. Projects Pre-Approved by the Teacher

Projects that demonstrate comprehension or mastery of the material covered in the unit can be ideal assessments. They can become the packaging that connects the newly learned patterns of knowledge to related, previously stored knowledge.

To see if the project assessment achieves this end, consider the questions:

Does this assessment examine understanding and not just rote memory?

Is the student called upon to think during the creation of the project?

These projects can include skits, posters, oral presentations, debates, papers or demonstrations that assess understanding apart from rote knowledge. For some units, the projects can be done in pairs or groups, as long as there is a means of assessing each individual student's participation in the final product. This could be through verbal interviews with students individually after the completion or presentation of the project.

What Might This Look Like?

A project example for a unit of study about modern Europe would have students select a country and simulate travel to that country, including finding out how to get passports and visas, what the passport oath is, what clothing to bring, and what hotels are near the important historic or cultural places they plan to visit.

They can also identify the money exchange rate, create a budget, establish the location of cities in their country to visit along a travel route, memorize useful phrases in the national language, and understand cultural behaviors appropriate to that country. They might also create a menu, a travelogue, cook a meal, or prepare a "scrapbook" with pictures from the Internet and descriptions of their "visits" to these places.

5. Revision and Retests to Build Skillsets

Students benefit most from the ongoing assessments that provide corrective feedback and opportunities to use this information, allowing their brains to construct accurate memories. Instead of just a retest, if students first respond to prompts on a test correction sheet, they gain metacognition as well as memory.

What Might This Look Like?

On a test correction sheet in math, the student is asked to find and write down the page number in the textbook where he or she can identify an example of the problem, and then to review that example. Next, the student describes the type of mistake he or she made on the test. Was it an error in simple arithmetic addition? Was it more extensive confusion about the concept of multiplying negative numbers?

After assessing where their understanding was incomplete, students should write what they will do to learn the material (such as meet with the teacher during study hall, review textbook examples before tests, or practice their multiplication tables).

This process shows students how to review text examples to study for future tests, and gives them confidence in their ability to work through challenging problems on their own with the textbook as a resource. The result is a reduction in test anxiety and learned helplessness. They are motivated to do the test correction sheets because they know it is their key to being able to take a retest.

Motivating Students

Long-term memory retention and motivation increase when students keep track of, reflect on, and look back on their learning journey with pleasure. This works even better when you give them opportunities to share that pleasure with others.

How do you know when your assessment has been effective? Please share in the comments section below.

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5 Assessment Forms That Promote Content Retention

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If we hope to construct enduring understanding in our students, it's critical that, now more than ever, we know their strengths and interests. By incorporating students' strengths and weakness into authentic learning experiences from the beginning of each unit, while at the same time including opportunities for feedback, metacognition and revision, we promote a variety of cognitive and emotional benefits that can lead to academic success.

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Brain-based Techniques for Retention of Information | School of Medicine

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Nine Ways to Aid your Memory

1. Be Flexible: Try new learning styles.

2. Make a List: Create a framework and organize ideas.

3. Review: Practice and review materials.

4. Get Involved: Find an emotional connection to your work.

5. Schedule: Be strategic about studying.

6. Use a Support: Create tables, charts, and other aids as needed.

7. Rephrase: Use your own words to explain concepts.

8. Avoid Distractions: Turn off T.V., phone, and other electronics

Eliminate Mistakes: Review prior mistakes and reinforce proper response

Memory Improvement General Principles

1. Attention (Concentration)

We may be able to do several things at once if some of them are habitual, but we can only attend to one thing at a time, especially when studying. Often when we say we have forgotten something - it would be closer to the truth to say we never learned it because we never gave it proper attention.

Inattention is often due to lack of interest. The subject of most interest to everyone is himself or herself. Take sides in the issues and problems you read about. Ego involvement not only promotes interest and attention, it aids intention to remember. Give an "uninteresting subject" a chance; if you learn something about it, this will create some interest which will promote knowledge. Remind yourself, if necessary, of your secondary interest in the subject-the grade or credit. Nonsense material (material which we do not understand) is quickly forgotten. While the assignment may be nonsense to us at first, attempts to work through it step by step - interpreting, associating, analyzing will soon make it meaningful and interesting.
3. Intention to Remember
Bending of one's energies toward a given end is called a mental set, and a positive, open mental set affects memory positively. Ego involvement promotes intention to remember.

When we intend to remember without having confidence that we can remember, the intention is weakened into mere hoping. Use written notes as a prompting device, but form the habit of trying to rely on your memory before referring to your written reminders.

Be cautious in learning a new knowledge and habits right at the start. Concentrate on accuracy, not speed, at the beginning. A mistake is difficult to unlearn. Become self-conscious about the error and then work slowly to replace it with the right information.

Concentrate on the most significant things, as it is impossible to master any subject in its entirety. The selection should be judicious in that for some subjects the fundamentals, major ideas, concepts, patterns, and trends may be important, but in some subjects details are also important.
8. Building Background
There are two ways to memorize: by rote (mechanically) and by understanding. Ideas, concepts, theories and significances and the like are learned by understanding. The more association you have for an idea, the more meaning it will have; the more meaningful the learning, the better one is able to retain it. Always note similarities and differences in ideas and concepts, and put them in their proper place in a larger system of concepts and theories.

The more background we have on a subject the better we form associations and discern relationships. A well-stocked mind allows more possibilities or association between new material and previously known material. The best way to improve your memory of a subject, hence, is to learn more about it.

A good memory is like a well-organized and well-maintained filing system. When a new fact presents itself, the first consideration is whether to keep it or throw it away. If you keep it, then you must decide where to put it. Organization is the innate tendency of the mind and it prevails above the chaos of stimuli it can process. Shakespeare's 37 plays are less difficult to remember if you remember them in 3 groups: comedies, histories, tragedies. Keep the larger pattern of the chapter and of the book as you progress through it in mind so that you can relate or hook subordinate ideas or details to the larger pattern. Bunch ideas with, associate, or relate them to the big bones of the article, chapter or book.

Quiz or test yourself as you read through each paragraph or section. This promotes understanding as well as faster learning because it is a more active process than reading or listening. It also tests understanding, revealing mistakes or gaps. Recite in your own words and read aloud difficult passages. Auditory learners should spend more time in reciting orally what they are learning than visualizers.

11. Notetaking [link this to our notetaking page on the website]
13. Spaced Practice or Distributed Practice
Notes should be in your own words, brief, clear but succinct. They should be legible and neat. Review notes when study of chapter is completed and use them to test yourself.

The best time to review is soon after learning has taken place. The beginning and the end of material is best remembered, so pay close attention to the middle which is likely to be forgotten. The peak of difficulty in remembering is just beyond the middle, toward the end.

Periodic review is important - but make the sure the intervals between the practice are not too long, otherwise you might forget information.

Reviewing something that has already been learned sufficiently is called overlearning. The more important and the more difficult the learning, the more we should reinforce it with frequent practice. Don't waste your time on easy material.

Study before going to bed unless you are physically or mentally overtired. Freshly learned material is better remembered after a period of sleep than after an equal period of daytime activity because of retroactive interference. This may not work for everybody

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Be Flexible: Try new learning styles. Make a List: Create a framework and organize ideas. Review: Practice and review materials. Get Involved: Find an emotional connection to your work. Schedule: Be strategic about studying. Use a Support: Create tables, charts, and other aids as needed. Rephrase: Use your own words to explain concepts.