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#6: Error correction with quality feedback.

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#6: Error correction with quality feedback.

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*ties into the current MS CBL (Competency Based Learning) SOLVE - Sol 1
I evaluate and apply possible strategies for solving a problem.
I can apply techniques that I have learned in order to improve my performance. I can react to errors and adjust accordingly.

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The importance of spacing the information.. learning is not a fixed exposure. It is the retrieval experiences that are spaced which reinforces information. You must retrieve, through generalization , extending, elaborating, creating quizzes, or any action where students are retrieving or dumping out the information.

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The importance of spacing the information.. learning is not a fixed exposure. It is the retrieval experiences that are spaced which reinforces information. You must retrieve, through generalization , extending, elaborating, creating quizzes, or any action where students are retrieving or dumping out the information.

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Practice retrieval and the importance of sleep to consolidate information.

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Practice retrieval and the importance of sleep to consolidate information.

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How to Get the Brains of Yours Students to Change

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How to Get the Brains of Yours Students to Change

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Eric Jensen´s Blog Post

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I am on a mission to help more educators become extraordinary this year. In this article, you will get an insight into how our brain works. Stay a learner for a moment and we can help you achieve the best professional year of your life.

Today, we will lock down one of the most core understandings about the human brain: how to get it to change. Let's learn how to do this right. The reason you may care about this is because...
The Research:
Our topic is how to get the brains of your students to change. Seriously; is there any topic more important?

Okay, I plead guilty to being a bit enthusiastic about brain topics.

First, let's clear out of the way any misperceptions. The brain is ALREADY CHANGING every day.

The brain changes for the better or the worse SLOWLY (maturation, home or school environment, nutrition, learning, fitness, etc.). The brain changes for the better or the worse FAST (head injury, poisons, trauma, new therapies, insights, etc.).

To get the brain to change at school, on purpose, is actually easy. You just have to know how. If you say, "I already know how to do it.", my response is "How many years of gains do you get each school year you teach? What are your student achievement scores?" If you change it well, you'll be above the district averages.

Much of it happens through a property called neuroplasticity. This property is neither a good thing nor a bad thing; it is simply an intrinsic property of the human brain. That's why our brain can change for the worse (like an addiction) or for the better (becoming more grateful) at any time.

There is strong evidence that neuronal plasticity is not an occasional event; it is constant! Why? To survive, humans must adapt constantly to environmental pressure, physiologic changes, and life experiences (Johansson, 2004).

Interestingly, the actual moment that cells make a connection at the synaptic level in the brain has been seen as early as within minutes of new learning. The process of gray matter adaptation has been observed via MRIs as early as 5-7 days following the practice (Driemeyer, et al., 2008) and as late as after 6 weeks of practice.

This new memory is 'long-term potentiation'. WHAT????

New learning has occurred when the brain makes connections. The synapses between two neurons become stronger through greater frequency of use or intensity of experience. Hence, the neurons become sensitized to one another. Breaks and sleep allow the memories to become consolidated and integrated within other networks in your brain. Finally, by retrieving, rehearsing or recalling the content these neural networks become strengthened.

In the classroom, our brain does not treat all learning the same.

Our brain has both a "fast track" learning process and a slower, more durable structural gray matter plasticity track. These processes are occurring both at the molecular and synaptic level, as well as at larger scales of gray matter (Draganski and May, 2008).

Currently, the challenge is to explore in greater detail the processes of neuroplasticity and how to modulate them to achieve the best behavioral outcome.

Now, let's explore the brain changing strategies in your classroom.

Practical Applications

When we "flesh out" the info above, the classroom "to do" list would look like this:

1. Select your content (or skill). Your student's memories for facts and events (so-called declarative memories) are stored differently from the acquisition of skills (procedural memories). Yet the scientists who used to think our brain used a different set of neural circuits, now see an overlap between declarative and motor skill memories. This means, "It is OK to mix content and skill."

2. Reactivate prior learning. Some students may have no experience with the topic or skill. If so, be sure to use priming and pre-exposure days and weeks ahead to avoid "blindsiding" the learner.

Discovering prior learning helps you plan the lesson better AND discover if there are students with false information that may inhibit your teaching and their learning. Those need to be corrected before starting.

3. Get buy-in (arousal plus relevancy). Arousal alerts the brain and activates the strong learning neurotransmitters, like dopamine. Buy-in links the learning with something that the students find relevant or worth pursuing.

4. Interdependency (partner or team). While not all learning should be with others, it does help with accountability and fun. The social partner(s) may need some of your input on how to be a "good" partner.

5. Quick initial learning curve. Ensure students learn quickly at the outside from easy material. Out of a 15-minute first exposure, half should be reactivating prior learning.

6. Error correction with quality feedback. Always build in a way to check for understanding.

7. Increasing challenge & complexity. Without this increase, students get bored and may quit on you. Have a plan to "stair-step" the learning.

8. Consecutive minutes: For both skill and content learning, use short chunks of 10-15 minutes at a time. Do this each day, for multiple times, about 3-5 days per week.

9. Break often for consolidation & other processing activities (plus a good night's sleep). After 10-15 minutes, allow time to check for understanding, processing personal insights and making connections. Then get back to work. Later, at night, encourage a good sleep. The role of stabilizing a memory, which helps make it resistant to other content interference, is critical to orchestrate memories long after their initial acquisition (Robertson, E. M. (2012). A new motor skill memory continues to be processed "off-line" in the hippocampus, during consolidation. This replay can be observed in quiet rest, an alternative activity, as well as sleep. For example, a motor skill can be enhanced by 20-30% over a night of sleep.

10. Practice retrieval and use the content. Studying is very ineffective, but retrieval is highly effective. Ask students to retrieve their prior learning without cues. This is hard mental work and good for the brain. Continually ask for both details and big picture, since they are both crucial. Use Q & A or mind mapping to create large concept maps of the subject with a partner.
CLASSROOM EXAMPLE
Using both fMRI and MRIs, scientists can now see new growth of language-related brain areas and new activation areas after reading and language computer games. Scientific Learning was the original company that designed and sold learning that was engineered by pioneering neuroscientists Steve Miller, Paula Tallal and Michael Merzenich.

They used the principles of brain plasticity to reorganize the "reading areas" of the brain and boost reading scores. If you or your school is struggling, every student in your school can get an online tutor with Reading Assistant. Check out: http://www.scilearn.com/products/reading-assistant .

In closing, you CAN have the best school year of your life. Implement ideas from this article and get ready for a miracle!

Eric Jensen, PhD
CEO, Jensen Learning

January 18-20, 2016 San Antonio, TX:
The Only Brain-Based Training Specifically for
Principals, Staff Developers and Administrators!
Click Here for Details.

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How to Get the Brains of Your Students to Change

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I am on a mission to help more educators become extraordinary this year. In this article, you will get an insight into how our brain works. Stay a learner for a moment and we can help you achieve the best professional year of your life.

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Eric Jensen´s Blog Post

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MOOC EDSCI1x | Interviews: Growth Mindset and Effective Effort | Mindsets

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MOOC EDSCI1x | Video 4:  Connecting Prior Knowledge | Memory and Learning

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MOOC EDSCI1x | Video 3: Retrieval Practice | Effective Teaching Strategies

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Multisensory learning is a popular approach to teaching for those with learning differences such as ADHD, Dyslexic individuals, or children with a learning disability. Multisensory learning is also an effective way to make teaching inclusive, as it offers a wide range of strategies for children to learn, and does not depend upon just listening, writing and reading alone. The following are different kinds of sensory learning that can be incorporated into teaching (*this is not an article about learning styles!*):

Visual - learning through watching and seeing;

Auditory - learning through listening and hearing sounds;

Kinaesthetic - learning through physical activity or body movement (this involves the vestibular and proprioceptive senses);

Tactile - learning through using the sense to touch;

Olfactory and Gustatory - learning through smell and taste.

The multisensory teaching method involves at least two or more of these different sensory learning styles. In recent years, the learning styles idea has been shown to be problematic as many classrooms took this out of context and started labelling children with their 'preferred learning style.' The recent research by authors such as Barbara Tversky has shed new light on using objects to think with (this is not the same as learning styles!). In this article, we will explore classroom applications of this theory in relation to developing comprehension skills and wider literacy skills of pupils.

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How does Multisensory Learning Work?

The multi-sensory approach involves different parts of the human brain, which provides learners with more than a single way to make connections, understand more concepts and retain knowledge. For instance, in an activity that integrates auditory, tactile and visual stimuli, children will be able to build a relationship between the sound, feeling and appearance of that learning activity, which will enable learners to better remember the main information of that task.

In mainstream environments, teaching mostly comprises of activities where children are asked to learn by only listening and readingthe information. It can make learning difficult and children, especially those with learning difficulties, are not able to sustain their attention on the tasks. Of course, it is not possible to integrate all of the senses into multisensory lessons. But, whenever integrated, a multisensory approach is sure to make teaching more inclusive and engaging. Using speech alone can cause difficulties as the learner has to have basic language skills to access the meaning. If a child is trying to understand curriculum content without a proficient level of academic skills, then they may struggle to extrapolate the meaning hidden behind the words. Using multisensory instruction techniques enables children to bypass some of the barriers that they might otherwise encounter. Decoding large amounts of text is a basic language skill that we take for granted. Very quickly, our working memory can be overloaded with the complexities of a cognitive task like reading. Taking a multisensory speech processing approach using visuals and other cues enables the child to dedicate some of the processing to the content and meaning. Approaches such as dual coding use audiovisual speech integration to reduce the cognitive load.

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Which subjects can be taught using Multisensory Learning?

Multi-sensory techniques can be used and adapted to support students learning in any topic area or subject. It is suitable for every student from the early years, to secondary and higher education. The traditional learning process of some subjects involves multisensory learning as a normal way to teach relevant subjects to the students.

For instance, Multi-sensory instruction is one of the most frequently used methods to teach alphabets to children in early education years. Combining kinaesthetic, auditory and visual teaching methods in multisensory language instruction is a frequently used tactic to first introduce children to magnetic letters and to develop phonemic awareness. Research shows that multisensory instruction helps young learners to develop connections between sounds, words and letters at a faster rate.

Also, in a science classroom students carry out practical experiments and note down the experiment results. It is an excellent example of a multisensory learning experience as students use a hands-on approach with equipment and then they use tactile learning and visual senses to see and note down the results of their experiment. Below is a brief description of some of the different kinds of multi-sensory learning techniques.

Visual Techniques: Visual learners prefer vision in teaching. These techniques may include anything from reading the text to the most creative visual arts such as posters, painting, video, or any artistic visual design element used for teaching.

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Visual techniques may also help support dyslexic readers and auditory and tactile learners. For example, using pictures to show how to knit or sew, or writing musical notes on paper.

Auditory Techniques: Auditory learning strategies are meant to help a learner, who learns most effectively by listening. These persons prefer listening to the directions for a project rather than participating in hands-on activitiesor they would like to listen to a lesson as compared to reading a book.

Some examples of auditory processing techniques include the use of songs, music, audio tones, rhymes, lyrics, dialogue, and clapping anything that involves the ear.

Tactile Techniques: Learning through touch is called tactile learning. Mostly coinciding with kinesthetic learning, tactile instructions mostly involve fine motor skills.

Specific auditory techniques mayinvolve the use of finger paints, coins, letter tiles, dominoes, sand, poker chips, textures and raised line paper. Also, modelling materials such as plastic one or clay create good tactile learning media.

Kinesthetic Techniques: These are also called learning by doing. Kinesthetic learners prefer learning by motion and doing, using both gross and fine motor skills.

The kinaesthetic technique is a way to effective instruction that occurs when learners engage in hands-on experience. An example is when a child learns to ride a bike or use a swing. From clapping in rhythm to jumping rope, anything that connects learning to body movement is kinesthetic activity.

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What are the benefits of using multisensory instruction in the classroom?

The major benefit of using the multisensory method of teaching is that it helps learners to retain more knowledge. The best way to apply multisensory instruction for students is integrating a variety of sensory experiences in a fun activity to ensure that all of the learners can access and engage in the learning.

Why not try out activities that get students 'thinking with their hands'. These sorts of activities involve pupils manipulating objects and may involve other sensory elements and multisensory activities.

Adding a variety of senses in learning activities does not only make learning more pleasing and engaging, but it also adds to its effectiveness. Sensory stimulation is associated with improved memory retention and mental cognition.

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It is important to note that learning differences and learning difficulties such as dyslexic students or students with ADHD and Autism can often remain undetected until adulthood. Integrating multisensory techniques into the teaching ensures that any person with undiagnosed special educational needs will still find multi-sensory instruction engaging, helpful and fun way of teaching.

For instance, if a student struggles with retaining information with kinesthetic processing, simply performing in the class activities will not be enough to help him retain knowledge. Adding other senses like listening and sight will be needed for supporting his particular needs.

When kids use multiple senses to perform multi-sensory activities, it gives them more ways to connect with their learning. This kind of multisensory instruction techniques involving hands-on learning enables learners to:

Make connections between what they already know and the new information;

Understand and solve problems

Use non-verbal skills of problem-solving.

Multisensory learning techniques are designed while considering that every child is different and using the same teaching strategy is not going to help every individual student.

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Embracing multi-sensory learning in your classroom

Using a multi-sensory instruction approach and activities is a simple remedy that can provide different teaching strategies to teach the majority of subjects to every student with multiple ways to learn. Multisensory teaching techniques are essential for providing equal opportunities to every child so that they can meet and exceed expectations. One word of caution, as we mentioned, the learning styles myth has come into a lot of controversy in recent years. This is largely due to the approach being taken out of context. We have seen some schools play stickers on children physically labelling them with a 'preferred learning style'. This can be damaging and counter-productive as we all use our different senses to make sense of the world around us. Embodied cognition is a growing field of research that we can all learn from. Simply put, learning doesn't just happen all alone in our heads. This reductionist approach only adds to the barriers that our pupils encounter on a daily basis. In closing, provide more opportunities for your students to use their hands, voices and minds.

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Multisensory learning in the classroom: A teacher's guide

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Multisensory learning is a popular approach to teaching for those with learning differences such as ADHD, Dyslexic individuals, or children with a learning disability. Multisensory learning is also an effective way to make teaching inclusive, as it offers a wide range of strategies for children to learn, and does not depend upon just listening, writing and reading alone.

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How to Chunk and Sequence Content More Effectively

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How to Chunk and Sequence Content More Effectively

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Converting a classroom course into a fully online or blended course is a daunting challenge, but an increasingly common requirement for instructors. It can be difficult to know where to begin. How do you take information from textbooks, a few PowerPoint slides, and years of hands-on experience dealing with learner difficulties and translate that into a few screens of content?

And how do you ensure that what you've created will actually work online? Where instructors in a classroom can slow down or speed up, depending on learner reactions, instructors in an online classroom may not be able to see how learners react. And learners may access online courses from a variety of screens, tiny to large. A short paragraph of text on a computer screen may turn into many, many lines on a phone. In the midst of these challenges, how can instructors help learners learn most effectively?

"Chunking" can help. As the term suggests, chunking involves breaking a large topic into smaller, more digestible "chunks" of information and presenting these chunks of content one at a time to learners. If your course was a building, each subtopic or brick would be one chunk. With chunking, the learner receives one brick at a time and can eventually construct the entire building, or learn the whole topic.

Let's look at why chunking is important and techniques to chunk content effectively.

Why to Chunk: Benefits for Learners

In an online course, you are not with your students in person, so it may be hard to gauge their level of understanding. Be proactive in addressing this to avoid learner frustration and cognitive overload. Chunking your course content will benefit both offline and online learners in the ways described below.

Reduces cognitive load: Too much information presented at once or different kinds of information presented together can be overwhelming for learners and make it significantly more difficult for them to remember everything. Psychologist George A. Miller theorized that we can remember only about seven pieces of information in the short term. Breaking up content into manageable chunks, therefore, reduces the cognitive load for the learner. When learners receive a single, short concept at a time, they are more likely to remember the information.

Prevents learner frustration: Large amounts of information can frustrate and overwhelm learners. Presenting bite-sized pieces of information can help learners feel more in control of their learning and more empowered to learn on their own. Chunking helps learners identify each concept as a distinct piece of information, understand the relationships between different concepts, and revise the concepts easily at a later date.

Addresses different levels of understanding: Learners build an understanding of concepts from simple to complex, or, as educationist Benjamin Bloom described it, from lower-order skills like recall, comprehension, and application to higher-order skills like analysis, evaluation, and synthesis. Instructors can create different chunks to address these different cognitive skills and address the needs of learners at each level of understanding.

Why to Chunk: Benefits for Instructors

As an instructor, creating an online course based on chunks of information can help you with future in-person courses, online courses, and blended learning. Here's how:

Helps pinpoint problem areas: If each chunk of a course has a quiz or short assessments on the concept, learners and instructors can pinpoint the learners' problem areas accurately and address them specifically, instead of revisiting an entire topic or chapter.

Allows for repurposing and updating content: Once you create an online course, you can easily restructure the course or create a shorter course at a later date using the same content. All you will need to do is pull out the relevant chunks. You can also update the course easily at a later date by editing only the chunks that need to be updated while the rest of the course remains intact.

How to Chunk and Sequence Information Effectively

It's important to take the time to think purposefully about the best way to chunk, sequence, and organize instructional materials, learning activities, and assessments. Here are some tips to keep in mind that will help you chunk and sequence your content effectively:

Prioritize: What do learners need to know versus what is nice to know? You can share additional (optional) materials for "further learning." However, make it clear to learners what the key concepts are that they should take away from the course.

Break down your course: Beginning at the highest level, break your course down into its overarching themes. Identify the main concepts in each theme. Break these down further into subtopics and then into individual concepts. You can use a tree diagram or a taxonomy to organize all the pieces of information you have.
A tree diagram to help organize all the pieces of information.
Present chunks in logical order: Ensure that content is presented in a logical order rather than skipping around to seemingly irrelevant concepts.

Big picture to details: It is helpful to give learners a "big picture" understanding of the scope of content before diving into individual lessons. You could share a course outline or map with learners to help them see the bigger picture.

Simple concepts to complex concepts: Present foundational concepts first and gradually build on those until the learner has the information they need to understand complex concepts. (This method of gradually building competence is known as scaffolding.)

Organize information in a chunk effectively: Use bulleted or numbered lists, tables, and diagrams, where possible. If a longer section of text is required, add paragraphs and line spaces to provide visual breaks in the text.

Engage learners: Present content in a variety of formats to keep learners engaged. Use images, graphics, interactive media, and/or videos that present or support the "need to know" content. Give students opportunities to generate some content themselves and share their insights with the rest of the class.

Limit scrolling: Consider your learner's screen size. Many of your learners will be accessing content on laptops, tablets, and sometimes even a smartphone. Try to be concise when writing content to minimize the amount of scrolling learners will need to do. Use short, simple words, short sentences, and short paragraphs.

One last thought as you organize your course and consider the instructional materials, learning activities, and assessments: Always refer to your module-level objectives. Ensure that everything you add to your course supports student mastery of the module-level objectives and that assessments give learners an opportunity to demonstrate that they have acquired the necessary information, skills, and/or behaviors. If that's not the case, then you're likely adding "nice to know" content rather than "need to know" content. Happy chunking!

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How to Chunk and Sequence Content Most Effectively for Online Delivery - ansrsource

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Converting a classroom course into a fully online or blended course is a daunting challenge, but an increasingly common requirement for instructors. It can be difficult to know where to begin. How do you take information from textbooks, a few PowerPoint slides, and years of hands-on experience dealing with learner difficulties and translate that into a few screens of content?

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A Powerful Strategy for Fostering Student Motivation

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A Powerful Strategy for Fostering Student Motivation

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A Powerful Strategy for Fostering Student Motivation

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A look at how to adapt a well-established technique for boosting student motivation in distance learning or hybrid classrooms.

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Cognitively Priming Students for Learning 

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Cognitively Priming Students for Learning 

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There are some standards or units of instruction that, for whatever reason, you know aren't going to be runaway hits with students. While you can certainly reconsider the unit design, there are other strategies you can use to help prime student brains for learning.

Among the simplest of these strategies is promoting curiosity -- and students' natural tendency to predict -- by advertising the content the same way that a marketing company might. This promotes advance interest, and the resulting questions increase the student curiosity, opening the brain's attentive intake filter. In short, it preps their minds to engage.

New Unit, 1-2 Weeks Prior

How might this work? Try advertising a coming unit by cutting up a related, compelling image, and then adding pieces daily to reconstruct that image as the "advertisement" gradually takes form.

Similarly, different clues -- visual or otherwise -- could be added every few days leading up to the new unit's introduction. For fractions, these clues might be:

An x-ray image of an arm fracture

Sheet music with half, whole, and quarter notes

A carrot cut into quarters

A photo of an iceberg showing the parts above and below water.

These both visualize the content and prime the mind to learn new content.

Even though curiosity gradually decreases in favor of caution, the need to find out if a prediction is right or wrong is part of the brain's permanent wiring. The brain strengthens future predictions and corrects any inaccurate prior knowledge leading to incorrect predictions through a prediction-reward system fueled by dopamine pleasure. (This will be a topic of a future post.) In short, even if students gradually become less interested, it won't diminish their need to know as the unit begins.

New Unit, Day 1

On the day the unit is scheduled to begin, students' curiosity, along with their written or verbal predictions, will tune their brains into the perfect zone for attentive focus. They are like adults placing bets on a horse race. Students may not be interested in the subject matter itself, but their brains need to find out if their predictions are correct, just as the race ticket holder needs to know if he holds a winning ticket. Now the students' brains want to know what you have to teach! If nothing else, you're set to reach them from day one.

The brain is wired for high interest when clues prompt prediction, anticipating the pleasure of the dopamine reward response. There is no such intrinsic motivation for drills and memorization of rote facts and procedures. Isolated skill practice is contrary to the brain's instinct to preserve its energy, because there is no expectation of pleasure from energy output. On the other hand, when students want to know required information to create solutions to problems that interest them or to create products that they care about, the brain applies the effort to learn what is required to achieve desirable goals. This isn't a personality thing, or a characteristic of apathy, but a fundamental neurological system that preferentially attends to and stores input considered useful for desired goals.

Preconception Meets Cognitive Engagement

Consider, for example, starting a unit by showing students an image of two people or groups of people whose differences and known disagreements are likely to trigger historical or cultural assumptions (such as Native Americans and early Great Plains settlers, British and German soldiers from World War I, or police officers near a picket line of striking workers). Encourage students to evaluate and express with words or writing what emotions the picture evokes, what event they think is represented, and who the "good" and "bad" people are.

As the unit progresses, encourage them to journal or describe any changes in their feelings about the picture and their original prediction of the events they think preceded or followed the scene depicted. As the unit culminates, ask them to give their opinions as to who might have created the image and if art or photography can be a representation of fact or misleading advertising. In this way, you have connected the beginning and end of the unit by consistently asking students to cognitively engage with the content and their own thinking.

Make Learning Worth the Energy

So why the need to have students predict, engage, reflect, and monitor? It has to do with parsing learning events into segments that students feel confident about learning. In survival terms, withholding effort is beneficial when there is low expectation of success. This response will benefit a fox living in a region with limited prey when it avoids chasing a rabbit uphill because the energy expended is not likely to result in energy restored when the chase fails to yield a meal. The human brain weighs three pounds and uses 20 percent of the body's oxygen and glucose. It has the same survival mandate as the fox to limit energy and effort when it predicts a low yield of success based on past experiences. In short, students need to believe that they can, and that there is valuable reason for them to try.

The cycle for disengagement and the self-fulfilling prophecy of failure is sustained because, without effort, the student does not keep up with the foundational knowledge needed to understand the subsequent lessons and related concepts. A student might have excellent skills at creative problem solving and concept construction, but because he or she didn't have the opportunity to construct understanding with a relevant goal that would motivate the brain to hold the necessary factual or procedural information, this student fails to acquire the knowledge. His or her brain now adds another failure to its experiences that further reduces the likelihood of sustained effort toward the next goal. With decreasing expectations of future success and without the needed concept and factual knowledge to persevere in the topic or subject, subsequent information is increasingly decontextualized. The student can't see the forest for the trees. In response, the brain "unplugs" as part of its energy-preserving survival mechanism.

Stop this unplugging! Through sustained student awareness of relevance and context, and through incorporating cognitive interactions with learning, students' brains will ignite and hold what they learn.

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Cognitively Priming Students for Learning

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There are some standards or units of instruction that, for whatever reason, you know aren't going to be runaway hits with students. While you can certainly reconsider the unit design, there are other strategies you can use to help prime student brains for learning.

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Teachers can implement a range of practices and strategies that ensure feedback to students is deliberate, planned and focused on learning intentions and success criteria.

Practices that promote effective feedback

There are 5 practices that can promote effective feedback - combining feedback and instruction, focusing on learning intentions and success criteria, intervening quickly, ensuring the feedback engages students in thinking and allowing time to enact the feedback.

Effective feedback follows instruction. When student work does not demonstrate at least partial understanding of a concept or process, feedback is not usually effective and the problems are best addressed through further teaching. Hattie & Timperley state that:

A simple clue that a student's work is not ready for feedback is that you can't find any legitimate success feedback to offer. When the work doesn't demonstrate any understanding, don't give feedback - reteach instead.

To combine feedback and instruction, teachers should:

select and sequence the learning experiences (instruction) and integrate with opportunities to gather information about the learning (assessment)

intentionally design assessments to occur at 'checkpoints' (that is, critical points during the learning where teachers and students engage in assessment to determine who is learning and who needs additional or alternative instruction prior to moving forward with the learning)

provide opportunities for feedback from the teacher, from peers, and from themselves (through self-assessment)

encourage students to use the feedback to take further action to learn and improve.

Recording patterns of behaviour

Fisher and Frey believe teachers should identify patterns in student errors so they can target instruction or intervention on specific areas of student need. They suggest keeping a table to record student error patterns.

For example, list errors in the first column, and note down the initials of students that made the error in the second column. Note: each set of initials in the second column represents a student who made an error.

Skim and scan to preview text

JC

Sourcing - information source, author, type of document

JC JT DL MM SL ST ND CT

Draw conclusions

JC JT MM TA AA LR CM TR VR IB AV TM SO KF

The information available from this pattern analysis:

all but one student demonstrated mastery of skimming and scanning

a fair number of students did not engage in sourcing - and could need re-teaching

in terms of drawing conclusions, it would be useful to re-teach the whole class.

By looking for patterns of errors, additional teaching can be designed for the whole class, small groups or individuals to address errors.

Effective feedback directs attention to the intended learning and/or success criteria, pointing out strengths and offering specific information to guide improvement (Stiggins, Arter, Chappius, & Chappuis).

Whatever the form of the feedback, it needs to be explicit about the learning intention and success criteria.

Be explicit about the learning intention and success criteria

1. Ensure students know and understand the learning intention and success criteria

2. Limit feedback to these

3. Attend to surface features every now and again.

Ensure you do not:

always focus on the elements of - presentation, quantity, surface features (such as spelling and
punctuation) and effort at the expense of the learning intention and success criteria

do not write/ talk about anything that is not related to the success criteria that you told students
about at the beginning of the task.

Prioritise feedback

1. Address the most important needs first

2. Limit feedback to 2-3 specific recommendations linked to the learning goal/s

3. adjust feedback based on individual students' readiness and learning preferences. An
appropriate amount of feedback for one student might not be enough for another, and might
overwhelm a third.

Ensure you do not 'blanket mark' (mark every error) or expect students to apply all the criteria that they have ever been taught for every task.

Focus on key feedback questions

1. Ensure feedback focuses on 'What are the goal/s?'

2. Ensure feedback focuses on 'What progress is being made toward the goal/s?'

3. Ensure feedback focuses on 'What needs to be undertaken to make better progress?'

Try not to mark errors without making improvement suggestions.

Provide 'closing the gap' feedback prompts

1. Provide reminder prompts based on student needs.

2. Provide scaffolded prompts based on student needs.

3. Provide example prompts based on student needs.

Try not to write too much as too much information can be overwhelming and difficult for a student to take in.

Check the adequacy of the feedback

1. Ask the student what support they need.

2. Ask the student directly:

Is that enough or do you need an example?

Do you know what to do next?

Is that enough help?

What will you do if you get stuck again?

3. Ask the student to tell you what they think you are trying to say to them.

Ensure you don't assume that students understand your comments or know how to implement the feedback.

Include peer feedback and self-feedback/ reflection

1. Encourage students to question you and each other to deepen their understanding.

2. Model and scaffold the types of questions you want students to use themselves.

3. Provide opportunities for peer and self-feedback prior to the work being submitted.

4. Provide and work through models and exemplars of quality work, based on the learning
intention and success criteria.

Try not to expect students to engage in peer and self-feedback without providing instruction and
guidance.

Intervene as soon as possible

1. Give the most effective form of feedback in the most timely way.

2. Offer feedback during learning as well as at the end of a task/ assignment.

3. Check-in with students as they engage in a task.

4. Formalise 'check-ins' - allocate times for 'check-ins' during learning.

5. Engage in a feedback cycle > feedback > action > feedback > action and so on

6. Limit marking and focus on one or two areas for improvement so that feedback can be provided sooner rather than later.

Ensure you don't wait until the end of a task or assignment to offer feedback or leave too much time before offering feedback.

Vince Lombardi, a famous American football coach, once stated: Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. Only perfect practice makes perfect.

In classrooms it is important not to allow students to repeat a mistake or cement a misconception. By intervening promptly, teachers will promote effective feedback provided that they:

Feedback needs to be acted upon by the student. Providing too much feedback doesn't deepen the learning if the student doesn't need to think or do anything for themselves.

Much of the feedback offered to students can be less about improvement and more about corrections of mistakes the teacher has spotted. Comments and questions - such as 'You've missed something here.' or 'What should you have put there?' or 'What about these?' - require students to do very little thinking about the learning process.

Instead, pose more open questions to stimulate student thinking:

'Is there anything you could change to make that a proper sentence?'

'Read through this sentence and tell me what you think would make the sentence more descriptive.'

In addition, try to avoid correcting or annotating errors for the student - instead state or write comments that the student can understand and act upon.

Allow time to enact feedback

To demonstrate the importance of feedback, allocate time for feedback to be acted on. Since all feedback requires action, if the teacher wants students to take the feedback on-board, they need to provide the time to do this.

To support this process, teachers need to:

1. Allow time, opportunity and support for students to act on the information they receive
about their learning.

2. Set up routines so feedback can be enacted, for example:

read the comments

clarify the comments

act on the comments

seek peer feedback

re-submit work.

3. Break longer tasks into stages and provide feedback which is essential to the successful navigation of subsequent stages.

4. Expect to see changes/ improvements as a result of feedback.

Ultimately, the only effective feedback is that which is acted upon. This means feedback should be more work for the recipient than the donor.

How to implement feedback

The most important word in any teacher's vocabulary is 'yet'.

When a student says: 'I can't do it,' the teacher needs to respond with, 'You can't do it yet.'

In summary when implementing feedback:

give descriptive feedback where possible

focus on feedback that encourages students to think through their learning

avoid closed questions in favour of posing more open ended ones

keep feedback focused on what's important for the learner - product, process and self-regulation

restrict comments to key strengths and areas for improvement that will make the most difference

divide the time between collective, group, pair and individual feedback

ensure students understand the feedback and give them time and opportunity to respond to it

ensure opportunities for peer and self-feedback/reflection

identify something that was done well and something that needs improvement - and provide specific suggestions for how to improve

provide a range of improvement prompts to guide student learning - reminder prompts, scaffolded prompts and example prompts

ensure the feedback provided was useful in helping the student progress in their learning.

Feedback prompts

There are 3 types of prompts that can be used in the moment of teaching that Clarke (2003) has identified.

Range of prompts

Learning intention

Extract from writing

Reminder prompt

Scaffolded prompt

Example prompt

Why...?

(Justifying a statement)

To write a letter giving reasons for things you say.

'It was dismal.'

Say why you thought this.

Choose one of these or your own: It was dismal because I was bored all the time. / I found it dismal having only my grandad to talk to.

Why was it a dismal time? Why did you hate being there?

Feedback strategies

Use the following feedback strategies with students:

Use feedback sandwiches:

positive comment

constructive criticism with explanation of how to improve

positive comment or contextual comment: X was good ... because .... now/next time ...

Build reflection time into each lesson for feedback - teacher to student, student to student, student to teacher.

Use catchy abbreviations:

EBI: Even Better If

HTI: How to Improve

YNS: Your Next Steps

WWW: What Went Well.

Use a feedback sheet for students to record 'What I did well' and 'What I need to do to improve'.

Give students the opportunity at the feedback stage to write 1 or 2 questions they would like answered to support them in making the identified improvements.

Record comments in a Learning Log - students can then refer to these comments before they complete similar exercises.

Use symbols instead of writing too much.

Use a feedback structure such as:

find 2 successes against the success criteria: what students have achieved in relation to the learning intention/success criteria

find the part of the work that has most scope for an immediate 'jump' (not simply the worst part)

write a short prompt telling the student exactly what to do to this part of their work

provide time for them to read, process and respond to your prompt.

Three and one marking

Three and one marking, based on the work of Shirley Clarke on formative feedback, has 4 stages:

Stage 1. At the very beginning of new work/ assignment/ enquiry explain to the class that you will be changing the way you will mark their written work, in order to help them make more progress in the future.

Stage 2. Read all of the student's written work through very carefully before making any annotation. Next, highlight 3 places in the writing where the student best met the learning intention/s of the activity. Then indicate (for example, with a star) one place where an improvement can be made to the original work.

Stage 3. Draw an arrow to a suitable place near the star and write a 'close the gap' prompt to support the student in making an improvement to their work. This can be provided in a variety of different forms:

Reminder prompt - suitable for more able students. For example, 'Say more about ...' or 'Explain why you think this is ...'

Scaffold prompt - suitable for most students as it provides more structure to improve the work. For example, a question: 'Can you explain why ...?' or a directive: 'Describe some of the ....' or an unfinished sentence: 'She shows this by the way she ...'

Example prompt - particularly supportive of less able students. For example, 'Choose one of
these statements and/or create your own.' (Provide 2 valid statements for the pupil to select from or use as a model).

Stage 4:

Provide time in class to enable students to read and respond to the 'close the gap' comment.

Use this time to follow up individual needs with 1 or 2 specific students 'face to face'.

Comment upon their improvement at the first available opportunity.

Feedback frames

When using a success criteria rubric, older students can complete a frame themselves before receiving feedback to help them become competent self-assessors.

Stars and stairs

The 'Stars and stairs' frame could be used with younger students. The teacher can draw a 'star' or 'stairs' (a jagged line) on the student's work - with the star indicating what the student is doing well and the stairs indicating steps needed to improve.

For older students, label one section with 'That's Good' for success and 'Now This' for improvement feedback. To monitor the actions students take, add a section where students note what they did with the feedback and identify
one or more aspects that they think have really improved. This could be submitted with their improved work.

Feedback dialogue frame

Students complete the first part before receiving feedback. The teacher then provides the feedback on the form, and the student responds with the plan for what to do next. Source: Chappuis, (2012)

1. Details
Name:
Date:
Assignment/ task:
Feedback focus:

2. My opinion [student]:
- My strengths are:
- I think I need to work on:

3. Feedback [teacher]:
Strengths:
Work on:

4. My plan [student]: What I will do now

Teacher feedback form

Student name:
Title of work:
Conference time:

1. Some things you did successfully:
2. Some things you could improve on:
3. Next steps:
(Note: keep this feedback form to refer to as you revise your work.)

Peer feedback form

Your name:
Peer reviewer's name:
Title of project:
Two compliments about the work are:
Two suggestions about the work are:
(Note: have the peer reviewer use 'I' statements for this step:
- I would like to know more about...
- I am not sure what this means...
- I would like to know more details about...)
Any other ideas or comments:
(Note: keep this form to refer to as you revise the work.)

Traffic light feedback

Show feedback with a 'traffic light' motif - green (good), amber (okay) or red (incorrect). To do this, create a table with 5 columns and a row for each success criteria. Title the columns: Success criteria, Date, Feedback (this is where you include the traffic light), Action taken (to be completed by student) and Completed. (Source: Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010)

Clarke, S (2003). Enriching Feedback in the primary classroom. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Chappuis, J (2012, September). Leadership for Learning: How am I doing? Educational Leadership, 70(1).

Fisher, D. &amp; Frey, N (2012). Making time for feedback. Educational Leadership, 70 (1).

Hattie, J., &amp; Timperley, H. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1).

Stiggins, R. J., Arter, J. A., Chappuis, S., &amp; Chappuis, S. (2004). Classroom Assessment for Student Learning: Doing it right - Using it well. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

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Learn about 5 practices to promote effective feedback and a range of practical strategies to use in the classroom.

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5 Ways to Help Students Transfer Their Learning to New Situations

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5 Ways to Help Students Transfer Their Learning to New Situations

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As students gain content knowledge, their next step should be applying it to new problems and across academic disciplines.

As teachers, we all want our students to solve problems that incorporate content we just taught them. Or, we want them to illustrate how they can take knowledge from another discipline and apply it to our class. Often we are bogged down with suggestions from books or experts that are too time-consuming or take us away from the course content that we know is critical for students to learn. However, with a few simple adjustments, we can get students to engage in applying their learning in short order.

Applying Content Knowledge

While it may seem counterintuitive, getting students to apply their learning is the polar opposite of what they need to do when learning new content-based information. Applying learning is all about range-seeing across problems, evaluating multiple situations, and learning how to take what we already know and seeing where it may be helpful in real-world situations. Learning content knowledge is all about depth-defining and describing facts, comparing and contrasting those ideas to better understand key principles and practices within a discipline.

Let's take a look at the differences. Let's suppose a teacher wants students to learn how to count to 100. To develop depth, the teacher would provide direct instruction, guided practice, and independent practice. The students would then work on a problem-solving activity such as the Bright Idea 3-Act Task. However, to learn how to apply knowledge, students would need to compare and contrast the Bright Ideas problem with another word problem such as the Pringle Ringle. Here students are looking across problems rather than solving one problem. This latter activity is a core part of developing a student's ability to transfer.

In order to facilitate this process for students, we need an instructional tool kit to apply in the classroom or the Zoom room.

5 Tools to Support Students in Applying Their Learning

1. Create analogies from classroom-based problems: When you give students a problem, ask them to refrain from solving the problem and instead invent a new problem that is similar to the problem they were given. Again, if we go back to the math problems above, imagine if we would have asked students to create their own math word problem and present how the problem is similar and different from the Bright Idea and Pringle Ringle problems. This type of priming would have focused students on invention while simultaneously seeking the deeper understanding of mathematics.

2. Give kids problems that people outside the classroom are working on or discussing. Make sure that kids talk to those same people: When you give students a problem, provide them with opportunities to talk directly with people who are impacted or involved with such problems. If you're working on a problem associated with counting, have students talk with bankers, accountants, business officials, student council members, and store clerks to better understand the importance of counting and how it is used in a variety of fields. This certainly doesn't have to take an entire class period. One or two short video interviews should be enough to support students in understanding the importance and impact of what they're learning.

3. Give students more than one situation to evaluate: Make sure that students compare different situations that involve the same core content knowledge and skills. As discussed earlier, having students evaluate the Bright Idea and Pringle Ringle problems enables students to see the relationship of counting to both problems as well as the uniqueness of each problem's context (light bulbs and Pringles). One simple strategy to use is a Venn diagram. A Venn diagram is a strategy that allows students to fill out the differences between each situation and the commonality between both problems.

4. Change the context when students are solving a problem: Imagine for a moment that students were working to solve the Pringle Ringle problem and the teacher told the students to stop working on that problem and begin working on a new problem such as the Bright Idea problem. By providing a bit of cueing, students can evaluate their current work and compare it with the new problem.

5. View different perspectives: When evaluating a situation, teachers should challenge students to evaluate problems from different viewpoints. In mathematics, this may mean using visual representation of a solution versus an algorithmic solution. In science, this may require qualitative as well as quantitative data to make a judgment. In the humanities, this may require students to read a different perspective. All in all, these strategies enable students to step away from the core content they were focusing on and bring to bear information that has not yet been considered, including prior knowledge from different contexts.

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5 Ways to Help Students Transfer Their Learning to New Situations

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As students gain content knowledge, their next step should be applying it to new problems and across academic disciplines.

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Retrieval Practice: The Most Powerful Learning Strategy You´re Not Using

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Retrieval Practice: The Most Powerful Learning Strategy You´re Not Using

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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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MOOC EDSCI1x | Video 4: Spacing and Interleaving | Effective Teaching Strategies

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How to Study Using Spaced Practice Method 

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How to Study Using Spaced Practice Method 

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With the amount of new information students learn every day, remembering-and understanding-it all can be tough. Making sure your child develops the most effective study skills is the first step toward success.

One of the most effective study techniques students of every age can use is called spaced practice.

What Is Spaced Practice?

Spaced practice is a study technique where students review material over a long period of time. This gives their minds time to form connections between the ideas and concepts so knowledge can be built upon and easily recalled later.

Understanding The Spaced Practice Method

Before you understand how the spacing study method works, there's another important part of the equation: the forgetting curve.

The forgetting curve is how much knowledge is lost over time when our brains don't put in any effort to remember it. Just learning something once isn't enough. Your child needs to revisit that material and review it over time in order for it to really stick. Unless your child works to review the material he or she has learned, most of that material will be forgotten in a matter of days or weeks.
This is where spaced practice comes in.
How Does Spaced Practice Work?

The purpose of the spaced repetition method is to give your child a chance to (almost) forget before he or she revists the material. It sounds backwards, but it's actually important to forget in order to remember!

When our brains have almost forgotten something, it makes them work harder to recall that information. Spaced learning gives your child's brain a workout each time he or she revisits the material.

In a cram session, all the information is stored in your child's short-term memory (and quickly forgotten). When your child uses spaced learning, the material is able to make its way into his or her long-term memory instead.

That's why spaced learning works. Eventually, your child won't need to work to remember-he or she will be able to recall the information quickly from his or her long-term memory.

The first couple sessions, your child's brain will be working hard to recall the material. As your child revisits the material, it will become easier to remember and build upon.

Planning A Spaced Repetition Schedule

Creating a study schedule for spaced repetition can help your child better remember what he or she has learned. This will prepare him or her to build upon the information being learned so your child has a solid foundation for tests and future learning.

How To Use The Spaced Learning Method:

1. Plan short and frequent review sessions.

Short and frequent study sessions are better than long, infrequent ones. This gives your child a chance to recall what he or she has learned and make new connections, rather than trying to study everything at once. Make these study sessions ongoing throughout the year, not just something happens only when there is an upcoming test.

2. Review over an extended period of time.

Instead of trying to cram all of the material into a study session or two, set aside time each day to review. Divide the material into topics and tackle each over the course of a couple weeks. Alternate between topics, with longer periods of time between each session that focuses on a particular topic.

For example, if your child is starting a new unit in science class, devote a study session to it. Then, go back the next day to review again. After that, wait 3 days and review again. This pattern may look a bit different for each student, but a typical spaced repetition schedule might look like this:

Day 1: Initial study session
Next day: Revisit & Review
After 3 days: Revisit & Review
After 1 week: Revisit & Review
After 2 weeks: Revisit & Review

3. Review older material first.

As your child studies information from the most recent class, make sure to go back and study important older information to keep it fresh. With spaced practice, it's actually good to forget a little. In order to make studying effective, your child needs to study, almost forget, and then restudy. The point is to make the brain work to remember what was studied in the last session. The harder the brain is challenged to recall past material, the better your child will be able to remember it in the future.

4. Incorporate old material with new information.

As your child revisits previous material, he or she will also be learning new material. This is a chance for him or her to understand how old and new topics fit together. While your child is revising and reviewing past material, encourage him or her to think about how it connects to other things he or she is learning.

5. Create summaries and checklists.

During each study session, create brief summaries or lists. Each time your child revisits the material, use these summaries to jog his or her memory. This will make it easier for your child to incorporate new material into old information he or she has learned. It will also help keep him or her on track with the material being studied in each session.

Mastering Study Skills Is All About Practice

As your child gets into the habit of using spaced practice, he or she will be able to build a strong foundation for better performance in class and on tests. And if your child needs some extra help mastering study techniques, our Study Skills tutoring program can help!

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What Is Spaced Practice (And How To Use It) | Oxford Learning

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With the amount of new information students learn every day, remembering-and understanding-it all can be tough. Making sure your child develops the most effective study skills is the first step toward success. One of the most effective study techniques students of every age can use is called spaced practice.

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The Neuroscience behind Productive Struggle

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The Neuroscience behind Productive Struggle

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The Neuroscience Behind Productive Struggle

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Challenging tasks spur the production of myelin, a substance that increases the strength of brain signals. Here are four strategies to incorporate productive struggle into your lessons.

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Building Upon Students´ Prior Knowledge and Skills

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Building Upon Students´ Prior Knowledge and Skills

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Examples

Some students in a class had not been exposed to relevant material since their early high school years, while others more recently took a similar class and scored well on an advanced placement exam in their senior year. These students began performing better in class and were at a distinct academic advantage. In response, the instructor used placement test data to assess students' level of knowledge and provided optional enrichment to students on a voluntary basis outside of class.

Students did not develop strong writing skills in high school, but chose to pursue a major that involved essays and other written assignments. After the first writing assignment, the instructor noticed disparities in students' writing capabilities and encouraged students who needed extra support to hone their writing skills by working on their essays with the university writing center.

An instructor opened class by asking students to crowd-source their knowledge about Shakespeare in groups, and then pool their shared conclusions on the board. Responses ranged from a mix of accurate knowledge (date of birth, profession, common themes), to the inaccurate and misconceptualized (wrote "novels," never existed, avoided religious topics). The instructor addressed some misconceptions in class, and used responses to plan future conversations and assignments.

Recommendations

Implement a diagnostic assessment - Consider giving students a brief assessment at the beginning of the course (or an individual class) to measure prior knowledge or skills. This kind of assessment is typically low-stakes with no formal grade, and can be framed to the students as such (for instance, where appropriate, students can be told that they are not expected to know much of the information). It is fine for students to know that the purpose of the assessment is to ascertain the knowledge and skills they bring to the classroom in order to develop more effective instruction. Instructors may also consider readministering the assessment after instruction as a measure of learning. For some disciplines, concept tests or published concept inventories can be used to gauge students' prior knowledge.

Use multiple assessment strategies - An instructor can use multiple strategies to assess students' prior knowledge each class. This may involve strategies like discussion in small groups, Think-Pair-Share, 1-minute papers, anonymous surveys on Canvas, instructional tools like clicker questions or handouts, and more. These continual assessments help instructors monitor student learning in their classroom and address gaps and deficiencies as needed.

Target misconceptions directly - Once an instructor has identified student misconceptions and/or has referred to the literature and is aware of student misconceptions, they can encourage students to confront their own misconceptions and restructure their thinking. This may involve metacognition, or guided activities that ask students to analyze their own thought process and outline their grasp of an issue. It may also involve helping students reconstruct their knowledge in more accurate ways.

Build upon prior knowledge - After assessing students' prior knowledge and addressing misconceptions, the instructor can use assessment results to inform future instruction, connecting what students already know with new knowledge and understandings. Strategies include pointing to upcoming lessons, providing lesson or lecture roadmaps, inviting reflective writing, and active learning activities like concept maps or case studies. Hampshire College provides a helpful list of other activities for engaging student prior knowledge.

References

Ambrose, S., Bridges, M., Lovett, M., DiPietro, M., & Norman, M (2010). How Learning Works: 7 Research - Based Principles for Smart Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kurlaender M, Howell JS. (2012). Academic Preparation for College: Evidence on the Importance of Academic Rigor in High School. Advocacy & Policy Center Affinity Network Background Paper. College Board Advocacy & Policy Center.

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Building Upon Students' Prior Knowledge and Skills

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Examples Some students in a class had not been exposed to relevant material since their early high school years, while others more recently took a similar class and scored well on an advanced placement exam in their senior year. These students began performing better in class and were at a distinct academic advantage.