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St Bede's Retrieval Practice INSET 29/03/2023

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St Bede's Retrieval Practice INSET 29/03/2023

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Five Ways. A series of short posts summarising some everyday classroom practices. It’s now very common practice for teachers to begin a lesson with some form of retrieval practice activity. T…

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Example of a Take 5 Template - Stater Activities

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Example of a Take 5 Template - Stater Activities

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Retrieval Practice - The Basic Breakdown

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Retrieval Practice - The Basic Breakdown

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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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Alex Quigley - Top 10 Tips for Memory For Learning. 

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Alex Quigley - Top 10 Tips for Memory For Learning. 

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We can all imagine our own personal hell of terminal exams, stacked on top of one another, with acres of knowledge to remember. It is the stuff of sleepless nights, for teachers and for our students. And yet, if we teach with memory in mind all the time, we can mitigate our students' stresses (and our own!) we can make a habit of remembering and learning effectively. 'Memory for learning' is not the stuff of last night revision - it should prove a basic tenet of all of our teaching and our students' learning.

With all that in mind, here are some ideas

'Memory for learning' - Top Ten Tips

Students need to think hard if they are to remember what they learn. Of course, their brain can be active, fizzing with ideas and connecting up concepts, without them leaving their seat. 'Active learning' in this sense means thinking hard and not passively receiving information. Rather than re-reading class notes, a student summarises the key ideas from the notes and using a graphic organiser to reshape the content into a new, meaningful pattern. The student is actively grappling with the content, reshaping, rehearing, challenging, connecting and more, in novel and creative ways.
2. Using song or rhythm
We know that students remember the words of songs and can sing them verbatim. Using rhythm or songs and chanting them can help them remember concepts. There are many already written and prepared on YouTube, but would be more valuable if the students come up with them on their own. I am sure there aren't any Year 11 students who do not know the order of the waves in the electromagnetic spectrum due the YouTube song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjOGNVH3D4Y. What, not you? Well, you're missing out!
3. Students teaching students
Create opportunities for students to take over the teaching. Ask a group of students to create a presentation on part of the topic. They then deliver this to the whole class. Students will have to be really familiar with the concepts in order that they can teach it. Materials they produce need to be vetted and prepared in advance; roles need to be explicit, alongside timing etc. Planning time is essential, but with clear guidance this strategy really can enhance deeper learning. By harnessing the 'wisdom of crowds' we can provide rich feedback and deeper learning ( WARNING: if it lacks structure and is poorly led, it could prove a big fat waste of time!).
4. Mnemonics and rhymes
These, often rude, tricks can prove to be larger than life ways to remember a sequence of events. Be careful that they remember the sequence of events as well as the rude rhyme. This is a great website the not only explains the use of mnemonics really effectively, but it also presents some good explanation of how and why of 'chunking', combining, using graphics and stories: http://www.virtualsalt.com/learn1.html.
5. Quizzing
Quizzing is one of the ultimate memory strategies. It has to be regular but not too close together, it has to be repeated and it needs to be cumulative. By quizzing/testing we are ensuring that they continue to remember. In the book 'Making it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning', they advocate periodic quizzing and testing as recalling facts from memory is more effective than just rereading them. This blog article, by the omni-excellent Andy Tharby, has some good strategies for close questioned quizzing: https://reflectingenglish.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/closed-question-quizzing-unfashionable-yet-effective/ .

6. Memory Palace
This idea has gained prominence as both Sherlock Holmes and Derren Brown advocate the use of it. And what teacher doesn't take their lead from Derren? It is a classic mnemonic device, or memory aid, it improves one's ability to remember and recall information quickly. One of the most elaborate devices ever created, a memory palace is an intricate way to store information in the "rooms" of one's mind. Take the time to watch this great video by Joshua Foer on building a memory palace:
7. Revision flash cards
These should not be just facts that they can remember but should rather have questions on one side and answers on the back. They can use them to test themselves and also use them for parents and /or students to test them. They are another proven example of effective, 'active' learning, drawing on the power of 'retrieval practice'. The ' Leitner system' is a good method for using them for learning - see here: http://www.virtualsalt.com/learn10.html.
8. Deconstruct-rebuild
Students are encouraged to explore concepts by deconstructing them and then rebuilding them, preferably in their own words and with their own pathways being forged. Creating ' concept maps', for example, is a well proven strategy. Take a look at this comprehensive 'concept map' guide here: http://www.schrockguide.net/concept-mapping.html.
9. Exam/study buddies- group revision
This approach brings lots of benefits. Be specific about your approach to collaborative revision. Get pairs/groups to look at questions and how they might go about answering them, using each person's ideas and memory to answer the question, rather than just rehashing the same content. This ' collaborative retrieval ' is a proven memory strategy.
10. Pictures and images - Memory by Association
Not unlike the 'Memory palace', students should be encouraged to form associations between words and images, in order that they might remember them better. From using symbols to represent key ideas or words, to doodling and sketching out knowledge into unique structures and patterns, the 'picture superiority effect' is a thing. These concrete images can help better store complex information. As we can see from the list, when we process the tricky subject content into different modes: spoken, written and the visual image, we provide ourselves with more memorable cues.

Come on, who doesn't love a memorable image?

Related

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We can all imagine our own personal hell of terminal exams, stacked on top of one another, with acres of knowledge to remember. It is the stuff of sleepless nights, for teachers and for our students. And yet, if we teach with memory in mind all the time, we can mitigate our students' stresses (and our own!)

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Rosenshein's Principles - Daily, Weekly, Monthly Review

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Rosenshein's Principles - Daily, Weekly, Monthly Review

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Rosenshine Masterclass IV Daily Weekly Monthly Review

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How Can We Help Our Students Love Quizzing?

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How Can We Help Our Students Love Quizzing?

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I (Megan) teach mostly Juniors and Seniors at Rhode Island College. But, I still start every class with a lesson on effective study strategies. At Rhode Island College, many students commute to school and have jobs outside of school (and in the United States, recent census data suggest 71% of the 19.7 million undergraduate students work while in college), so making sure the time they dedicate to studying is effective is especially important. (And, what college student has too much free time, anyway?) The students seem to like this, and are interested to hear about ways to make their study time more effective and efficient. Most of them enthusiastically take notes, and are excited to try the retrieval method I suggest. It is very similar to the methods we have blogged about in the past (e.g., Be Your Own Teacher: How to Study a Textbook), and based on the reaction from the /r/getStudying subReddit, it seems to be generally quite popular!

Yet over the semesters, at RIC and other institutions where I have taught, I have noticed the enthusiasm that cultivates at the beginning of the semester waning as we push further into the semester. At first, this surprised me. I'd wonder why my students did not fall in love with testing themselves. Why weren't they recalling the information, making connections between different concepts from class, making connections between the concepts in my class to other classes, and connecting the concepts to real world examples? The scientist in me was perplexed.

My students didn't seem to be practicing recall on their own as much as I wanted. But that certainly didn't prevent them from getting a lot of retrieval practice in the classroom. As a teacher, I integrate recall of material directly into the class to help my students learn. For example, before an exam, we often play a review game where I split the class into two teams and they compete with each other answering questions. I also give my students surprise extra credit quizzes regularly. I present two or three questions - usually about how concepts are similar or different from one another and asking for novel examples - and students who are in class that day can write answers in their blue books (those little exam booklets typically used for essay exams). If they answer correctly, I give them extra credit points. In my opinion, this is almost as low-stakes as a test can get! We talk about the questions and answers in the next class, so students are getting feedback.

This simple exercise helps the class in many ways (1). The act of recalling the information is directly helping them learn, and there are many indirect effects as well: The extra credit quizzes encourage students to attend class (they never know when they might get extra credit), they have to keep up with the material and pay attention in class or they won't know the answers to the quizzes (2), it gives students feedback about what they know and don't know, and it gives me feedback about what students generally understand and where the class as a whole is struggling so that I can adjust my teaching methods. And that's not even all the 10 benefits of testing (see picture, or go to the paper)! Plus, when I walk into the classroom with a stack of blue books, usually a symbol of the much hated essay exam, my students whisper "yessssss" in excitement. I realize the excitement is more about the extra credit opportunity than the fact that they get to practice recall, but any excitement associated with recall is welcome.

But even with all of the recall going on during class, I want my students to use effective study strategies on their own. Why would we want students to waste precious time reading the textbook over and over again, when we know that doesn't produce learning?

Unfortunately, there's hasn't yet been a systematic empirical investigation into the reasons behind the lack of love for self-testing amongst students. Based on her own research and reading of the literature, as well as talking to students, Yana frequently includes the following slide in her cognitive psychology class when speculating on why students don't self-test:

In our next post, we discuss how we overcome some of these barriers in our own classes.

(1) Roediger, H. L., Putnam, A. L., & Smith, M. A. (2011). Ten benefits of testing and their applications to educational practice. In J. Mestre & B. Ross (Eds.), Psychology of Learning and Motivation: Cognition in Education (pp. 1-36). Oxford: Elsevier.

(2) Weinstein, Y., Gilmore, A. W., Szpunar, K. K., & McDermott, K. B. (2014). The role of test expectancy in the build-up of proactive interference in long-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(4), 1039-1048.

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I (Megan) teach mostly Juniors and Seniors at Rhode Island College. But, I still start every class with a lesson on effective study strategies. At Rhode Island College, many students commute to school and have jobs outside of school (and in the United States, recent census data suggest 71% of the 19.7 million undergraduate students work while in college), so making sure the time they dedicate to studying is effective is especially important.

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Daily, Weekly and Monthly Review - Video and Activities

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Daily, Weekly and Monthly Review - Video and Activities

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In keeping with @87History's popular retrieval practice challenge grids idea and linked post, I created some templates to help people.

Retrieval Practice Challenge Grids to use this term - pupils to answer questions based on previous subject content. Recap, recall & revise! #TeachUAEchat #PedagooFriday #AussieEdchat #UKEdchat 🇦🇪📚 pic.twitter.com/yCWOGZOPdk

- Kate Jones (@87History) January 4, 2018

There are 3 grids per template with varying sizes:

I've saved them into different formats depending on what tools you use too:

I have made the font Arial so it will present correctly to you but you can change them however you see fit.

You do not need to request access to the templates, you simply need to choose to download the template and then you can use them how you see fit.

I hope that you find them useful. You can access and share the templates via this short link >> bit.ly/rpchallengegridtemplates

Kate has blogged about this in more depth on her site here.

Thanks!

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Retrieval Practice Challenge Grid Templates

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In keeping with @87History's popular retrieval practice challenge grids idea and linked post, I created some templates to help people. Retrieval Practice Challenge Grids to use this term - pupils to answer questions based on previous subject content. Recap, recall & revise!

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History teacher of KS3 and KS4. All resources are my own. If you download a resource please consider giving a rating and review. Feedback very welcome. Thankyou.

Thank you for sharing!

Thanks, it saved me the time of making one.

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History teacher of KS3 and KS4. All resources are my own. If you download a resource please consider giving a rating and review. Feedback very welcome. Thankyou.

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See other similar resources

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History teacher of KS3 and KS4. All resources are my own. If you download a resource please consider giving a rating and review. Feedback very welcome. Thankyou. Thank you for sharing! Thanks, it saved me the time of making one. Report this resourceto let us know if it violates our terms and conditions.

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Tom Sherrington - Rehearsal First, Retrieval Practice Next

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Tom Sherrington - Rehearsal First, Retrieval Practice Next

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Rehearsal first; retrieval practice later – an important distinction.

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In December, Efrat Furst delivered a superb masterclass as part of our In Action series where she explained the stages of learning using the models used in her brilliant blog posts such as Within t…

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Bradley Busch - Author of "The Science of Learning"

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Bradley Busch - Author of "The Science of Learning"

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BLOG - The benefits of Retrieval Practice.

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BLOG - The benefits of Retrieval Practice.

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Retrieval practice may well be our best bet for helping students learn and retain information. As well as playing a key role within the classroom, retrieval practice is arguably one of the most effective ways to revise.

Retrieval practice is a learning strategy that has been very well studied, with research consistently demonstrating its effectiveness. But exactly makes it so effective? What are the underlying mechanisms of retrieval practice that helps students learn at a faster rate? Let's take a closer look to find out...

What is retrieval practice?

Retrieval practice is essentially the process of generating an answer to a question. Not only does it allow students to test how much they have retained of a certain piece of information, it exercises their retrieval of it.

Research has shown that not only is retrieval practice a highly effective learning strategy, but also that its effects can be seen across many different disciplines, including vocabulary, maths and science.

There are many ways to apply retrieval practice practically, with strategies including:

Using past papers

Doing multiple-choice tests

Using flashcards

Answering questions out loud

Writing down everything you remember

Sketching your answer out

Why is retrieval practice effective?

To understand why retrieval practice is an effective learning strategy, we must first understand how memory works.

Real and deep learning happens when we transfer information from our short-term memory stores into our long-term memory stores. Retrieval practice supports this process because it requires students to recall previously-learned information. This creates stronger memory traces and increases the chance that the information is retained.

What are the benefits of retrieval practice?

We have established how retrieval practice works and that it is highly effective for learning, but what specific benefits are there to using retrieval practice?
1. Identifies gaps in knowledge

Using retrieval practice techniques can make gaps in students' knowledge of a certain topic or concept a lot more obvious. For example, if a student is asked to explain a certain concept out loud in detail and isn't able to, they may realise that this is an area of knowledge that needs more revision.

Identifying these gaps in knowledge is important, and students should make sure that they go over these gaps again to retain the relevant information. Continuously re-evaluating which areas of knowledge need more attention than others is vital to top performance in the classroom.

2. Makes connections

Research has shown that expending more cognitive effort on a task may result in better performance.

Retrieval practice is an active process, requiring lots of cognitive effort. Students who engage with retrieval practice strategies are therefore thinking harder about the information that they have to remember, and make inferences and connections with previously-learned information. This may help consolidate and bring together a wide range of academic information, resulting in improved academic performance.

3. Checks for misunderstandings

Similarly to identifying gaps in knowledge, retrieval practice is able to clearly point out to students if they have misunderstood a certain concept. For example, if a student uses retrieval practice strategies in order to study a specific topic and answers a question incorrectly, they may notice that they have misunderstood an entire concept or key idea.

Identifying misunderstandings is vital to making sure that students understand the whole concept and are able to explain it. Students should make sure to keep evaluating their knowledge, going over areas that may be confusing. This is where areas such as metacognition become important.

4. Strengthening connections

It is not enough for students to have previously made connections within their schema. Unfortunately, we all forget far more than we would like, with this rate of forgetting being quite steep. Therefore, one round of retrieval practice isn't enough. We have to repeat this process regularly, in order to imbed and cement it.

Using different strategies to revise the same content over and over strengthens the connections made between new information and previously-learned information even further.

5. Makes connections robust under pressure and stress

Stress is like kryptonite to memory. Our focus of attention becomes very narrow, meaning it is hard to search for a range of alternative explanations. This is one of the reasons students may find exams stressful .

And yet, research has demonstrated that students who revised using retrieval practice actually feel less anxious and are also more likely to recall key information when under increased pressure (i.e. in their final exams).

6. Makes it easier to learn new things

This one is a bonus benefit of retrieval practice. We have previously blogged about the Matthew Effect , which describes how the rich get richer - the same is true for knowledge and memory. The more you know, the easier it is to learn new information, as you have more existing anchor points to hook this new information on to.

As retrieval practice is one of the most effective and efficient ways to learn things, it therefore it provides a firm foundation for future learning as well.

Final thoughts

Retrieval practice is clearly a highly researched and highly effective strategy to help students learn information. Overall, retrieval practice makes learning more efficient. It helps students in a range of ways; from identifying gaps in knowledge, to making and strengthening connections, to helping perform in pressurised situations.

As with anything, it is of course possible to do retrieval practice badly. Careful consideration around implementation is always needed. But done right, may well prove to be the most beneficial strategy for student learning.

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The 6 benefits of retrieval practice - a visual guide

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Retrieval practice may well be our best bet for helping students learn and retain information. As well as playing a key role within the classroom, retrieval practice is arguably one of the most effective ways to revise. Retrieval practice is a learning strategy that has been very well studied, with research consistently demonstrating its effectiveness.

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Kitchen Pedagogy: Vary the Diet of Retrieval Practice

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Kate Jones - Author of "Retrieval Practice - Research and Resources for Every Classroom"

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Kate Jones - Author of "Retrieval Practice - Research and Resources for Every Classroom"

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Tom Sherrington's 10 Techniques for Retrieval Practice.

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Tom Sherrington's 10 Techniques for Retrieval Practice.

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I've written about retrieval practice several times in other posts but here I just want to make it easy to lay out various alternative methods for the process of reviewing your students' knowledge and understanding. Before doing that, I would suggest that there are some key principles:

1. Involve everyone: Good techniques involve all students checking their knowledge, not just a few and not just one at a time as you might do when questioning.

2. Make checking accurate and easy: it should be possible for all students to find out what they got right and wrong, what they know well and where they have gaps. Every technique involves students testing their knowledge and then checking their work for accuracy and completeness. (This is not the same as giving students extended mark schemes to mark longer assessments which, for me goes beyond a simple retrieval practice activity)

3. Specify the knowledge: Where appropriate, it's better if students know the set of knowledge any retrieval will be based on, so they can study, prepare and self-check. It must be possible for students to check their own answers which has implications for the way the knowledge requirements are laid out.

4. Keep it generative: students need to explore their memory to check what they know and understand; this means removing cue-cards, prompts, scaffolds and cheat-sheets; it means closing the books and thinking for themselves.

5. Make it time efficient: The idea of each technique is that they can be used repeatedly in an efficient manner without dominating whole lessons.

6. Make it workload efficient: None of these methods involve the teacher checking the students' answers, creating unsustainable workload. A teacher might choose to check the occasional test but that's no use for routine practice.

1. Quick Fire Quiz
Everyone know this one but it can still be done well or badly: Teacher reads out the question or presents them via slides or an audio tape (eg in MFL). The questions can be spontaneously generated or prepared. Questions can be simple factual recall, mental maths or multiple choice;

All students write down their answers. Teacher reveals the answers, one by one or all at once. Students check which they got right. Swapping answers to check is an option but it can be a faff and takes away from the message that students need to be evaluating the depth of their own learning. If you've prepared this in advance, it is much more time efficient if students can see the answers all at once to check rather than wait for each to be read out.

It's important that the teacher discusses common wrong answers - which is one of the main functions. If you can do lots of confidence-building questions quickly (rather than deliberately hard ones) - you can get a great buzz of enjoyment. Knowing things is fun!
2. Paper Quiz
Everyone gets a copy of the questions and writes down answers at their own pace within a time limit. This is much less teacher-directed. It frees the teacher up to circulate and spot common errors as they emerge. It allows for a wider range of question types and makes it easier to engage in with worded questions that can be hard to read from a slide.

The checking process is much better done with pre-prepared answers rather than reading out answers one by one. Why? Because it is quicker, allows for more detail in the answers, it allows students to focus on things they got wrong and helps to build their capacity for self-assessment.
3. Silent Self-Quiz
Try this. Which ones do you know? (Answer provided)

How well can you learn these labels? (Test and then check)

In a test like this, students can generate answers and then check if they were right, silently and privately. They can repeat this multiple times. Any number of resources can be used - blanked diagrams, cue cards with answers on the back, maths questions with answers kept separately. This process keeps the outcome of the assessment with the student - the most important place! They learn what they know and don't know. You can then discuss common errors and problems. It saves a lot of time with asking questions and marking them - all of that is done mentally by the students.
4. Paired Quiz.
Here, we start using Dylan Wiliam's excellent strategy: Activating students as resources for one another. In order to maximise the extent of retrieval practice that goes on, it is fantastic to get students to quiz each other in pairs. One student has the material - questions, answers, cue cards, knowledge organiser, text - and asks the other student questions. "Test me" - it's a well-used technique and can be harnessed in lessons. Give a time limit and then get them to swap around. You get a room full of students checking their knowledge. I've seen this done in superbly well in languages where the teacher circulated to check for accent issues and common errors listening in to the multiple paired quizzing dialogues.
5. Self-Explanation
Beyond simple recall, ask students to explain something to themselves. You simply give students a few silent moments to complete a mental task. They have to generate a version of what they understand that they can either then self-check or write down or use to respond to further question. However the process of mental rehearsal is important.. making this explicit helps to train those who don't do it spontaneously.

What is the story of Henry VIII's Six Wives? Run through it... then check.
6. Demonstration and Performance
Of course LOTS of knowledge isn't simply quiz-able declarative knowledge. You can ask students to show what they know: a procedure; a technique; a routine. Have you learned it? Show me... Of course as a student shows what they can do to a teacher, they are showing themselves what they can do. This is important. Again, the intensity and frequency can be amplified by getting students to show each other in pairs rather than one-by-one with the teacher, as long as they have the tools to evaluate success. This is common in practical areas and performance areas - sport, music, art - but it also has a role in science, maths, English where the modelling process could be framed as 'teaching'. eg teaching the class how to answer a maths problem.
7. Paired or individual elaborative-interrogation
A form of quizzing that can be done in pairs or as a silent private process, is elaborative interrogation. This is where students explore their schema by answering How and Why questions.

Why does this happen? How does it work? Why does it work? Why did she say that? Why do you use that structure? Why is that the most important reason? How do you know?

If you train students to use some of these question stems and give them resources that help them to verify the answers, this makes for a deep retrieval practice exercise
8: Tell the story; rehearse the explanation
Lots of knowledge forms a narrative structure - a series of events, a process, cause and effect. So, the retrieval practice can be formed as 'telling the story' to someone else who can play the role of verifier. Any explanation can then be improved and rehearsed. You can get better at telling a story in more detail.

Here are some examples. Tell the story of a water molecule as if follows the water cycle: (with or without key words provided)

Why does the sun rise in the East?.... How good was your friend's answer? Now you have a go...

Of course this material can be used for self-explanation in the first instance.
9: Summarising
This is a useful recall process although it is less precise in terms of checking - because every summary can be different. A retrieval process can be something like:

Last week we looked at renewable energy. Summarise the main advantages and disadvantages of a wind farm: Go! .

Then show your definitive response for checking:
10. Map and Compare
This method is where you want to check students' capacity to make links. Ask them to make a memory map of the key aspects of a topic... eg: Reactions of Metals OR Themes in Hamlet OR Generating Electricity. These things can be much tighter sections of knowledge too: Types of radiation; the key events and figures in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Students then make mind-maps in a quick, memory -dump style before checking against a good resource - their knowledge organiser, exercise book or a teacher-completed version: What did you get right? What did you miss out completely?

Trial by Ordeal? What can you remember? Go.....

Further reading: Check out these documents. The summaries by @olicav are superb but also read the original papers they relate to.

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Image Credit: https://emptechgroup.com/the-internet-of-things/ I've written about retrieval practice several times in other posts but here I just want to make it easy to lay out various alternative methods for the process of reviewing your students' knowledge and understanding. Before doing that, I would suggest that there are some key principles: Involve everyone: Good techniques involve...

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