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Memory game for memorizing math facts within 10. I like giving my students a number talk and posting a rainbow and showing them the numbers within 10 that they can find on the ends of the rainbow that, when added, make 10. This really helps to advance the students and increase their mental math abilities.

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4th grade

Best ways to study

Study at one time a day as a routine and do it small spurts.

Flash cards are great for a memory tool. You can use them any where and for 4th grade we made multiplication study cards, but you could also do it with reading standards. Example what is the theme of blank story?

Have a specific goal for each study session.

Practice tests - We use this in 4th grade, we are currently practicing taking online tests, so that when SBAC rolls around the kids are ready.

Have a study area with tools

No music in the background music and no phone.

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Jillian Ebrahimi: Retrieval Practice Guide 

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Jillian Ebrahimi: Retrieval Practice Guide 

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This resource will help with processing and metacognition. This article reinforces best teaching practices and the transition from non-engaging "sit and get". The article explains how, "Struggling to learn – through the act of “practicing” what you know

and recalling information – is much more effective than re-reading, taking notes, or listening to lectures". I also found the direct connection to better metacognitive practices interesting. I can, and already do, implement these practices with Warm Ups, Exit Tickets, and White board review. This article helped me think differently about these strategies that I already use.

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How to Use Retrieval Practice to Improve Learning. Debora Vida

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How to Use Retrieval Practice to Improve Learning. Debora Vida

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"Often, we think we’ve learned some piece of information, but we come to realize we struggle when we try to recall the answer.

It’s precisely this “struggle” or challenge that improves our memory and learning – by trying to recall information, we exercise or strengthen our memory, and we can also identify gaps in our learning." I want to use this quote to encourage my students to embrace the struggle because that is where all the learning is. I've seen it in action where students struggle and want to give up but if you sit with them and give them the time and space and encourage them, most times they can recall and find that bit of information. The struggle makes it all worthwhile. It reminds me of running. I dread those long runs every Saturday but on race day I am so thankful I put in the practice. The brain is our largest muscle and we need to exercise it!

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Janet Roth

Third grade ELA

Most of what students need to retain is short term. Students struggle with spelling. I play a game called "Sparkle" to help them.

Students form a circle. I say the first spelling word. One student says the first letter, then the next student says the second letter. If a student misses the letters or does not know the word, they are out and have to sit down. At the end of the word, I say "Sparkle" and that student is out. I move onto the next spelling word.

This spelling game keeps students focused. Whoever wins the game, is in charge of the next game. I have noticed that students are doing better on their spelling tests.

Games are a good way to keep students engaged. They have fun and learn!

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Smart Strategies for Student Success (Nancy Ghidro)

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Smart Strategies for Student Success (Nancy Ghidro)

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Before class I would have been less inclined to use Brain Breaks feeling pressed for time. I like that the article emphasized their importance and suggested taking short breaks every 20 minutes to help students feel energized, refocused, and engaged in learning. The article also highlighted the strategies, Explain it to a Friend and Teach Your Brain. The first involved thinking aloud, while the second encouraged students to explain what they've learned in their own words. Another strategy I found valuable was the self-test for success. In my own classroom when we read to practice fluency,  I have the students create questions about the text which I believe reinforces their understanding and brings reading back to comprehension.

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Mind’s Eye:  An imaging activity that supports the reading process

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Mind’s Eye:  An imaging activity that supports the reading process

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Stacey Leavitt 2nd grade

While I introduce the vocabulary (power) words that go with our story I encourage the students to try connecting the words to predict what the story could be about. They love coming up with silly ideas.

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Karen Laskowski, 3rd Grade BRAIN Movies for Visualization

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Karen Laskowski, 3rd Grade BRAIN Movies for Visualization

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The first activity I chose Brain Movies. Several years ago, I started having my students close their eyes as I read a passage aloud and asked them to make a "Mind Movie." Struggling readers may have great oral comprehension and mind movies are a valuable tool to employ prior to attempting to read a passage. I do the same in math when we have word problems. I'll read the problem then ask the students to draw the problem. Many students draw a complete picture, while some draw pieces of the problem. These drawing lead to conversations about misunderstandings.

The second concept is from Why Students Forget and What To Do About It. When Sara mentioned that her students struggled with transferring their knowledge of writing to other classes, it made me think about the lack of knowledge transfer many of our 3rd graders have. They can perform within our homerooms, but the knowledge doesn't transfer easily in other settings. I think using the "spacing effect" would be a valuable tool because it allows for periodic review of learned skills.

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Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

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Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

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Jessica Collette - High School Math

Instead of relying on highlighting or massed practice, we can boost memory through low-stakes quizzing, retrieval practice, and interleaving skills. For example, short daily quizzes (including both recent and older material), spaced-out practice instead of cramming, and mixing problem types all strengthen long-term learning. Struggle is part of the process—when students say something feels hard, it may actually mean deeper learning is happening. To increase buy-in, we should be transparent with students about why we’re using these methods. These small shifts—daily retrieval, spaced practice, and varied tasks—make learning stickier and more durable in any classroom.

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Steven Rankin Grade 5. Smart Strategies for Student Success. This document highlights practices that a teacher facilitates so that students learn some effective strategies for learning. While I like all the strategies and use a variation of some already, I will focus on "Teach it to a Friend." I am going to use this today. We worked with 1 digit x 2 and 2 x 2. Today we are looking at 2 x 3 digits. I am going to have some students stand up in their groups and explain, using whiteboards how the process is the same. This will give them the variety they need, as well as allow them to move to a new location to learn. Let's see how it goes.

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Smart Strategies for Student Success

I use the strategy “explain it to your brain” in my class when I teach math.

Just as the example mentioned, I go through the steps aloud and I model how a student would do so. By self-explaining they are able to process the information and monitor their knowledge, checking themselves as they go. I find this tool very useful and use it often in my teaching. I also add choral response to get everyone engaged.

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Rosemary Ojumah Onyekonye

Students can succeed by using effective study techniques and resources, such as active learning, managing their time, and setting goals. They should also adopt a growth mindset and use campus support services. Essential habits for success include taking care of your well-being, regularly reviewing notes, asking for feedback, and communicating with instructors when you need assistance. To help students understand the connection between their individual learning goals and the overall goals of the unit, you should clearly demonstrate how their personal aims contribute to the broader objectives and standards set for the course just like setting smart goals, and IEP goals.

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In the article, Make It Stick: The Science of Sucessful Learning, about the cognitive psychology of learning, it stated that repetitive "drill and kill" isn't the best option for optimal retrieval skills. Our students can sometimes remember skills learned when content spirals, teachers use "low-stakes" quizzing frequently and allow for productive struggle.

I especially liked the idea of assessing in more "low-stakes" way rather than always pulling kids to my table to assess. In Kindergarten, using a "ticket IN the door" for a letter sound/name as the "secret password" could make learning this otherwise rote information in a new and fun way. Utilizing those good 'ol strategies like "find your match", etc. makes learning more fun and with less pressure while still allowing for real time assessment information for the teacher.

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Lisa Erickson

12th grade

I chose "Smart Strategies for Student Success" as a resource to use with my students. I teach seniors, and many of them will be starting college or some kind of training/job/career in a year. I would like to share with them the five strategies presented to help them be successful, self evaluate and to make adjustments to their habits when necessary. The five strategies are Explain It to Your Brain, Take Brain Breaks While Learning, Self-Test for Success, Make Schedules and Pace Your Practice, and Teach It to a Friend.

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Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

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Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

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Steven Buford

The purpose of the resource is to increase our understanding of learning (retention and recall) though frequent and brief mini-quizzes embedded throughout our lessons and daily classroom routines.

I will definitely bookmark this one and use more low-stakes quizzes more often, along with increasing the difficulty of formative assessments to achieve those important breakthroughs toward mastery.

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Name
Learning and Motivating Through Games

Purpose
To provide focus and motivation while increasing retention. The games grab students’ attention, spark curiosity, and set a clear purpose for learning. They promote active processing, metacognition, and frequent recall, helping students strengthen their long-term memory and apply concepts in new contexts.

How I Would Use It in My Classroom
In PE I’d weave these games into warm-ups, skill practice, and review: Icebreakers & Team Building – Use Snowball Fight or Stand Up–Hand Up–Pair Up at the start of a unit to build community and activate prior knowledge.

Skill & Concept Reinforcement – Adapt Draw It! or Jot Thoughts with fitness terms, game rules, or muscle groups so students recall and apply vocabulary while moving.

Review & Assessment – End a unit with Team Tournaments, Boggle, or Content BINGO using health, fitness, or sport-specific questions to check understanding and keep energy high.

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Isabel Nava : fourth grade The Power of Visualization in Math by Jeremiah Ruesch

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Isabel Nava : fourth grade The Power of Visualization in Math by Jeremiah Ruesch

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The Power of Visualization in Math highlights the importance of visual representations in math, as they can help students understand abstract concepts by making them concrete. We are familiar with typical scaffolds, such as tape diagrams, drawings, and place value blocks, etc. This teacher drew a cartoon and visuals that broke the problem into simpler parts. The takeaway is asking ourselves, "How might I represent this learning target visually?" to help students see the structure of the problems and make connections. By doing so, we can increase access, engagement, and, hopefully, joy in math learning

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Krissy Harmsma

K-5 PE

How to Teach Imaging

I could incorporate imaging to help students with memory in PE class by having them imagine each step of a skill. (Turn your body, your arm goes back...)

Using visual cues when describing movements (leap like you're hopping over puddles). Or at the end of an activity, students can close their eyes and visualize themselves doing the movement they just performed, then describe it to someone.

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Marine Baldzhyan

4th Grade

Learning and Motivating Through Games is a great resource to use in the classroom. I always try to find different ways to try to review content vocabulary and skills. Games always get students' attention and motivates them to learn. Some of the games like, Jot Thoughts, Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up and Snowball Fight, I am familiar with and have tried it before. ABC Preview/Review and Commercial Breaks seem interesting. I think my students will enjoy learning through those games. I will try to incorporate them in my classroom.

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Terra Thornton 3 SMART STrategies for Students

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Terra Thornton 3 SMART STrategies for Students

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This article discusses the importance of brain breaks every 20 minutes. I attempt to follow this but without wasting instructyional time. I pull students to the carpet for whole group lessons and will purposly have them go back to their desk to grab new materials every 30 minutes to transition to another activitiy or by using a Hand-up, stand-up, pair up, Kagan activity for students to share their responses. In the afternoon, I take the students outside for an 8 minute recess.

I also like the idea of explaining a concept to themselves. I typically have them explain something to their partner, but yesterday I had students explain paragraphs of their reading to themselves by annotating.

A strategy I will try is to have students make flash cards on questions that they think will be on the test. This is called, "Self Test for Success". I have never heard of this before so I/m excited to use it.

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My name is Rebecca Witalka, and I am a K-5 Librarian. I picked Snowball Fight from Teaching through Games. The purpose of this activity is to grab attention and help recalling information. For this activity, students are divided in half. They write something on paper, wad it up, and throw it across the room. Another person picks up the "snowball" and had to find the match or the person who wrote it. I would use this activity as an introduction to each other at the beginning of the year, through out the year to work on key terms (i.e. call numbers in the library, vocabulary in books we are reading), during Battle of the Books to practice answering questions about the books, and at the end of the year to say goodbye and share summer plans. This activity is very adaptable and sounds engaging!

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Stephanie Buford

I chose to read this article because I struggle with remembering the little things. I found it interesting that the article to said to mix it up and do other things in between and that will help you remember better. Instead of drill and kill! I actually decided to try that with my 6 math fundamentals class. I feel like I have tried everything else and nothing seems to be working with these students.

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3rd Grade.

One thing I hear a lot from my students is, “I forgot.” It usually comes up when I ask them questions about something we covered in a previous lesson. I know they’re trying, but sometimes the information just doesn’t stick. To help with that, I’m planning to introduce a few simple but powerful strategies in my classroom: “Explain it to your brain,” “Take a brain break,” and “Teach it to a friend.”

For reading and comprehension, I’ll be encouraging students to “explain it to their brain.” This self-talk strategy helps them slow down and actually make sense of what they’re learning by putting it into their own words. It might feel a little silly at first, but I’ve seen how this kind of reflection really helps things click.

I also want to be more intentional about brain breaks—especially using Kagan structures to give students time to move, reset, and recharge. Sometimes, just getting up and interacting with a classmate for a few minutes can make a big difference in their focus and energy.

When it comes to math, I’ll be using the “teach it to a friend” strategy. Explaining a concept out loud to someone else forces students to think more deeply and really understand the “why” behind what they’re doing—not just the steps. Plus, they often help each other in ways I can’t, simply because they speak the same “kid language.”

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Jacob Bronkema - 7th grade Algebra 1

Strategy: Explain It to Your Brain

This strategy helps students practice metacognition by talking through their thought process while learning. The purpose is to provide focus, encourage self-monitoring, and support students in connecting new information with what they already know. It also builds independence as students learn to check for understanding, notice gaps in their thinking, and correct mistakes in real time.

In my Algebra 1 classroom, while teaching graphing linear equations, I would model this strategy at the board. For example, I might say aloud: “The equation is y = 2x + 3. I know the slope is 2, which means rise over run is 2/1. The y-intercept is 3, so I’ll start by plotting the point (0,3). From there, I go up 2 and right 1 to plot another point. Now I can draw my line through these points.” After modeling, I would have students pair up and practice talking through their process for graphing their own equations. Over time, the goal is for them to silently “explain it to their brain” as they work independently.

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I incorporate this strategy to my class in writing notes, and doing card sorts. We are now on representing proportional relationships in various forms. Students were given graphs, equations, and illustrations to show proportional relationships between two quantities. Pictures such as cups of water and cups of flour, and equivalent pictorial representations help student remember the concept.

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Shelley Ives

Teaching Through Games

Two strategies/ideas I like are Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up and ABC Preview/Review. Both of these strategies engage the brain in reviewing and learning.

I like the Stand Up, because it gets kids moving. I have two classes in particular which would benefit from the students moving. I have them at the part of the day in which they have not moved around enough and cannot focus on work until they move more!

I like the idea of ABC Review/Preview. I like to have students use it as a brain dump prior to testing so they can evaluate what they are remembering and not remembering. I have done this doublesided and had studetns fill one side out with major ideas/terms as we go, then for review write everything they remember.

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I read the article, "Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. In the article, the author mentions that "things like repeating an action over and over to reinforce muscle memory or distributing a review sheet of key points to students before an exam" is an ineffective way for our students to learn. Instead we should add more low-stakes quizzing, space out our practice and mix it up with other things, and allow our students the opportunity for productive struggle, even if it is hard for us to watch!

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Why Students Forget—and What You Can Do About It

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Why Students Forget—and What You Can Do About It

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I like the strategy of the "The spacing effect".  It explains that instead of covering a topic and then moving on, revisit key ideas throughout the school year. I would like to implement this strategy in my class by writing important ideas using web maps on a flipchart and post this in front of the class. This way we can review and it will be helpful for my students to remember.

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Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up

Purpose: provide focus, grab attention, set goals, reflection, metacognition, processing

Amplify Science Curriculum requires a lot of collaborations among students. Aside from Kagan, this strategy will allow learners to communicate with those that may be seated away from them or in any case randomly. This can be used in many different collaboration approaches in class. It is easy to instruct and very quick to execute.

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Marcia Klink

The purpose of this resource is to be cognisant of how to support students in learning material.

I agree with giving students more formative assessments which then turn into spiral reviews. Having spiral reviews are so important to be able to have the new material to make its way to long term memory.

I also agree with being transparent that learning sometimes doesn't feel good. Learning is the result of failing and trying again over and over again. Students often feel like they need to immediately get the material and if they do not understand it right away, that they are not good at something. Having more discussions with students about the need for struggle and the embracing of struggle in learning is important.

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Purpose: To make learning active, engaging, and memorable by promoting recall, critical thinking, and social interaction.

How I would use it in my high school science class: I would use Pictionary for science vocabulary (e.g., “plate tectonics”), Jeopardy for unit reviews, and Content Bingo to activate prior knowledge about topics like minerals or ecosystems. These games help students recall information, collaborate, and apply concepts in fun, meaningful ways. By combining competition with creativity, students stay motivated while strengthening long-term understanding of science content.

- Cladys Falcunaya