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Making Learning Stick INSET January 2020 

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Making Learning Stick INSET January 2020 

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Learning for the long term and how retrieval practice can enhance this- January INSET 2020 (RC)

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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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A summary sheet from January INSET 2020

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Retrieval practice is a teaching and learning strategy underpinned by cognitive science. It is a well-researched method that helps improve students' knowledge retention of new information and recall of previously learned content.
This article offers practical advice for primary and secondary teachers to implement retrieval practice in class. While the advice applies to all subjects to help improve students' learning, this article focuses on maths.

What is retrieval practice?

Retrieval practice involves actively recalling information from long-term memory to improve learning and recall.

This research-based approach is one of the most powerful learning strategies students can use to retain information. Practise daily with the whole class to familiarise students.

Retrieval practice is significantly more effective at improving students' performance on assessments compared to more traditional methods of revision. For this reason, retrieval practice is known as the testing effect or test-enhanced learning.

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The cognitive science

Cognitive scientists make the science of learning accessible to anyone interested in understanding how human memory works and why retrieval practice is an effective revision tool for all learners.

The multi-store model of memory proposes three distinct stores, each characterised by a unique duration and capacity.

Sensory memory allows people to process a vast amount of information simultaneously, but only for a split second. People subconsciously scan their environments for something noteworthy. When a piece of information captures attention, it enters into the short-term memory where it can stay for approximately 18-30 seconds without requiring much effort.

To retain information for longer, rehearse it in the short-term memory or encode it into the long-term memory.

Encoding information requires deliberate effort, often using:

Repetition

Elaborate processing

Memory techniques

Once information enters the long-term memory, such as 'the hypotenuse is the longest side of a right-angled triangle', it can remain there indefinitely. The new challenge is to effortlessly recall information when needed. This is the purpose of retrieval practice.

Research suggests that long-term memory stores information in groups of related information, called schema. Each time a person retrieves information from a schema, the pathway to that piece of information and the related information becomes stronger. This means it is easier to retrieve information from that schema in the future.

Although the capacity and duration of the long-term memory is extensive, memories can decay over time if they are inactive for too long or the pathway to the memory can become lost.

It is normal for rapid decay to occur shortly after initial learning unless there is an opportunity to quickly recall learned information. The rapid decay decreases with each subsequent retrieval. This means the length of time between retrievals can increase without impacting the level of detail remembered.

9 Benefits of retrieval practice

When students have regular opportunities to actively retrieve prior learning, they perform significantly better on assessments compared to randomised control groups who have reread their notes or revised using their preferred method.

In addition to enhanced performance on assessments, retrieval practice also offers the following benefits:

1. Enhances memory recall

Students become more accurate at recalling information after multiple episodes of retrieval practice. Deliberate practice means they become faster at recalling the information and can remember it in more detail.

2. Improves understanding and comprehension

Retrieval practice helps students understand connected pathways in their long-term memory each time they recall information. This helps them understand how to learn maths draw parallels and make comparisons between similar topics.

3. Increases transfer of knowledge to new contexts

When recalling information becomes effortless, students find it easier to apply their knowledge to different contexts. This is because it frees up space in their working memory, allowing them to fully focus on applying their knowledge instead of focusing on recalling the information.

4. Long-term retention of information

Each retrieval attempt strengthens students' memory and the information becomes more resistant to decay. Research has shown that retrieval practice improves performance on end-of-topic assessments and retention tests.

5. Improves problem-solving skills

This is particularly true if students interact with the material during retrieval practice. If retrieval focuses on recalling factual knowledge, students still experience some benefits when using their knowledge to solve problems.

6. Increases engagement and confidence

When students experience the benefits of retrieval practice, such as improved retention and academic success, they find the process more engaging and the success brings greater self-confidence.

Students who engage in regular retrieval practice see a direct impact on their learning. This reinforces the notion that external factors students can control determine success rather than predetermined internal factors.

Self-assessment provides students with valuable feedback about their understanding, gaps in knowledge, and the effectiveness of their revision strategies. Informing students about how well they remember a topic helps students:

Plan future learning

Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of their learning

9. Provides formative assessment

Retrieval practice is a valuable tool for teachers as well as students. It provides teachers with quick and regular feedback about their students' understanding, allowing them to adapt their lessons to best meet the needs of their students.

Misconceptions surrounding retrieval practice

Students often believe retrieval practice is less effective than traditional revision methods like re-reading, concept mapping, repeated study, highlighting, and flashcards (Kapricke and Blunt, 2011). However, research shows it significantly improves test performance.

A second misconception is that retrieval should focus on recalling facts to build a foundation of knowledge before higher-order learning can occur.

This belief stems from Bloom's taxonomy, which states that remembering facts is a prerequisite to applying, analysing, evaluating and creating.

Research by Pooja Agarwal (2019) contradicted this assumption; the results showed that higher-order retrieval practice led students to perform significantly better on higher-order tests compared to factual retrieval practice.

The study provides further support that retrieval practice of any type is more effective at improving test performance compared to re-reading. Results show that retrieval practice is most effective if it incorporates the skills required for the final test.

How retrieval practice supports other evidence-based teaching strategies

When educators integrate retrieval practice with other teaching strategies, they help to improve student retention and understanding of content.

Here are 5 teaching strategies that support retrieval practice:

Metacognition is the ability to plan, monitor and evaluate your own learning. Retrieval practice is an excellent way for students to gain feedback about their current level of understanding.

They can use the results from retrieval practice to monitor or evaluate the effectiveness of their learning strategies and then make plans for future learning. For example, during a low-stakes quiz, a student may realise that they have forgotten how to change improper fractions into mixed numbers and make a plan to review their notes, talk to a peer, or arrange to see their teacher after the lesson.

2. Spacing

Spacing, or distributed practice, occurs when learning spreads out over time and across multiple study sessions. Research shows that spaced repetition successfully encodes more information into long-term memory than cramming.

Spacing is an integral part of retrieval practice and may explain why it is effective at improving learning. Students revisit new learning at increasingly longer intervals, which means that revision occurs over a prolonged period and cramming before an assessment becomes unnecessary.

3. Formative assessment

Formative assessment improves learning and provides teachers with feedback about their students' understanding that they use to adapt their teaching.

Using retrieval practice to test students' prior learning informs teachers about whether students are ready to move on or whether specific topics need to be revisited. Retrieval practice for formative assessment makes this learning strategy even more effective at improving learning.

4. Interleaving

Interleaving is the process of combining two or more topics together during a study session. This technique improves learning because it encourages students to compare and contrast the two topics and identify their distinguishing features.

The process of interleaving can be incorporated into retrieval practice by testing students on multiple topics within the same test. For example, types of numbers and probability: 'what is the probability of getting a prime number on a single roll of a die?'

5. Desirable difficulties

Karpicke and Roediger (2007) proposed that retrieval practice is effective because it provides students with the desired level of difficulty to promote learning. Increasing the length of the intervals between retrieval attempts means that the difficulty of the task continues to require the optimal level of effort.

7 retrieval practice activities to use in the classroom

With a little extra planning, it's possible to incorporate retrieval practice activities into every lesson. While it takes additional lesson time and preparation, regular retrieval practice saves time overall as it prevents the need to reteach or revise previous learning in discrete lessons.

Collaborative lesson planning with other teachers can help reduce the time it takes to incorporate retrieval practice.

The advice below will help teachers effectively add retrieval into every lesson.

1. Low-stakes quizzes

Low-stakes quizzes are a quick and effective way to incorporate retrieval practice into every lesson.

A low-stakes quiz tests prior knowledge without the pressure associated with more traditional tests. The low-stakes nature reduces the cognitive load of the task, allowing students' attention to fully focus on the task instead of the possible consequences of a good or bad performance.

The most appropriate format will depend on the subject and year group, but common approaches include:

Short answer questions from a single topic or multiple topics

Multiplication or spelling tests

Keyword definitions

One extended question

Labelling a diagram

2. Flashcards

Used in the right way, flashcards can be an effective form of self-assessment and retrieval practice. They also encourage metacognition.

Students must appropriately use flashcards. Flashcards have a question or keyword on one side, and the answer or definition on the other. It can be tempting for students to read the question or keyword and immediately turn the card over, 'confirming' that they knew the answer because they recognised it.

For this reason, research studies have often found flashcards ineffective at improving learning. However, if students follow this procedure, flashcards are a successful revision technique:

1. Read the question

2. Write down the answer or say the answer aloud

3. Turn over the flashcard to check your answer

4. For incorrect answers, put the card in a pile and revisit the next day

5. For correct answers, put the card in a pile and revisit the next week

6. When cards are answered correctly twice, move them into a pile and revisit in two or three weeks

3. Homework

Homework often acts as immediate retrieval practice for material recently covered in class. But homework can be more valuable when questions include topics covered one week ago and one month ago.

This small change to homework design means more students can revisit prior learning weekly.

4. Brain dumps and free recall

These tasks require students to write down as much information as they can remember about a topic within a short time limit, normally five minutes.

While this approach is largely unstructured, each piece of information students remember acts as a cue for additional pieces of information. When students share recalled information with the rest of the class, this can help students assimilate new material into existing schema. Then students are likely to remember more details the next time they repeat the same activity.

Related resource: GCSE revision cards

5. Multiple-choice questions and cued recall

These activities offer more support than brain dumps and cued recall because students can see the correct answers.

Multiple-choice questions require students to distinguish between correct and incorrect answers. This is helpful for topics just learnt or previously studied.

The added support can help build students' confidence and can make the retrieval practice more accessible than it would have been using a different approach.

Cued recall offers a similar level of support through 'filling in the blanks' exercises or requiring students to match questions with model answers.

6. Create an essay plan

Essay plans are useful for retrieval in English and maths lessons. It encourages students to recall the key points for a topic or argument in a short space of time. By posing an essay question rather than a brain dump, students can evaluate information, and think critically and creatively.

7. Apps and clickers

There are many online apps and student response systems, called clickers, that enable whole-class participation in retrieval practice.

Feedback is instant and automatic, which means that teachers can also use these as formative feedback to adapt their lessons.

Teaching tips to incorporate retrieval practice into the classroom every day

Use continuous professional development (CPD) sessions to share resources and best practices.

Create templates for brain dumps and low-stakes quizzes: the more readily available the resources are, the more they will be used.

When teaching a new topic, make a note to revisit it the following week, two weeks later, and one month later.

On every homework, include a topic from two weeks ago and a topic from the previous term.

Start every lesson with a low-stakes quiz or a question relating to a previous topic.

Use interleaving as often as possible to revisit previous topics alongside new material.

When doing assessments, include topics taught in the previous term and more recent topics.

Teach students about the benefits of retrieval practice and how to use flashcards effectively.

Key takeaways

Retrieval practice strengthens memory pathways and supports long-term learning. The best way to incorporate it into daily lessons is to use subject-specific pedagogy.

Research conducted in schools and colleges supports this powerful teaching tool. The research consistently concludes that actively retrieving information significantly improves long-term learning.

Useful resources:
What is retrieval practice?

References

Agarwal, P.K., 2019. Retrieval practice & Bloom's taxonomy: Do students need fact knowledge before higher order learning?. Journal of Educational Psychology, 111(2), p.189.

Agarwal, P.K., Nunes, L.D. and Blunt, J.R., 2021. Retrieval practice consistently benefits student learning: A systematic review of applied research in schools and classrooms. Educational Psychology Review, 33(4), pp.1409-1453.

Karpicke, J.D. and Blunt, J.R., 2011. Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science, 331(6018), pp.772-775.

Karpicke, J.D. and Roediger III, H.L., 2007. Expanding retrieval practice promotes short-term retention, but equally spaced retrieval enhances long-term retention. Journal of experimental psychology: learning, memory, and cognition, 33(4), p.704.

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Retrieval Practice: A Foolproof Method To Improve Student Retention and Recall

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Retrieval practice is a research-based teaching strategy that improves knowledge retention, recall and raises students' grades.

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Science, Retrieval Practice, and Passion with Adam Boxer, Mind the Gap, Ep. 43 (S2E18)

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Retrieval Practice In Action In The Classroom by Kate Jones

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Carousel is brought to you by Carousel Learning Ltd, a private company limited by shares registered in England and Wales.

© Carousel Learning Ltd, Lytchett House, 13 Freeland Park, Wareham Road, Poole, Dorset, BH16 6FA. All Rights Reserved.

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Carousel is an online tool that helps students to embed knowledge in their long-term memory

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Podcast: Retrieval practice in the classroom

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Podcast: Retrieval practice in the classroom

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Kate Jones, Senior Associate for Teaching and Learning, interviews Science teacher, co-founder of Carousel Learn and author Adam Boxer about retrieval practice in the classroom.

Understanding the role of memory in the learning process is essential for all educators. It is important for those planning and designing lessons to be aware of the limitations of working memory and recognise how regular retrieval practice can strengthen long-term memory. Retrieval practice involves recalling already-learned information from long-term memory to make that learned information easier and quicker to retrieve in the future.

In this episode:

Adam Boxer explains why teachers should carefully consider the language used when discussing retrieval practice in the classroom, providing all learners with retrieval opportunities.

Kate asks Adam how teachers can provide retrieval opportunities, other than a 'Do Now' or quizzing starter task. Adam explores the importance of regular retrieval practice and how retrieval opportunities can be promoted throughout a lesson and for homework.

Adam talks about how Carousel Learning was developed and explains all the different features and tools the platform can provide for teachers. You can found out more about Carousel Learn here.

Retrieval practice in the primary classroom is also explored.

Finally, Kate and Adam explain the importance of explaining effective (and ineffective learning strategies) to students.

To enhance your use of retrieval practice you can access the Science of Learning Programme, as part of the Great Teaching Toolkit and download the eBook Retrieval Practice: Myths, Mutations and Mistakes. All of our podcasts can be found in our  podcast archive, and we have a host of free eBooks, videos and webinars for you in our  Resource Library.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:47 - 30.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

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Retrieval practice in the classroom with Adam Boxer

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Kate Jones interviews Science teacher, co-founder of Carousel Learn and author Adam Boxer about retrieval practice in the classroom.

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How to use Retrieval Practice effectively in the classroom | InnerDrive

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What makes Retrieval Practice successful in the classroom: low stakes? Feedback? Challenge level? Success rate? Hints? Here’s how to use it.

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Use these retrieval practice examples, activities, templates and ideas to help students recall previously taught information...

What is retrieval practice?

Retrieval practice is a " simple research-based teaching strategy " that involves students retrieving and bringing information to mind. The challenge of remembering this information produces durable long-term learning.

In this episode of The Cult of Pedagogy podcast, Jennifer Gonzalez speaks to Pooja Agarwal about what retrieval practice is and how you can start incorporating it into your classroom right away.

JUMP TO A SECTION

How to boost information recall in the classroom

If your pupils struggle to recall yesterday's lesson, prompt them to retrieve information from memory by embedding regular quizzes into your curriculum design, with these ideas from Jon Hutchinson, director of training and development at the Reach Foundation...
Back in the 1880s, when Hermann Ebbinghaus measured the rate that which information is lost after initially learning it, the conclusions were clear: everybody forgets things unless they revisit that information regularly.

"Everybody forgets things unless they revisit that information regularly"

These results have since been repeated in multiple contexts and under a huge variety of conditions.

In the classroom, this means that we shouldn't be entirely surprised (or cross) by our pupils struggling to recall their initial learning from yesterday's lesson. Indeed, it is an inevitable and perfectly natural part of the learning process.

Our job is to interrupt this forgetting, by using effective strategies to prompt children to retrieve information from memory.

Embed multiple-choice quizzes into your classroom practice

It is for this reason that, as part of our curriculum design at Reach Academy Feltham, we have embedded regular multiple-choice tests and quizzes into our curriculum design to help us reap the benefits of retrieval practice.

Aside from Ebbinghaus, our decisions have been influenced by more recent research into retrieval practice, spearheaded by professorial power couple Robert and Elizabeth Bjork (very much the Beyoncé and Jay-Z of the cognitive science world).

Retrieval strength and storage strength

They suggest that any information tucked away in our memory can be measured in two ways.

First, there is the speed at which you can recall some fact or skill: the 'retrieval strength'.

Second, we can consider how well connected and robust the knowledge is - known as 'storage strength'.

New information which is not linked to anything else stored in your long-term memory will have a low retrieval strength, as well as a low storage strength.

This is the reason that they write the hotel room number on your card when checking in: you will probably forget it.

By the end of the week, the retrieval strength of your hotel room number will have increased, by regularly having to recall it. However, the storage strength is likely to remain low; you probably won't be able to recall it in a year or two.

Other information - perhaps the name of a child in your class back at primary school - could have a high storage strength (they are connected to tonnes of other memories) but a low retrieval strength (what was their name again? Patrick? Peter?).

Finally, information can have both high retrieval and high storage strength. An example might be the name of your current best friend.

This, of course, is what we are aiming for in what we teach. And based on what we know about how memory works, we think that the testing effect is an indispensable tool to achieve it.

Retrieval practice examples

We can capitalise on this in lessons in a few different ways. First, always begin a lesson with retrieval practice - a short quiz, including five, multiple-choice questions of previously learnt material.

Beginning with a retrieval practice technique ensures a calm, focused and motivational start to the lesson.

Let's take an example. In the first lesson of our unit on Roman Britain, the class learn about how Romulus killed his brother to found the city.

Within that lesson, there will be some key facts that we don't want the children to forget. So the very first thing that we do at the start of the next lesson is ask all children to answer the question, "According to myth, who founded Rome?"

These quizzes have no stakes. That is to say, we don't collect any scores, and we don't tell children off or express disappointment if they get a question wrong. That is not the purpose.

Instead, what we are trying to do is deliberately interrupt the forgetting curve. It is better to think of this regular quizzing as a student learning event in itself, as opposed to an assessment.

"What we are trying to do is deliberately interrupt the forgetting curve"

It doesn't really matter whether the children get the question right or wrong; they benefit either way from this effective learning technique.

Ancient Greece retrieval practice quiz example

In what year did Ancient Greece's 'Golden Age' begin?

2. How many citizens had to vote for someone to be sent into exile?

3. Name one Greek philosopher

4. Where were the first recorded Olympic games held?

5. Name one Greek City State

Retrieval practice activities

Writing good multiple-choice questions is devilishly difficult. Ours focus on the most important things we want children to remember from previous lessons.

A knowledge organiser is a good learning tool to start from here, as it should include the core information.

I often begin planning a lesson by asking myself, "What are the five things that I want all children to remember by the end of this lesson?" These then become the targets for quiz questions in the following lesson.

"What are the five things that I want all children to remember by the end of this lesson?"

In the example about Roman Britain above, we would include the correct answer (Romulus), but then also add in plausible distractors. These would include Remus, Julius Caesar and Tiberinus (the god who saved Romulus and Remus from the river).

Children rack their brains, circle what they think is the correct answer, then move on to the next question.

A few minutes later, I'll switch to the next slide which has all of the correct answers on, and pupils can self-mark, correcting anything they got wrong.

While this takes place, I'll whizz around the classroom and make a note of any common misconceptions. The whole episode takes around five minutes.

So, while quizzing may not be the flashiest or most fashionable classroom activity, there is an abundance of science outlining the learning rewards.

Mistakes to avoid

When I first began using test-enhanced learning I made a few mistakes that reduced the effectiveness of retrieval practice. The first was using funny or wacky answers within the distractors.

Since I very much consider myself to be an as-yet-undiscovered comedian of world-class talent (who is, frankly, wasted on primary school children), I can't resist popping in a humorous answer to elicit a giggle.

When asking the pupils "Why did Alexander the Great weep?" I'll want to include an option like, "because the Nando's in Persia had run out of chicken" (wasted, I tell you).

The problem with adding in these silly options is that they distract children from what you actually want them to remember (that "there were no more worlds to conquer").

They'll tell you about how funny it was to think about Alexander having a Nando's. Some children may not get the joke and actually think Alexander the Great did eat Nando's.

The correct answer, a wonderful piece of cultural knowledge and a useful window into the success and ambition of the Macedonian King, gets lost somewhere in laughter. The kids just remember Alexander eating a Nando's.

"Some children may not get the joke and actually think Alexander the Great did eat Nando's"

The second mistake is to let children look back at their notes. In doing so, we kill the benefits of the testing effect, because children do not have to try and recall from memory; they are just rereading and copying down the answer.

It may seem counterintuitive, but that effortful struggle is exactly what produces the strengthened retrieval in future.

Kate Jones retrieval practice templates

Teacher and author Kate Jones explains how to use her retrieval practice challenge grid at the start of your lesson...

I designed the retrieval practice challenge grid to help you purposefully revisit subject knowledge and content previously studied.

The questions differ based upon when the subject content was taught. The further back this was, the higher the number of points on offer.

I use this approach at the start of a lesson as it includes a wide range of questions that require students to recall information from last lesson, last week and even further back - it's a simple and efficient way to begin.

Five a day method

We are all familiar with the 'five a day' message as it applies to including portions of fruit and/or vegetables as part of our daily routine to stay healthy.

This concept can be applied to the classroom with a twist, focusing on a daily review of five a day to promote healthy retrieval. It could simply be five quiz questions to start the lesson.

Another idea is to have five keywords on the board. Students must define each one or write a paragraph summarising previous learning including all five words. Alternatively, they can create five questions where each keyword is the answer.

Below you can see examples of teachers using retrieval practice tests in several different ways to encourage effective retrieval practice.

More retrieval practice teaching methods

Make sure your students can actually use the information you've spent all that time putting into their heads with these helpful tips from teacher and author Paul Wright...
Recall checks

Look at your scheme of learning for a half term. Decide what the key takeaway concepts or vocabulary are at that time.

Design five to eight questions that help students practise retrieving their knowledge on the topic from memory and applying it to answer the question.

Over the six weeks, continue to cover the same five to eight concepts, theories or terms in your questions, but pose the questions in different ways.

Alternative dimensions

Challenge learners' knowledge security by presenting facts from another dimension and asking them to compare these to ours, stating what the equivalent is in our dimension.

For example, say 'In this universe, the sky is pink. What colour is it in your universe?'

Learners can select the correct answer from memory (higher challenge). Alternatively, you can scaffold the activity by making it multiple-choice.

Try throwing in some questions where the answer is already correct (ie where something is the same in both dimensions) and see if they notice!

Memorise this...

Prepare a three-slide presentation:

1 - show things you want the students to remember

2 - black screen with a countdown timer in the centre

3 - space for items to be written in or revealed

Explain that the students will be given time to look at the first slide and store the information in their minds, without writing anything down.

When the screen goes black, the timer starts. Pupils must write down as much information as they can remember. When the timer ends, reveal the third slide and ask the learners to share what they're able to recall.

What stuck?

Stand your learners behind their desks a few minutes before the lesson ends. Tell them that you'll dismiss each person in turn when they can tell you something that has stuck with them in your lesson.

This challenges their short-term recall and allows you to challenge their ability to express knowledge they have retained succinctly.

Be fair and allow one repeat, but students can't repeat the same thing as the person who spoke before them.

Using retrieval practice as a revision tool

Science teacher Adam Boxer explains that while retrieval practice isn't the easiest way to revise, it's definitely the most effective...
As teachers across the UK become more and more evidence-informed, we're learning to ditch revision games, posters, highlighting, re-reading and mnemonics.

Instead, we're replacing these with powerful teaching strategies such as frequent retrieval practice and low-stakes quizzing on core material.

"We're learning to ditch revision games, posters, highlighting, re-reading and mnemonics"

In fact a paradigm shift is occurring around revision itself. We've moved away from a system where we teach a sequence of lessons, have a revision lesson and then a test.

Instead, we're moving towards a system where we remove the revision lesson and replace it with frequent opportunities for retrieval practice built into the main sequence of lessons.

These changes are possible because of how well-researched retrieval practice is. Cognitive scientists have spent decades investigating its use as a memory technique. Though nothing in science is ever beyond question, the positive results across a vast number of studies certainly seem to suggest it's an effective method.

Discoveries

There are, however, aspects that you might not be aware of. For example, Hungarian researchers tested whether or not retrieval practice could help mitigate the debilitating cognitive effects of being in a high-stress environment.

Psychologists (and teachers!) have known for a long time that a little bit of stress is a good thing in terms of student performance. However, too much stress can be debilitating and hinder performance.

The researchers found that the power of retrieval practice to prepare students for tests held even when they took the tests under extremely stressful conditions.

Another fascinating finding relates to " participant prediction of recall ". Participants in a study used either re-reading or retrieval practice to learn material, but in varying amounts. After they had a set amount of time with these techniques, they were asked to predict how well they thought they would recall that information in a week or so's time.

Participants who had done the least amount of retrieval practice thought that they would recall the most. Participants who had done the most amount of retrieval practice thought they would recall the least.

As we can probably guess by this point, the results for the actual test showed the exact opposite. So participants who thought they had learned the least, actually learned the most.

Rich rewards

I think the best way to explain this finding is by thinking about the relative difficulty of the two tasks.

Re-reading is, cognitively speaking, easy to do. Reading is easy. When we re-read material we have a voice in our head saying, "Yes, I got that", no problem.

But there is a difference between understanding something and committing it to long-term memory.

You can probably understand this article very easily, but if you sat a test on it next week would you remember all, or even most, of its details? Probably not.

"When we re-read material we have a voice in our head saying, "Yes, I got that""

To prepare yourself for such a test you would have to expend serious mental effort. And in the short term, it would certainly feel like you weren't getting anywhere. It would feel painful, slow, and frustrating.

But what if you did put in that effort, and it worked out? What if you persevered through that short-term pain and feeling of frustration? Imagine you really committed yourself to retrieval practice and were duly rewarded in a test.

What would that feel like?

No doubt, you would probably feel quite proud of yourself. You would start to feel competent in whatever subject you had decided to really commit to.

And psychologists point to competence as an incredibly powerful driver of long term motivation. As we get better at things, we start to enjoy them more.

"In the short term, your students will hate retrieval practice"

In the short term, your students will hate retrieval practice. They will hate not knowing an answer or getting things only partially correct. But the science is clear: it works.

If you can build a culture that looks beyond that short-term pain and understands that it's worth it in the long term, your students will truly fly.

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Retrieval practice in the classroom - Boost long-term knowledge retention with this powerful learning strategy

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Use these retrieval practice examples, activities, templates and ideas to help students recall previously taught information...

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Question: Just how much should students practice what they learn? On the one hand, it seems obvious that practice is important. After all, "practice makes perfect." On the other hand, it seems just as obvious that practicing the same material again and again would be boring for students. How much practice is the right amount?

Answer: It is difficult to overstate the value of practice. For a new skill to become automatic or for new knowledge to become long-lasting, sustained practice, beyond the point of mastery, is necessary. This column summarizes why practice is so important and reviews the different effects of intense short-term practice versus sustained, long-term practice.

That students would benefit from practice might be deemed unsurprising. After all, doesn't practice make perfect? The unexpected finding from cognitive science is that practice does not make perfect. Practice until you are perfect and you will be perfect only briefly. What's necessary is sustained practice. By sustained practice I mean regular, ongoing review or use of the target material (e.g., regularly using new calculating skills to solve increasingly more complex math problems, reflecting on recently-learned historical material as one studies a subsequent history unit, taking regular quizzes or tests that draw on material learned earlier in the year). This kind of practice past the point of mastery is necessary to meet any of these three important goals of instruction: acquiring facts and knowledge, learning skills, or becoming an expert.

Acquiring Facts and Knowledge

Intuition tells us that more practice leads to better memory. Research tells us something more precise: Memory in either the short- or long-term requires ongoing practice.

Let's first consider memory in the short-term, meaning days or weeks. Suppose I am trying to learn the procedures necessary for a bill to become a federal law. I might study these facts (using any number of techniques) and periodically test myself. Suppose further that I study until I perform perfectly on my self test. Do I know these facts? Yes, I know them now. But what about tomorrow? In order to protect this learning from the ravages of forgetting, I need to practice beyond one perfect recitation. Studying material that one already knows is called overlearning. Because memory is prone to forgetting, one cannot learn material to a criterion and then expect the memory to stay at that level very long.

Anticipating the effect of forgetting dictates that we continue our practice beyond the mastery we desire. In an illustrative experiment (Gilbert, 1957), subjects were read a brief paragraph about a fictional country and then asked 22 questions based on the paragraph. If the subject answered a question correctly, the question was discarded. Then the subject heard the paragraph again, and was asked those questions that he or she had missed. The procedure was repeated until the subject successfully answered all of the questions. Another group of subjects participated in a second condition that required overlearning. A question was not discarded until it had been answered correctly three times rather than once. All subjects received a surprise retest after a delay of either 15 minutes or two days. The overlearning group performed better at the short delay (22 questions correct versus 15) and also at the long delay (17 questions correct versus 13). Overlearning has been studied (although not extensively) for many years. These results are typical, but most of the experiments deal with short-term retention.

It may seem that the emphasis on short-term knowledge is peripheral to education. As teachers, we want long-lasting knowledge, not just knowledge for a few days. But, in fact, teachers may have goals that entail short-term knowledge. For example, a science teacher may want students to have a series of facts about certain species at their fingertips so that the teacher can introduce an important abstract concept concerning evolution on which those facts depend. Once the student has used the facts to gain a firm understanding of evolution, no great educational harm is done if the particular facts about particular species are forgotten. But without those facts well-lodged in memory for at least a short time, harm would be done to a student's ability to grasp the larger concept.

For other material, we most certainly do want longer-term retention. In this case again, practice past the point of mastery is essential. In the case of overlearning, the practice begins with active studying for the purpose of learning. Over time, practice will take the form of using old material in the course of studying some new material. For example, students will initially study the terms isthmus and delta to master their meanings, and will later practice these meanings as they use the terms in their continued study of geography.

Although practice takes on a different character for the longer-term, it is no less important. Studies show that if material is studied for one semester or one year, it will be retained adequately for perhaps a year after the last practice (Semb, Ellis, & Araujo, 1993), but most of it will be forgotten by the end of three or four years in the absence of further practice. If material is studied for three or four years, however, the learning may be retained for as long as 50 years after the last practice (Bahrick, 1984; Bahrick & Hall, 1991). There is some forgetting over the first five years, but after that, forgetting stops and the remainder will not be forgotten even if it is not practiced again. Researchers have examined a large number of variables that potentially could account for why research subjects forgot or failed to forget material, and they concluded that the key variable in very long-term memory was practice.* Exactly what knowledge will be retained over the long-term has not been examined in detail, but it is reasonable to suppose that it is the material that overlaps multiple courses of study: Students who study American history for four years will retain the facts and themes that came up again and again in their history courses.

Learning Skills

Acquiring factual knowledge is only part of what we want our students to gain from their schooling. We also want them to be skilled problem solvers, effective written and oral communicators, and creative thinkers. These skills-and indeed, all skills that involve thinking-rely on working memory capacity. Working memory is, to put it colloquially, the place in the mind where thought happens. It is often called the bottleneck of the mind because there is a limited amount of space in working memory. That is why it is difficult to mentally divide 34,516 by 87. It is hard to simultaneously maintain the numbers, employ the processes for long division, and update the answer as you derive it. This space limitation is relevant not just to mental arithmetic, but to most types of problems we would like our students to solve, such as writing a clear laboratory report, reading an essay with deep understanding, or seeing the links between historical events.

Our ability to think would be limited indeed if there were not ways to overcome the space constraint of working memory. One of the more important mechanisms is the development of automaticity. When cognitive processes (e.g., reading, writing grammatically, reading a map, identifying the dependent variable in a science experiment, using simple mathematical procedures) become automatic, they demand very little space in working memory, they occur rapidly, and they often occur without conscious effort.

For example, if you are reading this article, the process of reading is very likely automatic for you. You do not need to laboriously piece together the letters of each word to puzzle out its identity. Your mind seems to divine the meaning of prose immediately and without effort on your part. Try this classic demonstration of automaticity for advanced readers. In this task you are asked to name the ink color in which the words are printed, but ignore the word that the letters spell. Hence for the stimulus TURKEY, the proper response is "blue." First try this list:

Now try this list:

The second list is much harder to read than the first list because, for you, reading is automatic. Even though you try not to read the words that the letters form, you read them automatically and doing so conflicts with naming the ink color. For someone who cannot read, the second list is no harder than the first.

But most of the time automaticity is helpful, rather than disruptive. Picture a beginning reader slowly puzzling out the word "blue." Doing so consumes all of working memory, so it is difficult for the student to follow the plot of the story in which the word appears. Once reading is automatic, however, precious working memory resources can be devoted to considering the meaning of a text, the effectiveness of its argument, and so on.

Automaticity is important not only in reading, but in all mental life. Consider how difficult it would be to navigate an unfamiliar city by car if you had to focus on how hard to press the accelerator and brake, how far to turn the steering wheel, when to monitor your mirrors, and all of the other components of driving that have become automatized.

Automaticity is vital in education because it allows us to become more skillful in mental tasks. An effective writer knows the rules of grammar and usage to the point of automaticity-and knows automatically to begin a paragraph with a topic sentence, include relevant detail, etc. The effective mathematician invokes important math facts and procedures automatically. Readers who are able to visualize a map of the world will find various books and assignments easier to read (and learn more from them). In each field, certain procedures are used again and again. Those procedures must be learned to the point of automaticity so that they no longer consume working memory space. Only then will the student be able to bypass the bottleneck imposed by working memory and move on to higher levels of competence.

The development of automaticity for generalized skills depends on high levels of practice (e.g., Shiffrin & Schneider, 1984). There is no substitute. Ensuring consistent, sustained practice is the most reliable way to ensure that a student will become an effective reader, writer, or scientist. Following a complex written argument, writing a convincing essay, or engaging in scientific reasoning are all skills that are enabled by the automatization of each discipline's basics.

Becoming an Expert

What does it take to become an expert in a field? Consider a true expert, meaning one who is recognized not just as fully competent, but as a unique contributor to the discipline. In competitive arenas (e.g., athletics or chess), we would say that an expert competes at the national or international level. When asked how an expert gained such a high level of skill, non-experts usually attribute the success to innate talent. Experts themselves, however, tell a different story. They attribute their success to practice and to the ability to maintain concentration during long practice sessions (Ericsson, 1996). (The importance of practice doesn't mean that innate talent is meaningless, of course; practice is necessary for excellence, but it may not be sufficient to ensure it.)

Research studies indicate that experts are right, at least in that they do practice a great deal. Descriptive studies (Roe, 1953) of eminent scientists indicate that the most important factor predicting their success is not innate talent or intelligence, but the willingness to work hard for extended periods of time. This commitment to practice was reinforced by a large-scale study (Bloom, 1985) in which experts in athletics, science, and the arts were interviewed, along with their parents and teachers. Bloom proposed that the training of an expert typically involved four stages. The future expert was usually introduced to the domain under playful conditions as a child. His or her promise was noted, and in stage two, lessons were provided, usually with a teacher or coach who worked well with children, and regular practice habits were established. In the third stage, an internationally recognized teacher or coach was engaged, usually requiring a significant commitment of resources from the parents, as well as dedicated and likely exclusive study by the child. In the fourth stage, the student had absorbed all that he or she could from teachers and began to develop his or her personal contribution to the field.

Recent research that measures practice time more carefully paints a similar picture. The figure below depicts the estimated cumulative practice time of violinists separated by their ability levels. The best and good students were enrolled at a music academy that trains professional musicians; they were put into these categories, unbeknownst to them, by their professors for the purpose of this study. Subjects were asked to estimate the time they spent practicing each week. The graph below shows the total accumulated practice time at each age. Two conclusions may be drawn from the graph: Experts engage in a great deal of practice, and that even among very able performers, the best are those who have practiced more.

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The better violinists engaged in more practice during their training.
Figure adapted from K.A. Ericsson, R.T. Krampe, & C. Tesch-Romer (1993), p.379.

Some evidence that a great deal of practice, and not just talent, is a prerequisite for expertise is the "ten year rule," which states that individuals must practice intensively for at least 10 years before they are ready to make a substantive contribution to their field. What about prodigies like Mozart, who began composing at the age of six? Prodigies are very advanced for their age, but their contributions to their respective fields as children are widely considered to be ordinary. It is not until they are older (and have practiced more) that they achieve the works for which they are known.

How are such studies relevant to the average student? Few students will become a Mozart, Shakespeare, or Einstein, but if we want children to understand and appreciate excellence, we would do well to send the message that excellence requires sustained practice. The athletes and artists revered by many students excel not solely by virtue of their talent, but because of their hard work. Edison remarked that "genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." The relative percentages of talent and practice are unclear, but the necessity of long periods of focused practice to exploit inborn talent is not.

What Material Merits Practice?

When we refer to "practice," it is important to be clear that it differs from play (which is done purely for one's own pleasure), performance (which is done for the pleasure of others), and work (which is done for compensation). Practice is done for the sake of improvement. Practice, therefore, requires concentration and requires feedback about whether or not progress is being made. Plainly put, practice is not easy. It requires a student's time and effort, and it is, therefore, worth considering when it is appropriate.

It was noted above that sustained practice over time is especially useful for developing automaticity in specific skills (which enables higher-level thinking) and in ensuring that a memory lasts as long as needed. Thus, the following types of material are worthy of practice:

1. The core skills and knowledge that will be used again and again. In this case, we give practice in order to ensure automaticity. The student who struggles to remember the rules of punctuation and usage (or must stop to look them up in a reference book) cannot devote sufficient working memory resources to building a compelling argument in his or her writing. The student who does not have simple math facts at his or her disposal will struggle with higher math.

2. The type of knowledge that students need to know well in the short term to enable long-term retention of key concepts. In this case, short-term overlearning is merited. For example, as noted earlier, a science teacher may want students to know a set of facts about certain species so that she can introduce an important abstract concept concerning evolution that depends on these facts. Or, a high school history teacher may want students to master the facts of several Supreme Court cases in order to build long-term understanding of a particular constitutional principle.

3. The type of knowledge we believe is important enough that students should remember it later in life. In this case, one might consider certain material so vital to an education that it is worthy of sustained practice over many years to assure that students remember it all of their life. A science teacher might spend the better part of a year emphasizing basic principles of evolution in the belief that the material is essential to consider oneself conversant in biology. Further, the curriculum might address and require practice in evolution in multiple years to assure that such knowledge will last a lifetime. Do we expect that a 40-year-old will have retained everything learned through the 12th grade? No, but do we expect that she will retain anything? Should she be able to grasp the basics of evolution or describe the different responsibilities of the three branches of the federal government or calculate the area of a circle? Exactly what sorts of knowledge merit the focus required to create long-lasting memory will be controversial, but that practice is required to create such memories is not.

* * *

How should practice be structured-should a teacher strive for overlearning in the short term or repeated learning over the long term? The answer will depend on whether the goal is automaticity in skills, short-term knowledge, or long-term knowledge-and what the teacher knows about the future curriculum students will encounter. For example, an English teacher might deem it very important that students understand the use of metaphor in poetry, but extensive, focused practice may not be practical or necessary. This knowledge will likely be developed over a number of years, and there will be opportunities for practice in the future. In other cases there will be future opportunities for practice, but the timeliness of the learning is important. For example, one teacher might provide just a cursory introduction to first-graders on how to tell time, figuring that the students will have ample opportunities for practice in the future. But another teacher might also reason that first-graders need to know how to tell time (so that, for example, they can monitor their activities during the day and be more self-directed) and so focus practice on this skill. Similarly, a French teacher may realize that students will have plenty of practice conjugating the verb être (to be) over the long term, but may justly believe that students must know this material early in their training or their ability to read, write, and understand French will be badly hampered.

Exactly when to engage students in practice, through what method, and for what duration are educational decisions that teachers will need to make on a regular basis. But, that students will only remember what they have extensively practiced-and that they will only remember for the long term that which they have practiced in a sustained way over many years-are realities that can't be bypassed.

Daniel T. Willingham is associate professor of cognitive psychology and neuroscience at the University of Virginia and author of Cognition: The Thinking Animal. His research focuses on the role of consciousness in learning.

*It is likely relevant that there is not only more practice in this case, but that the practice is distributed across time rather than concentrated in a few months (see " Allocating Student Study Time: "Massed" versus "Distributed" Practice," from the Summer 2002 issue of American Educator) ( back to article)

References

Bahrick, H. P. & Hall, L. K. (1991). Lifetime maintenance of high school mathematics content. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 120, 20-33.

Bahrick, H. P. (1984). Semantic memory content in permastore: Fifty years of memory for Spanish learned in school. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 1-29.

Bloom, B. S. (1985). Generalizations about talent development. In B. S. Bloom (Ed.), Developing talent in young people (pp. 507-549). N.Y.: Ballantine.

Ericsson, K. A. (1996). The acquisition of expert performance: An introduction to some of the issues. In K. A. Ericsson (Ed.) The Road to Excellence (p. 1-50). Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.

Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Romer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100, 363-406.

Gilbert, T. (1957). Overlearning and the retention of meaningful prose. Journal of General Psychology, 56, 281-289.

Roe, A. (1953). The Making of a Scientist. N.Y.: Dodd Mead.

Semb, G. B., Ellis, J. A., & Araujo, J. (1993). Long-term memory for knowledge learned in school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 305-316.

Shiffrin, R. M. & Schneider, W. (1984). Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending, and a general theory. Psychological Review, 84, 127-190.

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Ask the Cognitive Scientist: Practice Makes Perfect-But Only If You Practice beyond the Point of Perfection

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Question: Just how much should students practice what they learn? On the one hand, it seems obvious that practice is important. After all, "practice makes perfect." On the other hand, it seems just as obvious that practicing the same material again and again would be boring for students.

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Retrieval practice is a simple research-based teaching strategy that dramatically raises students' grades. When students retrieve and bring information to mind, this mental challenge produces durable long-term learning. Easy learning leads to easy forgetting. Stop cramming, reviewing, and re-teaching. Instead, simply ask students what they remember. No prep, no grading, just powerful teaching.

The science of learning exists. It's time to unleash it.

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Retrieval Practice: Unleash the Science of Learning

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Harness powerful teaching strategies, unleash the science of learning, and transform your classroom with resources by cognitive scientists.

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Understand the active ingredients of retrieval practice - Tips for Teachers

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How to make retrieval practice work - Tips for Teachers

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Retrieval Practice in Early Years Foundation Stage

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Science Sound L1

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EEF Podcast

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The EEF is an independent charity dedicated to breaking the link between family income and educational achievement.

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One of the most common areas of development in schools over the last few years has been in the area of retrieval practice - supporting students to remember what they've been taught, gradually, steadily deepening and extending their schema for the material in hand, building fluency and confidence. However, whilst there has been a lot of superb creative practice in this area, I see problems where a very sound idea about the importance of regular reviews of prior learning is morphed into a rigid, formulaic quizzing regime that, in turn, morphs into a regime of poor performative quizzing where many student are not learning anything. Rather than it being a consolidatory reinforcement of their learning, plugging a few gaps, students feel they are being quizzed on the thin air of vaguely-encountered wisps of disconnected factoids from a dim past.

At its worst, this is what is happening (based on multiple specific examples..):

The school leaders decide 'retrieval practice is a good thing' so let's make it a non-negotiable (kill me now!) that lessons start with a quiz. That means every teacher, every subject, every lesson - because this makes it happen! Drive that change!

Teachers operating in this regime also believe that retrieval practice is a good thing; also, quizzes are a good form of retrieval practice. They are believers. But, in any case, the MAT/SLT have mandated daily quizzing so quizzing must be done. Let's quiz!

Into the mix we get the idea of spaced practice... let's interrupt the forgetting curve by checking back on stuff that wasn't just learned yesterday - but also last week and the month before. We love a system... so let's systematise the quizzing structure; it makes it easy for everyone: Three questions from yesterday; one from last week and one from last month. Programme that in folks.. Fool proof it!

So, here we have the morphed regime in action. The Do Now Five A Day Quiz is ready. It's science (for example) so the questions today are:

1. Name the organs: (expected answers: trachea, bronchiole, diaphragm)

2. How is the blood leaving lungs different to blood entering lungs?

3. Complete the equation. Glucose plus Oxygen ->

4. In the circuit what would be the current reading on the ammeter?

5. Why is a hypothermia blanket shiny on both sides?

Teacher says - good morning everyone, your DNA is on the board (Do Now Activity). You have five minutes.

James writes DNA and the routine 1 to 5 in his book.

1. a: Windpipe. b. lungs. c. IDK (doesn't know)

2. It is moving faster

3. Energy and carbon dioxide

4. Can't do it

5. ??

Time's up.

Teacher reveals the answers on the next slide. Check your answers guys. Give yourself a mark out of 5. Question 1 you need 2 for half a mark. Ok. Who got them all right... Well done Alice.. anyone else.. Ah well.. now green pen your answers. (Green pen for corrections).

James gets out his trusty green pen and tries to write all the answers down: Trahea; Brociolli daiphram; oxygenated; deoxgynated; glucose; 1.7Amps ; Bad emitter; good reflector. It's a struggle to write all this down in the time permitted so it's a bit of a scrawl. But he tried.

And then we're onto today's lesson on.... Homeostatis. More Knowledge. Yay.

In the teacher's mind they have followed the cogsci; they have followed the MAT protocol. They have quizzed. Quizzing was done exactly as per the Non Negotiables Check List.

And what about James? He had a go. He self-marked and green penned. He's been entirely compliant with expectations. Job done.

But wait......what has James actually learned? Does he now know any more than he did before....? I'm going to suggest that he has learned next to nothing at all - except to confirm that there's a ton of stuff he doesn't know. To him, it's not stuff he can't remember; it's stuff he never ever knew. At best there's a shadowy sketchy trace of these words; a flick of familiarity when the answers came up on the board. But he still can't explain what an alveolus does, or say what V= IR means or what 'emitter' means or say 'trachea' out loud with any confidence. But hey... green pen! He's been quizzed. He's green penned. Robert BjorkhausEnShine something something would be proud.

You see the problem.. and believe me, this is not even much of an exaggeration.

Green Penning a Quiz is not learning. And yet.. every lesson, every subject, every day, every week... there it is. The roots of the issues here, to my mind, are a lack of understanding of what constitutes good retrieval practice - in theory and in practice. To anyone who is basing their equivalent regime on Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction, let's see what he actually says. Scroll through.. I pasted it in for you.

Rosenshine talks about 'review' and then shares various examples, only one of which is a quiz. However the emphasis is very much on the need to activate students' prior knowledge that will be useful for subsequent learning. That is what a daily review is for. As discussed in the post below, students' knowledge can be extremely tenuous at first. They need time to rehearse and consolidate, making connections to what they already know, before we can start talking about a generative process that requires more solid recall.

The diagram below, by Efrat Furst as featured in Walkthrus Vol 3, explains this really well.

When I see quizzing regimes going wrong, students are being asked questions as if they are at stage 4 or 5 when actually they're barely at stage 2. Each question, for them, would need extensive exploration, rehearsal, repetition. They are miles from the path-strengthening phase; the paths are barely formed.

The weekly and monthly reviews Rosenshine (and others) promote are where we might scan a wider domain but even here he isn't suggesting we spring random questions on students like it's a pub quiz. In my view, it's really important to use quizzing to build students' confidence and their agency - ie students with the capacity to study independently. This means they need the quizzing regime to allow them to study and succeed - rather than develop the learned helplessness I see so often; that sense that knowing things is all rather out of your control, a matter of chance - sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. Done well, students have a fair idea of the material they will be quizzed on and are then expected to prepare, using the self-study techniques they learn at school.

As I say in this post, an important feature of successful retrieval practice is to specify the knowledge so students know what they are meant to know and can check whether they do, studying further where they have gaps. You can even go so far as giving questions in advance, making it all very transparent.

Then we need mechanisms for dealing with wrong answers. It's simply not remotely enough to say a correct answer out loud and then hope and assume that students now know that answer. The simple act of writing something down doesn't mean you've connected it to your prior knowledge, integrating it into your schema. Green penning is only really going to work where the student needs a bit of reinforcement in an area they largely understand. It's not going to teach anyone anything. So, if you set a very wide range of questions, and students turn out not to know the answers, you have a big task to go over all the key ideas. Typically teachers don't have time to re-teach it all so the weakest students with the worst quiz outcomes only get a speed-teach whizz-through of ideas they don't really understand all over again.

Done well, a quiz is anticipated, within a topic range that is small enough to prepare for and to re-teach if needed. Students are expected to study (make some effort!) so that they have a chance to perform well. This then allows the checking and feedback process to focus on a few gaps and key ideas. It's largely consolidatory. And, crucially, it is just one of many routines for checking that might also include explaining, telling the story etc - as per this Five Ways post.

So, to conclude... I suggest people undertake a proper evaluation of their retrieval regimes and evaluate whether the least confident students are actually learning. Focus less on whether the routine has been followed and more on what students know and don't know. Be prepared to flex the regime so that teachers can adapt and create checking processes appropriate for their subject within a varied diet of daily review activities. Tool students up so they can study really hard and aim to do well rather than trying to catch them out. And, most importantly, do more real-time rehearsal and checking for understanding involving all students at the early stages so that learning is build on firmer ground and retrieval practice is actually 'practice'.

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When daily quiz regimes become lethal mutations of retrieval practice.

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One of the most common areas of development in schools over the last few years has been in the area of retrieval practice - supporting students to remember what they've been taught, gradually, steadily deepening and extending their schema for the material in hand, building fluency and confidence.

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Daily Review- Tom Sherrington Master Class

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Daily Review- Tom Sherrington Master Class

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A teacher's guide to retrieval (Sturctural Learning)  

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A teacher's guide to retrieval (Sturctural Learning)  

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The technique of bringing information to mind for improving and increasing the learning process is known as Retrieval Practice. Consciously recalling knowledge helps learners in long term retention of knowledge, and to pull their knowledge "out" and analyze initial learning.

Retrieval practice (formerly referred to as the " testing effect") is a useful revision and effective learning technique that helps in memory retention because it involves recollection of prior knowledge, which improves the chances of knowledge shifting to long term memory.

Cognitive Psychologists Professors Roediger and Karpicke are well-known leaders in research on the application of retrieval practice in school environments. Roediger Et Al. indicated that when students study a passage repeatedly, they will remember more in the short-term. However, when they engage in factual recall more frequently, they improve their long-term learning (Roediger Et Al., 2006).

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Using Retrieval Practice in school environments

Depending upon the grade levels, the Retrieval Practice condition isappliedin several ways in the school environment. It can be as easy as trying to recall initial learning mentally or on a paper without involving complex materials or without reviewing the learning materials. Following are some ways to use retrieval practice in the classroom:

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1. Practice tests: Teachers can ask students in a Middle School Science Classroom to write their practice questions; students can use practice questions from the textbook or use those provided by the teacher; they can make and share questions with their study partner, or use online sources to find questions. Teachers can also ask students to first write the correct answers to the questions in short answer format and then ask students to find the correct answers to the same questions presented as multiple-choice questions in the final test or unit exam.

2. Flashcards - For students in primary grade levels, teachers can ask students to write questions on one side of the index card and answers on the other side of the card. Students can also use flashcard software systems or create flashcards on a computer and print them out.

3. Writing prompts - The writing prompts technique is very effective for encouraging students to think about a specific subject and to show what they know. For example, the teacher can write an incomplete sentence on a card and ask the students to complete the sentence e.g. "A plant needs sunlight to ________".

4. Concept maps: Karpicke Et Al. (2014)explained that creating concept maps, is like writing prompts; but, students create a keyword map of related words instead of writing complete details of retrieval tasks. Students will create concept maps by writing the title at the top of the page and drawing a large circle. Then, they will add circles with keywords about the topic. For different grade levels, the concept maps would indicate what the students don't know while showing what they already possess in their long term memory.

Elaborative Interrogation: This is an effective method, which mostly includes detailed 20 questions, which is useful retrieval practice in classroom settings. Elaborative interrogation does not involve the writing of any sort, but a student may write the answers and is better with two or more students. To use the Elaborative interrogation technique in an educational setting, the teacher would make pairs of the students, and give each pair of students a topic and several questions to ask. The main purpose is to encourage students to think deeply about the topic and recollect what they truly know.

When did this happen?

Why did this happen?

How does it work?

Why does it work?

1. Quizzes: For different grade levels, quizzes are the key ingredient that can be performed in several different ways. These can be performed individually or in groups, pairs, or as a class. Teachers can give colour cards or clickers to the students for answering or they can make the different teams in the class. While considering the level of difficulty, teachers can also use different apps and websites to ask multiple-choice questions or to conduct multiple-choice tests.

2. Placemats: Itis easy to make placemats. Worksheets provide a great way to assess prior knowledge. However, like other study strategies placemats can give great results when they are used alongside other popular methods and educational materials. Placemats are more effective for teaching elementary school children; but, there remains a risk factor for children becoming bored or just stopping to care. Therefore, placemats must be used to perform complex tasks in intentional and responsible ways.

3. Copy-cover-and-check method: To apply this retrieval practice in school environments, teachers would ask students to simply cover their lecture slides with a card, try to recall the text on the slides, and then remove the card to check. This technique provides the learning assessment without needing little-to-no extra effort before starting to apply retrieval activity in classroom settings.

Below are some examples:

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Getting retrieval practice right

If teachers know the kind of questions that will be asked in the course exam, they can also help students by providing successful retrieval practice conditions suitable for similar kinds of questions. Therefore, retrieval condition in classroom settings increases the possibility that students would successfully recall relevant information for their upcoming high-stakes exams.

Depending upon the level of difficulty, teachers can implement cued recall tests and use cue cards to remind students of complex materials and complex concepts. After using the retrieval method, it is suggested to check notes and textbooks to ensure correct and complete retrieval of the information. Cue cards strategy would rectify any mistakes, and give immediate feedback about what one knows and what one doesn't know.

‍ Retrieval practice activity becomes more effective when it is performed along with othereffective learning techniques. There are many benefits of testing but the following are some other revision techniques that can have positive effects on retrieval educational practice in making it more effective through creating new memory paths for the knowledge being recalled.

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Spaced Retrieval Practice

Spaced retrieval practice is a popular method and a useful retrieval-based learning strategy of Cognitive Science, which means studying a topic more than once but having long gaps between learning sessions. In other words, it divides learning into time. Research in cognitive psychology shows that the spacing effect is more beneficial for long-term, meaningful learning. The space must be of longer duration rather than very short breaks. This strategy works better than rote learning because students get the time to forget the details before striving to access them. The best way to use spaced retrieval practice in classroom settings is to not quiz the students for some time after studying the information. Afterwards, students can be engaged in ret rieval-based learning activities or they will be asked short-answer questions using flashcards or other learning techniques for practising spacing and retrieval.

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Interleaving techniques

The process of changing subjects or topics rather than just paying attention to one topic for long periods is called interleaving. For instance, rather than studying Biology for four consecutive hours, a student would study Chemistry for an hour, Biology for an hour, History for an hour, and Mathematics for an hour.

In this study time, the student would be using flashcards, making mind maps, or self-quizzing for a long-term, meaningful learning and effective retrieval practice in classroom settings.

Both spacing and interleaving techniques can help increase students' long-term meaningful learning and memory retention of important information.

When a student utilizes interleaving alongside spacing and effective retrieval practice, it improves test-enhanced learning and improves the effectiveness of all three of them.

Interleaving is also a useful Retrieval based learning strategy to retain several topics into memory in a specific amount of time. Interleaving improves meaningful retrieval-based learning by mixing up topics closely related to one another. This improves students' learning process and their ability to differentiate between numerous concepts.

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1. Retrieval practice is an effective strategy because it helps reinforce schemas that learners have created, which helps them save the information in their long term memory. In a study, Carpenter & Lund (2016) observed that high-performing students benefited in exams more from retrieval-based learning class activities than copying and rote learning; on the other hand, low and middle-performing students benefited more from copying and rote learning as compared to retrieving

2. Retrieval practice enhances the retrieval-based learning activities; concept mapping, flashcards, or any of the other powerful learning strategies will promote meaningful learning as compared to re-reading or highlighting. Through self-explanation students explain to themselves parts of a learning material which improves their understanding. Also, prior laboratory studies have shown the effectiveness of the practice of retrieval, which can be broadly characterized as recognition tests, cued-recall, and free-recall (McDaniel Et Al, 2011).

3. According to an Assistant Professor, Cognitive Scientist, & Former K-12 teacher, Pooja Agarwal, the act of calling information to mind or retrieval, our memory for that specific information is strengthened and it becomes less likely to forget about that information.

4. Yana Weinstein (2013), an Assistant Professor at University of Massachusetts, Lowell, states that retrieval practice is useful for protecting against the negative impact of previously memorized information on the learning of new information, alongside increasing the retention of subsequent information.

Benefits of Retrieval Practice

Research in cognitive scienceindicates that students may find it difficult in the beginning; but, having students vigorously recollect the information will benefit them greatly. There are many benefits of Retrieval Practice in classroom settings. Some of the most important effects of retrieval practice are:

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Challenges of using Retrieval Based Learning

Both teachers and students show concerns about classroom practice of r etrieval-based learning activities. Some teachers do not recognize the effectiveness of retrieval practice and they are hesitant to use retrieval practice because they feel that they might have to change their teaching styleor the textbook. But, it's not true because the effectiveness of retrieval practice is not only about receiving the information. Teachers must see how their students use spacing and practice the things that have been taught. Also, some teachers believe that retrieval practice would waste their class time. But, it's not right too. Application of r etrieval practice will act as a learning tool that will enable students to learn more quickly and retain more information in their long term memory.

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Using mental modelling for retrieval-based learning

The block building methodology that we have been using across schools in England was initially seen as a knowledge-building tool. Some of our member schools quickly realised that this engaging pedagogy was a useful way of finding out what students knew. We have seen educators ask students to build a conceptual model of a body of knowledge. This type of creative retrieval based activity is more engaging than multiple-choice tests. Unlike multiple-choice and short answer questions, students have to create a structure that represents a particular piece of knowledge. This for example could be a timeline, I hierarchical structure or categorising items into groups. The process uses student creativity to make sense of complex materials. These types of alternative learning strategies are more accessible than traditional classroom tasks as they free up the working memory to do more critical thinking. You can see the learning tool in action on the dedicated webpage.

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References

Blunt, JD & Karpicke (2014). Learning with retrieval-based concept mapping - Journal of Educational Psychology.

Carpenter, Lund, Coffman (2016) A classroom study on the relationship between student achievement and retrieval-enhanced learning, Journal of Educational Psychology, Springer.

Mark A. Mcdaniel & Barbie J Huelser (2011). Test-Enhanced Learning in a Middle School Science Classroom: The Effects of Quiz Frequency and Placement, May 2011Journal of Educational Psychology 103(2):399-414

Pooja Agarwal, (2013). How to use retrieval practice to improve learning.

Roediger and Karpicke (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention, Educational Psychology Review, journals.sagepub.com

Yana Weinstein (2012). Testing improves true recall and protects against the build-up of proactive interference without increasing false recall. Taylor & Francis.

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The technique of bringing information to mind for improving and increasing the learning process is known as Retrieval Practice. Consciously recalling knowledge helps learners in long term retention of knowledge, and to pull their knowledge "out" and analyze initial learning.