Did you know there are learning strategies that have been scientifically proven to be better than others? And that some of the most commonly used methods of studying have been proven to be ineffective? I recently finished learning about our conscious, explicit learning from The Learning Brain with Professor Thad A. Polk by The Great Courses. It affirmed a lot of what I’ve learned in my teaching experience. It also illuminated some situations that puzzled me with regards to how my students learned.
As I researched more to write this article, I learned that the studies mentioned in the course were conducted mostly with college students and had adult learners in mind. So I went through and researched some studies conducted with school aged children for each technique. I’ll describe what I learned from these studies below as well.
So what are the best strategies for explicit learning?
According to science, retrieval practice and spaced practice are decidedly more effective than other learning strategies.
In 2013, a team of researchers headed by Professors John Dunlosky of Kent State University and Daniel Willingham of the University of Virginia reviewed the published scientific studies on explicit learning strategies. They came up with a system for rating learning methods based on how well they work for different students and in different situations. They identified spaced practice and retrieval practice as the two learning strategies that were most effective, another two as moderately effective, and two that are not effective at all.
The rest of this article will cover retrieval practice and the most common strategies that don’t really work. Part two will discuss spaced practice. In part three I’ll talk about the other effective learning strategies and some other facts about how our brains process and remember information. I hope that this information will empower you in your teaching.
Retrieval Practice
What It Is
What is perhaps the most effective strategy for explicit learning is retrieval practice, or consistent testing. What is it?Well, it’s not just formal testing or quizzing for grades, though those can certainly be examples, but it’s any activity that requires a student to consistently reach into their memories and bring up the information.
What Research Has Found
There have been hundreds of studies that show the great effectiveness of consistent testing when it comes to long-term learning. In one of these studies, Andrew Butler at Washington State University in Saint Louis found that testing practice, especially short answer recall, helped participants to remember material even after a whole month later. In the study, students viewed a different lecture for three consecutive days. Everyday, they did a different learning activity soon after the lecture. For one of the activities, they took a short answer recall test. For another, they completed a multiple choice test. Finally, the third learning activity had participants view a summary of the lecture with important points and details. Then one month later, they took a test on all the material from the three days of lectures. The test included information that students were previously tested on and that were on the lecture summary along with information that they were exposed to only during the lecture. The results showed that the learning activity of short answer recall testing was significantly more effective than either multiple choice testing or studying lecture summaries, both of which had similar results. Other studies have also shown that retrieval practice not only increases retention of factual based information, but helped students correctly answer inference and concept based questions.
In addition, a study on the effectiveness of retrieval practice in children conducted by Karpicke, et al. (2016) showed that children also receive strong benefits in learning when they use retrieval practice, regardless of different reading levels and processing speeds. Karpicke also referenced numerous other studies that examined the effects of retrieval practice in school aged children. The general findings of these studies suggest that retrieval practice increases children’s learning when they are provided with the correct answer immediately after testing. So even though many of the existing studies were conducted with college students, there is clear evidence that retrieval practice is also a very effective learning method for school-aged children as long as they are given the correct answer right after testing.
Ways to Teach With Retrieval Practice
The strong evidence for the effectiveness of retrieval practice means that we should really be using it in our teaching. Here are some concrete ways to do so:
Exit Tickets and Do Nows/Bellringers: Consistently quiz students at the end of each lesson. Use questions that require students to remember key points and write short answers (Bonus: I find these questions easier to write than multiple choice questions anyway). Keep it short. I’ve used anywhere from 1-5 questions, depending on the lesson. Use the Do Now/Bellringer activity for the next day as a time to correct the exit tickets from the previous day. You can have students correct each other’s answers. The most important thing would be the discussion of correct answers and feedback that students get as they correct the exit tickets, not the grade. Include review questions from previous lessons for every exit ticket. They don’t have to be of every previous lesson, but make sure that students get multiple chances to practice retrieving the information.
Formal Pop Quizzes: Consider giving short 1-2 question pop quizzes during a break in the lesson in the middle of class. Quiz on concepts that students have just learned. Then spend a few minutes correcting the quizzes in class and transition to the next part of the lesson. I’ve also found that frequently working in pop quizzes in the middle of lessons motivates students to stay focused and attentive in class.
Think, Pair, Share: During the lesson, after covering key ideas, it’s very useful to have students meet with shoulder partners to quiz each other on their notes. These are usually timed, where each partner gets about one minute while they look at their notes and ask their partner questions. The answering partner does not get to look at their notes. Partners alternate going first so that not just one person gets the advantage of having looked at their notes first before being quizzed. Because it is timed, students work really efficiently and we’re able to do this multiple times throughout one lesson.
Alternatively, you can have students teach or summarize the material to their partners after allowing them to briefly look at their notes. Their partner can provide them feedback afterwards. This can happen in short bursts throughout the lesson or at the end of it.
Flashcards: This is a popular and classic method because it works! Have students create flashcards with questions on one side and answers on the other side. Make sure to give them opportunities to quiz themselves or each other for even just a few minutes every day, every other day, or weekly. Quizlet is a wonderful app that allows teachers and students to create sets of digital flashcards that they can share with one another. It auto generates quizzes and other fun recall games for students to practice with individually or as a group. Practicing as a group using the team competition mode is a favorite in my classroom!
Cornell Notes: This is an excellent note taking system that is formatted specifically for self-testing. Here is a video that does an excellent job explaining and showing how to use the Cornell Method. Basically, students divide each page of their notes into four sections. The top part is the smallest part and is reserved for the title and topic for the notes. The middle section of the page is divided into two sections: the left section is about 2 inches wide and the rest is for the right section. Students will write their main notes during class on the right side. Then soon after class, they write cues and possible test questions on the left hand side. Students can later quiz themselves by covering the right hand side of the notes and answer questions from the left hand side. Students should summarize the page of notes on the bottom section of the page.
Games: There are so many ways to gamify retrieval practice! In my classes, we’ve played Jeopardy, Taboo, Outburst, Pictionary, Gestures, the Memory Game, etc. I also love how some of these games force the students into higher level thinking that goes beyond recall. For example, Pictionary and Geusstures/Charades give the students opportunities to express or synthesize learning in creative and distinct ways.
Popular Study Methods That Aren’t Very Effective
Highlighting/Underlining
The scientific research on highlighting/underlining tells us that it is actually not a very effective method for learning. In fact, in some situations it may even hurt student learning. For example, a study by Sarah Peterson of Northern Illinois University asked three groups of college students to study a history chapter. The first group was able to underline and study their underlined copies before the test. The second group underlined during their first reading, but could only review a clean copy right before the test. Finally, the third group did not underline and studied a clean copy before taking the test. All three groups performed similarly in answering basic, factual questions. However, the group who underlined and reviewed their underlined copies did worse than the other two groups when it came to answering inference based questions.
Researchers have some theories about why highlighting or underlining can be detrimental to student learning. It could be that highlighting and underlining make students focus only on individual facts, outside of their context. Many students also struggle with distinguishing between important, central ideas and more nonessential ideas. Maybe highlighting properly would be helpful, but there needs to be more research.
Re-reading
Re-reading is another popular study method among students. However, have you ever had a student who has re-read the chapter multiple times and still had very mediocre results on the test? It’s probably because re-reading is actually not a very effective study method. According to Professor Polk, though rereading might help with remembering simple fact-based information, there’s not much evidence that it helps with comprehension or making inferences. In addition, studies have shown that rereading more than once doesn’t provide that much more benefit. Finally, rereading as a learning activity misleads students to think that they have content mastery because they can easily recognize the material. However, this recognition is very different from recall, which is really the litmus test for explicit learning. So students stop studying before they’ve actually learned the material.
I hope this has been useful information for you and your instruction. Have you found your teaching experiences to correlate with this information?
Stay tuned for Part Two where we’ll explore another highly effective learning method!