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. 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 As teachers across the UK become more and more evidence-informed, we’re learning to ditch revision games, posters, highlighting, re-reading and mnemonics. 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.

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?” This fantastic resource was created by Kate Jones, a teacher, leader, author, blogger, keynote speaker and podcaster. Evidence-based education resource Secondary Year 6 leavers - Covid-safe transition activities and ideas It's been a chaotic year but Year 6 children still deserve the best ending to their primary journey Use different colour flash cards for different subjects, such as green for science and pink for history, or use different colours for different categories or topics. Colour coding is purely to help with organisation, not recall.About What is retrieval practice? Frequently Asked Questions Research on Learning Professional Development About Us One of our favourite features of this book is that it is well designed, making it easier to read. Several illustrations summarise the key points – a very clever nod to Dual Coding, discussed in the book as well. Usefulness In the short term, your students will hate retrieval practice. They will hate the feeling of not knowing an answer or getting things only partially correct. But the science is clear: it works.

I designed the retrieval practice challenge grid to help you purposefully revisit subject knowledge and content previously studied.Finally, a question that I have been asked and one I am still reflecting on is whether students should create their own flashcards or use existing pre-made cards available? This is a difficult question because my initial response would be to encourage students to create their own flash cards. If teachers create flash cards for their classes this can potentially become a huge workload issue as they are very time consuming to create and could also take away a valuable opportunity that will benefit students, especially if they continue with higher education and will need to study independently in the future. 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. 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. New discoveries

This concept can be applied to the classroom with a twist, focusing on daily review of five a day to promote healthy retrieval. It could simply be five quiz questions to start the lesson.These results have since been repeated in multiple contexts and under a huge variety of conditions. This book is a one-stop shop for all things Retrieval Practice. Kate Jones covers seminal research in a clear way and uses her experience in the classroom to illustrate how to translate it into practice. Anyone interested in Teaching & Learning will benefit from this book, which covers important areas linked to memory such as Spacing, Interleaving, and Dual Coding. There have been various forms of retrieval practice used in classrooms for many years ranging from a paper-based quiz, mini-whiteboards and as technology has evolved teachers are able to use different online tools for quizzing. However, quizzing and testing have also been used a lot in the past to record data, as an assessment tool rather than as a tool to enhance and support teaching and learning. Look at your scheme of learning for a half term. Decide what the key takeaway concepts or vocabulary are in that time.

Kate Jone’s book is very evidence-based. So much so that it might be the most comprehensive overview of the research in this area that we have come across. Kate also provides a reference list of academic journals and complementary books on the area at the end of each chapter. This means that, in addition to everything you can learn from the book itself, you know exactly where to look for further reading. Usability Previously (what feels like many years ago but perhaps it is still happening in some classrooms) the focus of the starter task was to ‘hook’ the students into learning. The aim of the starter activity was to entice students with engagement even if the link to the lesson and content was weak ( I trained in 2009-2010 so perhaps my experiences reflect this time). This was clearly not a good use of time. There is a temptation to say that retrieval practice is common sense but I don’t think it is. If it was simply common sense I and many other teachers would have used this strategy much sooner and students would be using it to revise instead of resorting to less effective and time-consuming methods such as re-reading and highlighting. 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 hinders performance.Retrieval Grids include interleaving: Many grids include similar concepts (e.g., names for different historical figures) that require students to discriminate. 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