how do we best help our students as they return to schools after this newest round of lockdown? We know from several pieces of evidence, including the Ofsted Covid-19 inspection, and a recent report from the education Endowment Foundation, that students have, unsurprisingly, fallen behind in their learning. We likewise know the extent of the impact, with students being at least several months behind where they ought to be for essential learning outcomes.
With schools re-opening soon, the question hanging over the nation and particularly for educators, parents, and students themselves, is how will they ‘catch up’? The government is considering several options to help students make up for this lost time, such as shorter summer holidays and longer school days.
Many have highlighted that we ought to be focusing on supporting students’ well-being first, by encouraging outdoor time, exercising and spending time with friends instead of extra school hours. here at InnerDrive, we agree that well-being support comes first. helping students to be pleased and healthy after the stresses of the pandemic will be a precursor to enhancing learning.
But when it does come to learning, we believe there is a essential technique to help maximise the learning time that they do have: retrieval practice.
Book Retrieval practice CPD
What is retrieval practice?
Retrieval practice is any activity that gets students to generate answers, from answering questions in class to quizzes or practice papers. It has consistently been proven to improve academic performance. This is because it helps students to remember much more information, and to remember it for longer.
Why is retrieval practice effective?
Retrieval practice is so effective in helping students to learn and remember information because it requires them to recall previously learnt knowledge. This creates stronger memory traces and increases the possibility that the information will be transferred to the long-term memory.
It is many effective in an informal environment. For example, when students know that answering questions or being evaluated has low stakes and is being used as a learning strategy, rather than as a highly pressurised test.
So, how can retrieval practice help students catch up?
It frees up cognitive load
Retrieval practice helps manage students’ cognitive load. There is no doubt that when returning to school, students Camiseta FC Porto will be bombarded with lots of information, alongside navigating social relationships once again and facing numerous other potential stresses. all of this information can clog up their working memory and result in cognitive overload. This will imply students struggle to learn and remember information.
Thankfully, retrieval practice helps to totally free up cognitive load through:
solidifying knowledge in students’ long-term memory, instead of keeping it in working memory for too long.
ensuring students really know and understand information before moving on, rather than cramming everything in.
improving students’ memory during times of stress.
preventing irrelevant information from clogging up working memory – likewise known as the Redundancy Effect.
It improves metacognition
Another way in which retrieval practice can help students at this time is through improving their metacognition. Essentially, this is because retrieval practice gets students into the practice of asking questions. eventually this will extend to students asking questions about their own learning, identifying what they do and don’t know, helping them to analyse their thought processes, and possibly prompting them to seek feedback from others.
In turn, metacognition enhances student learning and, possibly much more importantly at this time, helps them to manage their emotions and build their resilience. So, retrieval practice helps students to tap into their metacognitive abilities, and these can play a big part in helping students to cope after lockdown.
It acts as a progress monitor
As we said, retrieval practice is many effective under low-pressure, informal conditions. and although it is not a tool to grade students, it can be used to measure their progress. using retrieval practice such as quizzes to measure student knowledge and Camiseta Wolverhampton Wanderers understanding in the months after lockdown can offer a helpful guide to identify how students are doing, where their strengths and weaknesses are, if there are any particular areas to focus on, and if they need extra support.
And there’s more…
Of course, retrieval practice is great in that it helps students to learn and improves their memory. but it’s likewise much much more than that. It improves student confidence, reduces nerves, and can help them to Camiseta Atalanta BC cope better with stress. A recent study on the power of retrieval practice found that 92% of students who had studied using this technique reported that it had helped them learn and 72% of them felt that it had made them less nervous about their upcoming exams.
Many students won’t be facing exams, or at least in the typical sense. but improving their confidence will certainly be an essential way of supporting students after months of online learning, and to help them face any pressures of returning to school.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Retrieval practice is an effective and easy to use technique to help students in their learning after lockdown. It can help them to manage cognitive load, improve metacognition, monitor progress, and increase confidence. many of all, it maximises the learning time that students do have, leaving time for the all-important getting out and having fun that they’ll need after lockdown.
Want to become a retrieval practice expert? We have an online teacher CPD course just for you.