Spaced Retrieval Practice
Spaced retrieval involves taking a given amount of time spent practicing skills, behaviors, or recalling information, and organizing that time into multiple sessions spread over the time. It is compared to cramming practice into one or a few sessions a day or two before an assessment or due date. The goal of learning is convert information into durable, usable knowledge. It is not simply test-dumping information. Research has shown that spacing skill practice and the retrieval of information over several days improves retention and enhances performance on assessments.
Moreover, spaced practice is less stressful, and it saves the learner time in the long run, making it easier to retrieve information on a summative or final exam. Ideally, the learner should leave two to three days between study sessions, and the sessions should be short and focused. The key is to schedule consistent, short study sessions over time. Simply spacing learning opportunities across multiple days leads to much higher achievement than studying the same amount of information all in one session.
Spacing
Spacing retrieval of information and skills practice involves taking a given amount of time to learn something and spreading practice out over time. It boosts learning, for research has demonstrated that it more effectively stores information in our long term memories. Therefore, the learner should schedule two to three days between study sessions. Moreover, the sessions should be short and focused, and the learner should attempt to use different strategies for retrieving information in an effort to “make it stick.”
Interleaving
Interleaving information and skills practice is an approach to learning that involves mixing up the retrieval of closely related topics or skills during a single session. It challenges students to compare, contrast, and discriminate information. For example, it is better for soccer players to practice trapping the ball with the chest, thigh, and foot during one practice session than to focus on a single skill.
Using Schemata
Schema Theory involves linking new information to existing knowledge, and this strategy makes it easier to move information from working to long term memory. A schema is based on past experience, and it is accessed to guide and remember new understandings. For example, crawling toddlers learn to pick up a ball because they developed a schema for grabbing objects while playing with a mobile in the crib. Teachers often elicit or build prior knowledge before teaching new material in order to create key associations for assimilating novel ideas into an existing schema.
What does spaced retrieval look like in the classroom?
Spaced Practice
- The Leitner System is a method of spaced repetition for reviewing material using flashcards.
- Open class with review questions as a form of building Connection Before Content, or stage a review session in the middle of class as a movement and brain break between two lessons or phases of a single lesson.
- Space the Cornell Note Method over three or four class periods to take advantage of spaced practice and elaboration, an additional strategy for storing information in long term memory.
Interleaving
- Use review questions from past assessments on low stakes formative assessments.
- Review for assessments by mixing “easy” questions with “hard” ones.
Building Schema
- Clusters: Pulling from the terms associated with a unit of learning, students randomly select three terms and use higher order thinking to connect all three in a single paragraph. For example, in history, the student uses cause and effect relationships to link together three events or people.
- Brain Dumping and Mind Mapping: Students spend 5 to 8 minutes silently “dumping” everything they know about a topic onto a pice of paper. Then, they use a pencil or marker to connect terms, describing the relationship between he ideas.
- KWL: KWL stands for What I know, What I Wonder, and What I Learned. It is a teaching strategy teacher’s use to spark prior knowledge, involve student interest, and review what was learned.
- Anticipatory Guides: An anticipatory guide is used by teachers to activate prior knowledge. The teacher provides students with key questions based on the content from an upcoming lesson or unit, and the students predict what the answers will be.
- Connect-Extend-Wonder: Similar to a KWL, a Connect-Extend-Wonder is an effective way to reflect on learning new content or skills and supports the development of schema. After learning new material, the student connects to it. This involves determining what they already knew. Next, they extend, or identify new learnings. Finally, they wonder, which involves asking questions about the new material the lesson left unanswered.
