Why Don’t Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom, by Daniel Willingham If you have limited time and are looking for something a little less comprehensive that can still allow you to make positive changes to your classroom, have a look at our blogs on the subject. Here are the ones we recommend you start with: Keynote speaker: I have presented at various high profile events across the UK and. Events in the UAE include a keynote presentation at the UAE University focusing on innovation across the curriculum and I am delighted to be the keynote speaker at the Abu Dhabi Teaching and Learning Conference in February 2020. I have also presented at Qatar, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Hong Kong with upcoming presentations in The Netherlands and Kuala Lumpur. 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.

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. As teachers across the UK become more and more evidence-informed, we’re learning to ditch revision games, posters, highlighting, re-reading and mnemonics. This book is the definitive one-stop shop for all things Retrieval Practice. Kate Jones covers the seminal research in a clear way and then uses her experience in the classroom to illustrate how to translate it into practice. This book will be of interest to everyone in Teaching & Learning as it covers other important areas that are linked to memory, such as spacing, interleaving and dual coding. Who is this book for? 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. 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.

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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. Design five to eight questions that help students practise retrieving their knowledge on the topic from memory and applying it to answer the question. 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. In this session, Kate Jones, author of Love To Teach, Retrieval Practice and Retrieval Practice 2 will be sharing the research behind this effective teaching and learning strategy as well as top tips as to how this can be implemented in the classroom. This will cover a combination of evidence and experience, both of which Kate believes need to be combined to successfully implement and embed retrieval practice in the classroom. Kate will share practical tried and tested examples. There will also be the opportunity to ask Kate questions too. Look at your scheme of learning for a half term. Decide what the key takeaway concepts or vocabulary are in that time.

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. Flash cards are a very useful revision activity for many reasons. They work across all subjects, they can be used with the recall of facts, dates, quotes, definitions and more. They are a very simple technique for learners to use – low effort but high impact. As well as being an effective learning strategy flash cards are also popular with students. In a research survey carried out in 2018 more than 50% of college students reported that they do use flash cards to study. Second, we can consider how well connected and robust the knowledge is – known as ‘storage strength’. 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.

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.

https://3starlearningexperiences.wordpress.com/2017/04/04/why-google-cant-replace-individual-human-knowledge/ 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 Be fair and allow one repeat, but students can’t repeat the same thing as the person that spoke before them. Creating flash cards that cover the content of a two-year exam course at GCSE or A-Level can be overwhelming. Students should consider creating flash cards from the beginning of the academic year and continue as the course progresses. Eventually, they will have created a collection of useful flash cards and as the exams approach they will be so pleased that they did so that they can dedicate their time and efforts to the retrieval process. Once students have their flash cards that contain questions and answers to self-test they then need to ensure that they space out their revision in regards to when they self-test. We don’t want students to use flash cards as a method of intense last-minute cramming before an exam. A great strategy to ensure spaced or distributed practice is known as the Leitner system, named after Sebastian Leitner who developed this method in the 1970s. An excellent explanation of how this works can be seen in the video below posted by primary teacher Jon Hutchinson. I have shared this video with colleagues, students and parents all of whom have been appreciative and many of my students now use this system.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 We’d love to see how you put this practical Kate Jones retrieval practice resource to use in your school. Tell us about the impact of retrieval practice in your classroom by tweeting us at @teachwire. 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… Instead, we’re moving towards a system where we remove the revision lesson and replace it with frequent opportunities for retrieval practice built in to the main sequence of lessons.