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Test Preparation Strategies That Refresh Learning and Extend Recall

This is the time of year when we face the challenge of preparing our students for upcoming assessments and exams. Students have been exposed to a wealth of content, concepts, and skills over the past weeks and months. We know that students often forget much of what they’ve heard and taken in over time. Now we need to understand how well they’ve absorbed, stored, and can recall and apply what they’ve learned. Our challenge is to bring what students have learned to a conscious level and shore up what they still need to learn. Test preparation strategies that refresh learning and extend recall can help students do this.

However, our goal shouldn’t simply be just to have our students do well on an exam. While having our students do well is part of their and our success equation, we really want them to be able to recall, apply, and connect what they’ve learned beyond the exam. Test preparation may be the immediate activity, but it’s a great opportunity to help students to refresh, reinforce, and ramp up what they’ve learned. Our real goal is to have students be able to retrieve what they’ve learned and access it long after they’ve finished the exam and left our class.

Giving students practice questions that mimic the format they’ll encounter on the exam and reviewing strategies for developing and choosing question responses can assist students to accurately demonstrate what they know. However, these activities do little to reinvigorate what students have learned or uncover gaps and “soft spots” in their learning. Interestingly, some of the strategies we used during initial instruction to help students remember can also be useful in refreshing and reinforcing past learning. Here are four strategies that can help our students get ready for major exams while also extending their learning recall.

Schedule brief, frequent, and focused refreshment sessions. Start early and allow plenty of time. For example, we might take the first or last few minutes of daily class routines for quick review and assessment of what students know and what may need to be reinforced. Students will be better able to re-activate prior learning if they engage in small doses of review over time, rather than large dose cramming in the final days before the assessment. These sessions should include concepts and skills with which students did well during initial instruction and areas of struggle. Just because students scored well on previous assessments doesn't mean they can recall and apply previous learning now. In areas where students struggled during initial learning, we need to pay particular attention to aspects and elements that challenged them. We can also challenge ourselves to find new approaches that might sidestep learning traps and trip-ups and create more successful learning paths for students.

Have students engage in retrieval practice. This relatively simple research-based strategy can provide a significant advantage to students’ preparation. We start by giving students a specific topic, process, or skill on which to focus. Students then do a “mind dump” by recounting, orally or in writing, everything they can recall from prior learning related to the recall target. Students can quickly refresh their memories while identifying areas that may need reinforcement. Interestingly, this approach has been shown to be more efficient and effective than reteaching. Of course, we can encourage students to repeat this process on their own as they prepare for exams individually or in small groups. A key benefit associated with this activity is its ability to extend recall well beyond the completion of an exam.

Coach students to engage in self-quizzing. We might encourage students to generate questions they anticipate will be on the exam. We might “prime” this activity by reminding students of the major concepts and skills they’ve studied and likely will be included in the assessment. By developing questions, students will focus on key content they need to know. Their answers to the questions they generate can build confidence and uncover areas needing more focus and study. A twist to this activity is to have students exchange questions and have classmates develop responses for review by the question creator. The exchange likely will broaden the thinking and preparation in which students engage, as different students predictably will focus on different aspects of the content.

Have students build “mind maps” to demonstrate elements, relationships, and key concept hierarchies. Mind maps can be particularly helpful to students who prefer to organize their thinking and recall with visual representations. Seeing the map in their minds can be a great assistance to them as they respond to exam questions, and "mind maps" retain easily long after the exam is complete. If students build "mind maps" during initial learning, now is a good time to have students retrieve them, review them, and explain their meaning to a classmate. The process of explaining will further solidify recall and may surface areas of confusion or memory loss that’ll need to be addressed.

Obviously, we want our students to do well on key unit and end-of-year assessments. However, we also know students often focus their attention on upcoming exams and quickly forget content once the assessment is complete. These strategies can help students learn more effectively now, as well as build long-term memory they can access in the future.

April 06, 2023

Looping, Platooning, and Self-Contained Classes—Which to Choose?

This time of year elementary schools start thinking about and planning next year’s schedules and staffing assignments. For most schools, the choice arises among three options: self-contained classes, platooning, and looping. A key consideration that’ll drive this decision is which model best serves the students. Fortunately, a growing body of research helps clarify the learning implications of these decision options.

But first, some definitions. The self-contained classroom, the dominate model for generations, has one primary teacher responsible for core instruction and learning for a defined group of students for a single year. Platooning retains a defined group of students, but instruction and responsibility for learning in core subjects are shared among a group of teachers, each of whom is responsible for a portion of the curriculum, such as math, English language arts, etc. Teachers rotate among the classes at a specific grade level either by going from room to room, or by having students come to them. In looping, students have one primary teacher for core subjects, and they remain with the teacher for more than a single year.

From a research and experience perspective, self-contained classrooms provide opportunities to form strong relationships between students and teachers, but many teachers have a stronger background and better instructional skills in some subjects than others. Consequently, instructional focus and student learning can vary across subjects. Platooning addresses the potential for instruction in each core subject to be of higher quality and delivered by a teacher with a higher level of commitment to the subject. But this risks sacrificing the close relationships that typically develop in a self-contained classroom. Looping supports even stronger relationships between students and teachers as the relationship spans a longer time. However, like self-contained classrooms, uneven preparation and instructional skills impact learning.

So, how can we sort for the best option? Multiple studies show platooning doesn’t result in better academic achievement as measured by standardized tests. In fact, past multiple studies highlight decreased scores in reading and math when specialists deliver instruction. Equally concerning, the number of student absences and suspensions grew. Sadly, the negative impact was greatest for the most vulnerable students, including students with special needs.

Students in self-contained classrooms perform better than matched students in platooned classes despite concerns about uneven teacher preparation and skills. The factor driving the difference is the crucial role of the relationship between students and teachers in early grades. Also, the knowledge teachers have about individual students allows them to respond to students' unique learning needs.

Meanwhile, studies show that students in looping classrooms do better than students in either self-contained or platooning classes. Again, this additional time students and teachers spend together leads to strong relationships, a key differentiator. Further, the additional time allows teachers to tailor instruction and support for students with distinctive learning needs. Interestingly, a variation on looping multi-age classes offers different grade level students greater benefits. It allows teachers flexibility to teach content as students are ready, as opposed to limitations of a tight, grade level curriculum.

Admittedly, many factors go into decisions about scheduling and teacher assignments. However, evidence shows that placing relationships at the center is a crucial consideration to make for our youngest learners.

Takeaways:

For young learners, the presence of strong, positive relationships with their teachers has a greater influence on learning than teacher expertise alone.

Investing in teacher expertise across subjects in elementary grades offers a better return than having teachers teach in their strongest curricular area.

Vulnerable students need a combination of strong relationships. A teacher who knows them well is able to respond to their individual learning needs.

For middle and high school students, multi-disciplinary teaching teams that work closely together provide important support and shared knowledge about student needs, despite exposure to multiple teachers each day.

Through our experience with and the ongoing research on platooning, looping, and self-contained classes, we strive to distill the best learning methods and strategies for our students.

March 21, 2023

Help Students Learn Faster and Remember Longer

Our immediate goal with each lesson is to have students absorb content they encounter and build skills with which they’re presented. We want them to be successful today. However, our larger, longer-term goal is to have them become skilled, efficient, and effective learners. Students building skills and developing techniques equip them to learn faster and remember more of what they learn. When we teach and coach students to develop effective learning skills and habits, we support them to be more successful today. We also equip them with tools and techniques they can employ long after they leave our classrooms, creating long-term investment in and contributing to their success. This is a good time of year to introduce and review some of these tools and approaches. We can re-energize our students by giving them additional insights and advantages to accelerate learning and build stronger, longer lasting recall of what they learn. Consider these five tools and techniques to share. One of the best ways to help students organize and make sense of new learning is have them summarize and explain their understanding and observations to someone. The activity can be as simple as a brief “turn and talk,” or as formal as doing a stand-up presentation or developing a set of “how to” instructions. The process of transforming newly absorbed information into an explanation solidifies new learning and the process of sharing new learning helps transfer it into memory. If students study alone and there's no one immediately present with whom they can share their learning, they'll benefit by verbalizing what they learn or by writing a summary to solidify their understanding. Of course, summarizing and sharing learning also may reveal misconceptions and misunderstandings that can be addressed before they become embedded in memory. Another way to accelerate and solidify new learning is for students to practice frequent self-quizzing. Coaching students to pause frequently as they read new content or engage in a developing skill encourages them to ask themselves questions and test their growing knowledge. Like explaining or summarizing new learning, self-quizzing moves information from “intake” to “ownership” in students’ brains. As a result, newly acquired information more quickly becomes embedded in memory allowing gaps in information and understanding to be uncovered and addressed. Yet another strategy to help students efficiently build new learning and store it in memory is to have them space out and vary learning and practice sessions. Lengthy and intense practice sessions may seem like a good way to build understanding and automaticity in learning, but the strategy can also result in exhaustion and leave students not recalling key information. Alternatively, when learning a new skill or absorbing new content is spaced over multiple sessions attention remains fresh, and focus is easier to maintain. Further, when students vary their study processes and practice activities, learning becomes layered and varied. Consequently, it’s easier to retain and retrieve. Still, another strategy to improve and accelerate learning is to have students include multiple skills or concepts within the same learning or study session. For example, students might study math and chemistry in the same session, mix new information with review of past learning, or address content out of chronological order. Known as interleaving, the process of addressing multiple concepts or skills in succession keeps the brain alert and improves its ability to differentiate elements and aspects of the content students are learning. Their brain is required to adjust and adapt, thus building depth and detail in what students learn. Finally, we can help students develop confidence and readiness to continue learning by coaching and reminding them to pay attention to and celebrate their learning successes, even when they may seem small. Students often are tempted to focus on and remember their struggles and failures. However, when students celebrate even small wins, they stimulate a feel-good chemical in their brains known as dopamine. The feeling generated by dopamine reinforces the learning experience and leaves students wanting more. Further, giving attention to successes can build learning confidence as students prepare to engage in the next learning challenge. Learning often is hard, and finding the necessary energy and confidence to struggle and succeed can be challenging. We need to provide our students with the very best tools and techniques available. These five research and practice-proven approaches provide valuable additions to our students’ learning “tool chests.” Consider setting aside time in the coming week to introduce and have students tryout some of these learning tools and reap their benefits.

January 06, 2023

Planning and Managing the Transition Back

Most schools across the country are making the transition from some type of remote or hybrid experiences to face-to-face teaching and learning. For most of us, moving back to more direct, in-person contact with each other is a welcome prospect. Nevertheless, we need to attend to several issues and implications as we make the transition. Predictably, there will be people who assume that the process should be simple, immediate, and problem-free. Yet, our students will require some time to adjust after a long period of learning in a remote context without the support and distractions that come with learning in the same physical space as classmates. We too will need time to recalibrate our practices and expectations to reengage with students face to face. We need to keep in mind that students have experienced different routines, expectations, and connections while learning remotely. Some of what students have experienced may easily and gleefully be abandoned in favor of what they recall from past face-to-face learning experiences. However, there likely are aspects of learning in the past several months that students want to bring back with them to the classroom. For example, most students have learned how to more fully integrate technology in the process of learning and may be reluctant to return to an instructional context that is less reliant on and integrative of technology. They also have learned skills and strategies for learning independently and accessing remote resources that can enhance learning back in the classroom. Now is a good time to survey students, hold focus groups, or interview students about their learning expectations and preferences as they transition back. Students will be happier and the shift will be smoother if the perspectives and preferences of students are considered and reflected in their experiences as they return. Similarly, our expectations for student behavior had to be modified to reflect the context and variables present in remote learning. The return to in-person learning means that some of the flexibility students experienced might be lessened, but we need to be cautious to avoid tightening behavior expectations just because we can. Now is a good time to reflect on the behavior expectations that will best support learning. We need to draw on what we learned about motivation and engagement driven by learning interest and commitment, rather than rely on forced compliance through threats and consequences. The fact is that ownership for and commitment to learning grows when students have more choices in their learning and greater voice about how they will learn. For some educators, remote learning has been a reality since the beginning of the year. We have formed relationships and come to know our students in a distance learning context. These relationships can be strong, but they still will need attention when we return to in-person learning. We need to allocate time to renew relationships in a different context and build an in-person learning community. Of course, our efforts need to build on existing relationships with students and we need to support students to expand and deepen relationships they have formed with each other. Without question, the transition back will come with some anxiety, angst, and reluctance for some students. The more we can support them and reinforce relationships, the smoother and faster the transition will occur. We also need to be alert to signs of emotional, psychological, and even physical trauma as students return. The past months have been stressful for all of us, but for some students the stress was compounded by family disruption, strife, and abuse. It was difficult in remote learning contexts to always pick up on signs of abuse and neglect and signals of emotional and psychological problems. For students whose remote learning experiences were colored by trauma, the transition may represent a welcome change, or it may represent more stress and lead to acting out and other troubling behaviors. We need to be ready to step in and provide support and connect them with any resources they may need to find their way forward to safety, good health, and success. In fact, this is a good time to review with colleagues the array of available resources and processes for accessing services. Of course, we need to pay attention to where students are in their learning. Rest assured that they will not all be in the same place. Some students may have thrived during remote learning. Others will have struggled and fallen behind. We need to learn what students know and are ready to learn, and chart with them a path forward. Trying to replicate everything students have missed will not likely be the best choice. Rather, consider focusing on key concepts and skills students will need to support their progress. As time allows, these students will be better able to fill in content gaps using the core strategies and skills they have learned. Finally, we need to stay attuned to our needs and feelings. While we may also be looking forward to the return to in-person instruction, it will take some time to find our stride and feel comfortable. We need to give ourselves some slack to adjust, while remembering and using what we have learned from remote instruction to lift our practice and enhance our impact.

January 11, 2021

Five Secrets to Successful Online Meetings

The growing prevalence of online meetings to conduct important work while practicing physical distancing and reducing logistical challenges associated with the pandemic has led to the coining of terms like “screen fatigue” and “virtual meeting burnout.” Of course, there are issues and items that need the collective attention and engagement of groups and teams within our organizations, so avoiding online meetings is not necessarily the answer. Still, the feelings are real. The good news is that there are steps we can take to make online meetings more productive, efficient, and satisfying. As you prepare for and conduct online meetings, here are five strategies that can make a positive difference:

Establish meeting norms in advance. Such things as muting microphones when others are speaking, not talking over each other, avoiding multitasking, and posting questions and comments in chat boxes or other appropriate places for later attention are some examples. Of course, we need to provide reminders and encourage compliance when norms are ignored.
Develop short, focused agendas. Online meetings can feel more exhausting than in-person meetings as participants have to pay closer attention to observe non-verbal messages, may feel isolated from other attendees, and have difficulty remaining attentive as they experience distractions in their physical space. Short, focused agendas can encourage participants to stay engaged. Efficient introductions and engaging ice breakers at the beginning of the agenda can build comfort and connections and create readiness for discussion and other forms of meeting participation.
Provide time for reflection and responses. During face-to-face meetings it can be easy to read the readiness of participants to make a comment or present a question. Online meetings typically make this task more difficult. Consequently, we might be tempted to move on rather than wait for responses or be tempted to cut off discussion too early. Also, slight time delays in the technology can lead us to inadvertently talk over someone else. Slowing the meeting pace and allowing time for more deliberative discussion can make an important difference.
Monitor and manage time. When meetings begin to wander, so does attention. When discussions feel as though they are dragging out, frustration can quickly build. Consider setting and minding timelines for discussion to support focus and keep the meeting moving forward.
Summarize key decisions and follow-up. Of course, summaries and follow-up clarification are important components of any meeting. However, in online environments it is even easier to lose track of what tasks will be performed, who will be responsible, and when they will be completed. The end of the meeting can also be a good time to clear up any confusion, answer any remaining questions, and evaluate the quality of the meeting.

Conducting efficient, productive meetings is rarely an easy task. Yet, with thoughtful planning, careful structuring, and attention to a few key facilitation tasks, online meetings can be satisfying and even energizing.