How Long and How Often to Review Material

Strategies for Generating Reflective Learners

There are no specific guidelines for when students should review information learnt. But according to research, the most beneficial time to recall information is at the point when we’re about to forget it.

Advice to give students

An effective approach to advocate to our students is that doing short bursts of retrieval every day - in bursts of 30-60 minutes - will be more beneficial than one long seven-hour session.
The following slides will contain two strategies for producing reflective learners from Barak Rosenshine's ‘Principles of Instruction’ paper.

Strategy 1 - begin by reviewing

Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning. Daily review can strengthen previous learning and can lead to fluent recall.
- Rosenshine highlights from the research that the most effective teachers began their lesson with a five to eight-minute review of previously covered material.
- Teachers use this review time to reflect on vocabulary, formulae, events or previously learnt concepts.

Strategy 2 - extensive practice

Engage students in weekly and monthly review. Students need to be involved in extensive practice in order to develop well-connected and automatic knowledge.
- In his paper, Rosenshine indicates that expert teachers create regular opportunities for pupils to rehearse and review information and, in time, improve learning by recalling information with increased automaticity.

The problem with NOT reviewing

If pupils must work hard to recall previously learnt material whilst learning new material, this can make it difficult for the new material to be received and encoded correctly.

1‘C’ - How Can Knowledge be Effectively Condensed?

1.1'C' - Condense

1.1.1The Basics of Condensing Knowledge

1.2Strategies for Condensing

1.2.1Condensing the PowerPoint

1.2.2The Four Cogs to Expert Explanations

1.2.3Cornell Notes

2'R' - How do we Generate Reflective Learners?

2.1Research on Memory

2.1.1Semantic & Episodic Memory

2.1.2The Importance of Spacing Learning

2.2Timings for Reviewing Previously Learnt Material

2.2.1How Long and How Often to Review Material

2.3Strategies for Generating Reflective Learners

2.3.1BUG Twist

2.3.2Low-Stake Spaced Quizzing

3‘A’ - Using Assessment as a Responsive Tool

3.1Formative & Summative Assessments

3.1.1The Problem of Assessing 'On' or 'Off' Track

3.1.2Summative vs Formative Evaluation

3.2Determining Whether Learning has Taken Place

3.2.1Proxies for Learning

3.3Strategies for Assessing Student Learning

3.3.1Hinge Questions

3.3.2Exit Tickets

4'F' & 'T' - Precise Feedback to Feedforward

4.1Giving Effective Feedback

4.1.1Creating an Effective Feedback Culture

4.1.2Effectiveness of Feedback

4.2Grades

4.2.1Research on Giving Grades as Feedback

4.3Strategies for Providing Feedback

4.3.1The Language of Feedback

4.3.2'In the Moment' Feedback

Jump to other topics