Episode 5 - Bite-Size Research on Spaced Retrieval

10/18/17 • 11 min

This episode was funded by The Wellcome Trust.

Show Notes:

This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Yana Weinstein talks about combining spacing and retrieval practice.

In Episode 2 we introduced retrieval practice, and in Episode 4 we introduced spaced practice. We are often asked whether these effective strategies for learning are only applicable to fact learning - at a recent workshop with K-12 teachers, we were asked:

What do these strategies do to students’ abilities to make inferences, apply what they know, and think creatively?

Megan responded to this question with a blog post aptly entitled "Retrieval and Spaced Practice Sound Great, but Are They Just for Memorization?". In this episode, I continue answering that question by describing the results of a study on spaced retrieval practice that looked not only at performance on factual questions. but also on higher-order (application) questions (1). The goal of this study was to extend the already huge evidence for the benefits of spaced retrieval practice to a situation where students were engaging in what they called higher-order learning.

The take-away points from this study are that spaced retrieval practice works not only in basic lab studies, but can also work in highly realistic classroom settings. Also, spaced retrieval can help not only memory of factual information, but also performance on more complex application questions. Thus, a very simple tweak in the timing of students’ retrieval practice can have a measurable impact on later performance.

Next month, we’ll continue by talking about Elaboration.

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References:

(1) Kapler, I. V., Weston, T., & Wiseheart, M. (2015). Spacing in a simulated undergraduate classroom: Long-term benefits for factual and higher-level learning. Learning and Instruction, 36, 38-45.

This episode was funded by The Wellcome Trust.

Show Notes:

This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Yana Weinstein talks about combining spacing and retrieval practice.

What do these strategies do to students’ abilities to make inferences, apply what they know, and think creatively?

Next month, we’ll continue by talking about Elaboration.

Subscribe to our Podcast!

Go to our show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

RSS feed: http://www.learningscientists.org/learning-scientists-podcast/?format=rss

References:

Previous Episode

Episode 4 - Spaced Practice

This episode was funded by The Wellcome Trust.

Show Notes:

Over the past few decades, cognitive psychologists have found evidence for the following 6 strategies for effective learning:

Spaced Practice
Retrieval Practice
Elaboration
Interleaving
Concrete Examples
Dual Coding

Today we’re introducing spaced practice - spacing out studying the same information over multiple sessions rather than cramming it all into one (1).

What is spaced practice?

We talk about how the idea is really simple in theory, but harder to implement. The benefits of spaced practice have been demonstrated in many domains, from fact learning (2), to problem solving (3), and even to musical instrument learning (4). We also talk about how the benefits of spaced practice appear on a delayed test rather than an immediate test (5).

For more about how spaced practice can be helpful and instructions for how to implement it during studying, see this blog post.

How can we get students to space out their learning?

It's hard! You can try to help students set aside blocks of time to study: first have them log how they spend their time for a week, and then have them look for times in their schedule that they could dedicate to studying. Even if they only plan to study 5 minutes each day, that's infinitely more than 0 minutes! You might want to use a time log to use with your students to help them plan for spaced practice. On the podcast, we describe our own attempts at implementing spaced practice in our real lives - with variable success.

If your students need help forming intentions and sticking to them - don't we all? - you can share this guest post with them.

Implementing spaced practice in the classroom

Since it is quite difficult for students to independently engaged in spaced practice, teachers might consider providing students with opportunities for spaced practice as part of the mandatory classroom experience. If you're really planning ahead, you can try to break up the topics you're teaching and space them all out throughout the semester - but this is tricky (though see here for a resource digest full of ideas for spaced teaching).

A lighter approach to introducing spacing is to give students an opportunity to practice the information you've taught at a later date, for example by implementing "lagged" homework. In this system, homework on a given topic is given a few weeks after the topic is taught.

For more on how to implement lagged homework, see this teacher's blog post.

Another idea is to combine spaced practice with retrieval practice, providing students with in-class opportunities to retrieve information from previous classes. A teacher in the UK proposed the following method:

To read more about this method, see this blog post. And, for more about teacher implementation of spaced practice, see this guest post on our blog.

We hope you enjoyed this podcast! Check back in 2 weeks, when we’ll be releasing a “bite-size research” episode describe an interesting paper on spaced practice.

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Go to our show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

RSS feed: http://www.learningscientists.org/learning-scientists-podcast/?format=rss

References:

(1) Ebbinghaus, H. (1913). Memory (HA Ruger & CE Bussenius, Trans.). New York: Columbia University, Teachers College. (Original work published 1885). Retrieved from

Next Episode

Episode 6 - Elaborative Interrogation

This episode was funded by The Wellcome Trust.

Show Notes:

Over the past few decades, cognitive psychologists have found evidence for the following 6 strategies for effective learning:

Spaced Practice
Retrieval Practice
Elaboration
Interleaving
Concrete Examples
Dual Coding

Today, we are talking about elaboration. Be sure to listen to our spaced practice and retrieval practice episodes, as those are the most important strategies!

Elaboration is a really broad concept - at its core, it just means connecting or adding information. "Elaborative interrogation" is a strategy within this broad idea, and it involves asking “how" and “why" questions and finding those answers (1). Students can do this independently, with the teacher helping, or in pairs of groups. Once they come up with the questions, students must also find the answers!

For example, how might you learn about the physics of flying? You could do it by answering lots of fact-based questions, but you can also supplement this by asking and then answering elaboration questions, such as "why does a plane need an engine?" and "how does a plane take off?"

Elaborative interrogation can be a tricky strategy to implement, because students won’t always focus on the right information, or have the content knowledge necessary to carry out the task effectively. In the podcast episode, we use lots of examples from younger and older students, demonstrating how hard it can be to pick out the right information to ask questions about, or even come up with “how” and “why” questions at all.

Students may also produce incorrect explanations in answer to their own questions. Elaboration has been shown to help students who are more familiar with the topic, while those who are less familiar don’t benefit as much (2); some studies (3) have even found elaboration to be less effective than re-reading, when students are unable to produce useful elaborations (see this guest blog post). Teachers will need to guide students towards the right kinds of questions, and give feedback on explanations.

Ideally, students would be able to describe and explain ideas from memory - that is, retrieval practice using elaborative interrogation!

We hope you enjoyed this podcast! Check back in 2 weeks, when we’ll be releasing a “bite-size research” episode describing an interesting paper on elaborative interrogation.

Subscribe to our Podcast!

Go to our show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

RSS feed: http://www.learningscientists.org/learning-scientists-podcast/?format=rss

References:

(1) Pressley, M., Symons, S., McDaniel, M. A., Snyder, B. L., & Turnure, J. E. (1988). Elaborative interrogation facilitates acquisition of confusing facts. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 268-278.

(2) Woloshyn, V. E., Pressley, M., & Schneider, W. (1992). Elaborative-interrogation and prior-knowledge effects on learning of facts. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 115-124.

(3) Clinton, V., Alibali, M. W., & Nathan, M. J. (2016). Learning about posterior probability: Do diagrams and elaborative interrogation help? The Journal of Experimental Education, 84, 579-599.