This blog comes from the Sandringham EdTech team, highlighting how EdTech can be used to support, and facilitate high quality teaching in relation to the ‘Great Teaching and Learning’ framework. This blog focuses on the curriculum and specifically 4.1 Sandringham teachers explicitly revisit prior knowledge and skills to prevent forgetting
We know that Retrieval practice (the act of retrieving knowledge) is effective. Studies have shown that it supports transfer to long term memory and that it’s effective as a study strategy. Also important is the spacing of topics and interleaving of different topics when they are revisited. As well as re-teaching where necessary if we find that students aren’t secure in their knowledge, regular retrieval practice is an important routine.
Oliver Caviglioli created this great visual below to help us understand what this means (credit: https://www.learningscientists.org)
By using EdTech tools we can enhance this retrieval, allowing it to double up as formative assessment that can inform our teaching with tools like Google Forms, Socrative and Blooket. In addition, apps like Quizlet can support students to independently revisit materials and test their own knowledge, supporting independent study. One thing we must consider when doing this is the design of the questions to ensure that students don’t just learn to answer specific questions but are developing a score knowledge of the material. This requires the questions to be changed if they are multiple choice, fortunately, question banks in apps like Quizziz and Quizlet, we don’t always have to redesign these questions ourselves.
Or watch the whole webinar below:
