Focus 3 - Retrieval
Quizzing as part of a repertoire of techniques
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Retrieval practice is the act of trying to recall information without having it in front of you. For example you’re studying the systems of the human body—skeletal, muscular, circulatory, and so on. You could do retrieval practice by attempting to name those systems without looking at the list. Once you’ve listed all you can remember, you’d open up your book or notes and check to see if you got them right.
In recent years, cognitive psychologists have been comparing retrieval practice with other methods of studying—strategies like review lectures, study guides, and re-reading texts. And what they’re finding is that nothing cements long-term learning as powerfully as retrieval practice.
Here at DHSB we provide the space for teachers to regularly use Retrieval at the start of each lesson - you wont see a prescribed method of this being delivered - we firmly believe that the teacher, as the expert, is best placed to determine how this should be implemented. What you will see are students engaging in high challenge activities designed to make them think hard.
We use short quizzes, demonstrations, summarising, paired discussions, online resources, mind maps, "brain dumps" along with a range of other methods
Our Principles of Retrieval
We involve everyone: Good techniques involve all students checking their knowledge, not just a few.
We make the content of the retrieval relevant to the new learning being taught.
We think all students should be able to think hard free from distraction.
We make checking accurate and easy.
We make it time efficient: The idea is to not dominate whole lessons.
We make it workload efficient: None of our methods should create unsustainable workload.
We circulate to identify misconceptions and areas of good practice.
If misconceptions are identified, we either reteach if appropriate at the time or signpost to students that it will be revisited.
We keep it low stakes - high challenge, low threat.
What are some of the common pitfalls we try to avoid?
We might generate retrieval questions that focus solely on factual recall rather than requiring any higher-order thinking.
Our questions might be too easy and boost confidence without providing real challenge
We might allocate too much time to the Retrieval, effectively losing the time we need to cover new material.
There’s a danger that, if daily review is rigidly repetitive, that students do not learn multiple ways to check their knowledge leading to less flexible, more fragile knowledge.
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