Cover Image by Kristine A from Pixabay

by Monica White

Monica White has taught high school mathematics for the last 12 years at Holloway HighSchool in Murfreesboro, TN. White has served as both a department chair within her school and as a curriculum lead. After 12 years of being a highly effective level 5 teacher in the classroom, White is moving to the role of Instructional Coach to support both teachers and students. She is extremely passionate about ensuring ALL students have access to high quality and rigorous mathematics instruction, which is what drove her to her current endeavor of pursuing her Ed.D in Learning and Leadership in Organizations through Vanderbilt University. Her hope is that with this degree she can promote positive change for at-risk students in mathematics education both within her district and across Tennessee. Additionally, White is passionate about helping educators both through mentorship and by providing professional development. Most recently, she presented a professional development session titled “Retrieval Practice: How to Encourage Long-Term Retention” to Rutherford County teachers from a wide range of disciplines. Monica lives in Tennessee with her husband and two children and enjoys playing board games and cooking.

Imagine this…

You are at the end of the school year and your students just took the big, elusive, terrifying standardized test. As a teacher, you know you did all you could to prepare them, and you saw them experience small successes along the way. Students were doing great on the chapter tests, so they must have learned the material! Then, you get the results back from the standardized test, and it is not what you were expecting. You are left shocked and wondering what went wrong. 

Unfortunately, this scenario occurs all too often. Throughout my 12 years of teaching and leading PLC (professional learning community) team discussions, I have heard time and time again, “I taught this concept! Why did my students not remember it?” An easy trap to fall into as educators is to place blame on the student. It is their fault they don’t remember. After all, we taught it, right? Larsen (2018) argues that while our educational system is built on this notion that once students acquire knowledge, they will always possess it, it is simply not the case (1). 

I was first introduced to a concept called “retrieval practice” in one of my doctoral courses at Vanderbilt University in the summer of 2023, taught by Dr. Cynthia Nebel. Retrieval practice is defined as the “act of calling information to mind rather than rereading it or hearing it” (2). Like most teachers, I included retrieval practice into my classroom through homework, exit tickets, study guides, exams, and quizzes. What I realized, both through the class material provided by Dr. Nebel and the research I read independently, was that retrieval practice should not only be used to assess mastery, but it should also be used as a pedological practice to give students frequent opportunities to recall information. The shift from seeing retrieval practice as an assessment tool to seeing it as a pedological practice altered how I incorporated this strategy into my classroom and the overall purpose of it. The act of retrieving was now at the forefront of my instruction rather than at the end. 

While utilizing retrieval practice on its own will enhance student learning, research has shown that there are three considerations that teachers must think about in order to amplify the impact that retrieval practice has on long-term retention: spacing, interleaving, and feedback. 

Spacing

Spacing is described as distributing practice over time and research has shown that this strategy enhances performance on delayed tests, such as final exams, ACT, SAT, and so on (3). The justification behind this strategy is that giving students space to “forget” something creates an opportunity for students to retrieve it, thus bolstering long-term retention. Additionally, research shows that when retrieving information from long-term memory, the student may also have to retrieve supporting information, integrating the knowledge, and therefore increasing retrieval strength (4). To incorporate this into the classroom, rather than giving students 20 problems over subject-verb agreement, you could take the assignment and disperse the questions over several assignments. Additionally, making each exam, or even homework assignment, cumulative will allow for spacing to occur between retrievals of previously learned information. Lastly, rather than giving an exit ticket where students have just learned the information, give them an entrance ticket instead with the same question, allowing for an opportunity to forget. These small shifts in how retrieval practice is used can greatly impact long-term retention. 

Interleaving

In addition to spacing, interleaving has also been shown to be an effective strategy for long-term retention. Interleaved practice, as opposed to blocked practice, is a strategy in which practice items are arranged so that no two consecutive items require the same approach (5). In mathematics, the literature suggests that when interleaving is incorporated into retrieval practice, students must decide what strategy to use on each problem, which can mimic what they may experience on a standardized test (3). For example, you just taught your Algebra I class about linear functions and their various forms. Rather than listing five problems involving slope-intercept form, five problems in point-slope form, and five in standard form, mix these types of problems so students must think critically about each one and decide on the correct strategy to use. When practice items are blocked, students can bypass the retrieval process and identify the appropriate strategy simply by looking at the problem before it (5). Interleaving practice items allow students an opportunity to discern between types of problems and to identify a strategy to solve them, enhancing the impact of retrieval practice. 

Feedback

Lastly, feedback has also been shown to be a vital component when incorporating retrieval practice. Retrieval practice on its own increases long-term retention, however, when combined with feedback, this impact is amplified (1). One benefit that feedback can have on learning is that it can counteract a potential negative side effect of retrieval practice: misinformation. For example, when retrieval practice is multiple-choice, students are exposed to plausible incorrect answers which can lead to misconceptions and errors. Feedback can then be used to provide opportunities to clarify those misunderstandings (6). For retrieval practice to be useful and effective, students must be able to retrieve the information successfully (7). When this does not happen, feedback can provide a learning opportunity and ensure successful retrieval in the future (2). Providing feedback on tests and quizzes and encouraging students to engage with the feedback is just one way to incorporate feedback into retrieval practice. 

Small changes, big results

Small changes within the classroom can make an enormous impact. For example, switching from an exit ticket to an entrance ticket to allow time to forget. Mixing up homework problems rather than utilizing a block format so that students utilize discernment. Provide time for students to reflect on feedback so that they can correct any misconceptions during the retrieval process. As educators, we all have the same goal. That is, to have students retain information long enough so that they are successful on high-stakes exams and in future courses. These minor changes can enhance what you are already doing in the classroom, and, ultimately, can have a significant impact on long-term retention.

References

1. Larsen, D. P. (2018). Planning education for long-term retention: The cognitive science and implementation of retrieval practice. Seminars in Neurology, 38(4), 449–456. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0038-1666983  

2. Roediger, H. L., & Butler, A. C. (2011). The critical role of retrieval practice in long-term retention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(1), 20–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.09.003 

3. Hartwig, M. K., Rohrer, D., & Dedrick, R. F. (2022). Scheduling math practice: Students’ underappreciation of spacing and interleaving. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Applied, 28(1), 100–113. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000391 

4. Lyle, K. B., Bego, C. R., Hopkins, R. F., Hieb, J. L., & Ralston, P. A. S. (2020). How the amount and spacing of retrieval practice affect the short- and long-term retention of mathematics knowledge. Educational Psychology Review, 32(1), 277–295. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09489-x 

5. Rohrer, D., Dedrick, R. F., Hartwig, M. K., & Cheung, C.-N. (2020). A randomized controlled trial of interleaved mathematics practice. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(1), 40–52. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000367  

6. Kubik, V., Gaschler, R., & Hausman, H. (2021). PLAT 20(1) 2021: Enhancing student learning in research and educational practice: The power of retrieval practice and feedback. Psychology Learning and Teaching, 20(1), 1– 20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1475725720976462 

7. Storm, B. C., Bjork, R. A., & Storm, J. C. (2010). Optimizing retrieval as a learning event: When and why expanding retrieval practice enhances long-term retention. Memory & Cognition, 38(2), 244–253. https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.38.2.244