Show your students the Forgetting Curve
Hello!
Welcome to the first Tips for Teachers Newsletter. Each Monday an email will arrive in your inbox with a tip that you might like to try out during the coming week.
To kick things off, here is a simple tip that I have found can make a real difference to how students engage with the retrieval opportunities we provide.
What’s the problem?
Over the years I have found that students seem to take learning new material more seriously than revisiting things they have learned in the past.
They may choose to not engage in a Do Now retrieval starter, saving their mental energy for when the lesson “begins properly”. They may copy their mates’ mixed-topic homework, or leave out questions in a Low-Stakes Quiz, only answering the ones that come easily to them.
Now, we know from decades of research (the Bjorks remain my go-to source on this) that one of the best ways to ensure students do not forget something is to provide opportunities for them to retrieve that knowledge several times over a given period of time. Each instance leads to a boost in the storage and retrieval strength of that knowledge, making it more deeply embedded and more accessible next time they need it.
But if students are not going to put in the required effort when challenged to retrieve something they have learned in the past, then all our efforts to provide these crucial retrieval opportunities will be in vain.
What’s the tip?
One of the most effective ways I have found to encourage my students to take retrieval opportunities more seriously is to show them a model of the famous Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. Now there are loads of versions of this knocking about, with a whole manner of numbers on the axes, but this is my favourite:
You can copy and paste this diagram if you find it useful.
I accompany the diagram with dialogue along the lines of:
Okay, so I have some good news and some bad news about how our memories work. First the bad news. As soon as you learn something new, you start to forget it pretty quickly. Look at how steep this first curve is. So, even though you might have nailed it at the time, I am afraid that it will become harder and harder to remember it with each passing minute. But here is the good news! If you try hard to retrieve that memory again in the future, you slow down this rate of forgetting. And each time you do this, that annoying curve gets flatter and flatter until eventually it is lodged in your brain for a long, long time. So, every time I ask you to do a starter, homework or Low Stakes quiz that contains something you have learned before, please try super hard to remember how to do it. Because each time you do, you are using the way your memory works to your advantage.
Now, of course, you will need to tweak the language to suit your students, but hopefully the general principle rings true. If we want our students to take retrieving prior knowledge as seriously as learning new material, then we may well need to convince them why they should bother. And a clear, simple visual aid, backed by a carefully thought-through explanation might just make the difference.
Over to you
- Is there a lesson this week where you could try this tip?
- What would you need to change to make the tip work for you and your students?
You can watch the original video where I share this tip.
Thanks so much for reading and have a great week.
Craig
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