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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Bildung
- Sprache: Englisch
Cognitive science research-based teaching techniques any educator can implement in their K-8 classroom In Small Teaching K-8, a team of veteran educators bridges the gap between cognitive theory and the K-8 classroom environment, applying the same foundational research found in author James Lang's bestselling Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning to the elementary and middle school setting. Via clear descriptions and step-by-step methods, the book demonstrates how to integrate simple interventions into pre-existing pedagogical techniques to dramatically improve student outcomes. The interventions consist of classroom or online learning activities, one-time additions, or small modifications in course design or communication. Regardless of their form, they all deliver powerful, positive consequences. In this book, readers will also find: * Foundational concepts from up-to-date cognitive research that has implications for classroom teaching and the rationales for using them in a K-8 classroom * Concrete examples of how interventions have been used by faculty in various disciplines * Directions on the specific timing of each intervention, backed by evidence-based reasons An essential resource for K-8 educators seeking ways to improve their efficacy in the classroom, Small Teaching K-8 offers teachers intuitive and actionable advice on helping students absorb and retain knowledge for the long-term.
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Seitenzahl: 361
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
About the Authors
Foreword
Introduction
Part I: Knowing: The Six‐Minute Fix
Chapter 1: Retrieving
WHAT'S THE THEORY?
IN SHORT
MODELS
PRINCIPLES
SMALL TEACHING QUICK TIPS: RETRIEVING
CONCLUSION
Chapter 2: Self‐Explaining
WHAT'S THE THEORY?
IN SHORT
MODELS
PRINCIPLES
SMALL TEACHING QUICK TIPS: SELF‐EXPLAINING
CONCLUSION
Chapter 3: Predicting
WHAT'S THE THEORY?
IN SHORT
MODELS
PRINCIPLES
SMALL TEACHING QUICK TIPS: PREDICTING
CONCLUSION
Chapter 4: Putting It All Together: Jennifer Hedrington, Grade 7 Teacher
Part II: Thinking: Strength and Conditioning
Chapter 5: Synthesizing
WHAT'S THE THEORY?
IN SHORT
MODELS
PRINCIPLES
SMALL TEACHING QUICK TIPS: SYNTHESIS
CONCLUSION
Chapter 6: Practicing
WHAT'S THE THEORY?
IN SHORT
MODELS
PRINCIPLES
SMALL TEACHING QUICK TIPS: PRACTICE
CONCLUSION
Chapter 7: Mapping
WHAT'S THE THEORY?
IN SHORT
MODELS
PRINCIPLES
SMALL TEACHING QUICK TIPS: MAPPING
CONCLUSION
Chapter 8: Putting It All Together: Jennessa Burks, Grade 4 Teacher
Part III: Transforming: Balance and Agility
Chapter 9: Growing
WHAT'S THE THEORY?
IN SHORT
MODELS
PRINCIPLES
SMALL TEACHING QUICK TIPS: GROWING
CONCLUSION
Chapter 10: Motivating
WHAT'S THE THEORY?
IN SHORT
MODELS
PRINCIPLES
SMALL TEACHING QUICK TIPS: MOTIVATING
CONCLUSION
Chapter 11: Expanding
MODELS, PRINCIPLES, AND RESOURCES
SMALL TEACHING QUICK TIPS: EXPANDING
CONCLUSION
Chapter 12: Putting It All Together: Matt Halpern, Kindergarten Teacher and Literacy Consultant
Chapter 13: Conclusion
References
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright
About the Authors
Foreword
Introduction
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
References
Index
Wiley End User License Agreement
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Small Teaching K–8
Igniting the Teaching Spark with the Science of Learning
Sarah Connell Sanders
James M. Lang
Copyright © 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data.
Names: Sanders, Sarah Connell, author. | Lang, James M., author. | Jossey‐Bass Inc., publisher.
Title: Small teaching K–8 : igniting the teaching spark with the science of learning / Sarah Connell Sanders, James M. Lang.
Description: Hoboken, NJ : Jossey‐Bass, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022023672 (print) | LCCN 2022023673 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119862796 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119863526 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119863519 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Cognitive learning. | Education, Elementary—Research. | Thought and thinking—Study and teaching.
Classification: LCC LB1062 .S3124 2023 (print) | LCC LB1062 (ebook) | DDC 370.15/23—dc23/eng/20220706
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022023672
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022023673
Cover Design: Wiley
Author Photo by Michael Hendrickson
About the Authors
Sarah Connell Sanders has been a public school educator in Massachusetts for 13 years. She is currently the library media specialist at Burncoat Middle School in Worcester where she teaches in the gifted and talented program and spearheads community partnerships. In addition to her credentials as a school librarian, she is also a certified elementary teacher and secondary English teacher. She recently received her middle school Principal's License from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Her credentials include a B.A. English and Education from Fordham University, an M. Ed. Curriculum and Instruction from Boston College, and an M. Ed. School Leadership and Administration from Worcester State University.
James M. Lang, Ph.D., is the author of six books, the most recent of which are Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (2nd ed., 2021), Distracted: Why Students Can't Focus and What You Can Do About It (2020), and Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty (2013). Lang writes a monthly column on teaching and learning for The Chronicle of Higher Education. He has conducted workshops on teaching for faculty at more than two hundred schools, colleges or universities in the United States and abroad, and consulted for the United Nations on the development of teaching materials in ethics and integrity in education. He has a B.A. in English and Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, an M.A. in English from St. Louis University, and a Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University. You can follow him on Twitter at @LangOnCourse or learn more at http://jamesmlang.com.
Foreword
Since the original Small Teaching appeared in the fall of 2016, its two simple premises have been embraced by teachers around the world. The first premise is that we can improve the learning, personal development, and well‐being of our students by paying attention to the small choices we make as we are designing learning experiences for them. The second premise is that those small choices will have the greatest impact if they are informed by current research on how human beings learn. Put those two premises together, and you have a program designed to improve education on an everyday scale, without the need for massive investments of time and money, or without falling into the trap of mindlessly embracing the latest fad in educational theory or educational technology.
The original book was intended for teachers in the physical classrooms of higher education, where I have spent most of my career. But the applicability of its core principles to the online classroom was apparent to a veteran of online teaching, Flower Darby, who approached me a few years ago with the proposal to co‐author the book's first sequel, Small Teaching Online. That book appeared just before the pandemic hit in March of 2020, at a time that teachers everywhere were suddenly confronted with the challenge of teaching online, many for the first time. Flower had written a terrific book (with just a little help from me), which meant that Small Teaching Online helped promote the concept of small teaching to a wider audience.
I had always believed that the learning principles I had researched for both of those books were ones that applied to adult learners, college‐aged students, and high school students. I wasn't quite sure about their applicability to elementary students, although my wife, a kindergarten teacher, had assured me that she saw them at play in her kindergarten classroom as I saw them in my college‐level courses. But it was not until Sarah Connell Sanders had drafted the book that you hold in your hands that I became fully convinced that the concept of small teaching belonged in the elementary classroom as well. Sarah has translated the core ideas from the original book into a program that can improve the learning and development of your students through simple, everyday changes to your teaching practice.
I will confess, though, that what makes me especially excited to introduce this book to the world, and what makes it stand out in a crowded field of education books, is the quality of the writing. Although I earned all of my degrees in English literature, for the past two decades I have been researching and writing about education. I have learned from painful experience that many of the articles and books I read in this field are written with barely serviceable prose, designed to make a point and move on. But as someone who has continued to write about and teach writing and literature, I have a deep appreciation for a book that not only gives me great ideas, but presents those ideas in beautiful prose and engaging stories.
You are holding just such a book in your hands. I first became acquainted with the writing of Sarah Connell Sanders by admiring her essays in our local city magazine, where she writes about culture, food, fashion, and more. When I finally met her in person, and discovered that she was a veteran teacher and school librarian working in the same public school district where my wife also taught, I realized immediately that she was the ideal person to share the gospel of small teaching to elementary educators everywhere. As with Small Teaching Online, I made a small contribution to the creation of this book, but most of the words you will read are Sarah's. I hope that you will find as much pleasure as I have in reading her graceful prose.
One of Sarah's accomplishments in this book is the way in which it pushes the ideas from the original book into new territories, and offers new reflections on the idea of small teaching. You will find my favorite example of such a reflection in the book's introduction, in a pair of sentences that I wish I had written myself:
I want to know the fundamentals of how children learn and then be allowed to use my own creativity and experience to apply those lessons to my own classroom. No matter what new state mandate or administrative fiat has been sent down to shape my classroom, I want to make sure I am still staying true to the basic principles of education that will ensure my students are safe, happy, and learning.
This might be the best description of what I hope all three Small Teaching books offer to teachers everywhere: an accessible introduction to some new research on how their students learn, some examples of how teachers can translate that research into daily classrooms routines, and a deep respect for the creativity and commitment of readers.
I have spent my whole life among teachers: my mother, my wife, some of my siblings and their spouses, friends from high school and college, and all of the colleagues that both my wife and I have worked with over the past two or three decades. Teachers have always been the most creative people I have known in my life. The teachers I know don't need to have someone standing over them and ensuring that they are doing their best work. They are dedicated to their work and to their students. Give them the information they need, and they will find ways to surprise themselves and their students with what they dream up.
I hope that Sarah's ideas, and the concept of small teaching, will give you some new fodder for your teacherly creativity. I hope that the opportunity to exercise your pedagogical imagination in new ways will inspire you to take renewed joy in your work. I hope, finally, it will give you a reminder of what inspired you to become a teacher in the first place.
James M. Lang, PhDWorcester, MAApril 24, 2022
Introduction
Sarah Connell Sanders
As a teacher, I do everything in sixes. Six guiding questions. Six project deadlines. Six classroom stations. You get the idea.
Numerologists believe the number six is both stable and karmic. Mathematicians call six the smallest perfect number. Guitarists play with six strings. Bees build their hives with six sides. Gamblers risk their fortunes on the fate of a six‐faced die. Coffins rest six feet under the ground.
I was not surprised to read the Pew Research Center's finding that one in six U.S. teachers work second jobs, making us three times as likely as U.S. workers overall to hold down multiple gigs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2019). In my years as a teacher, I have supplemented my own meager salary by waitressing, lifeguarding, coaching, and writing. I am the one in six, and I am tired.
So is Anne Lang, a 25‐year veteran of public school teaching. Anne's husband, Jim, is the author of the original Small Teaching—a text geared toward new college professors. Anne and I are both educators, but we face a different crop of eager learners than Jim. I have spent the majority of my 13‐year career corralling middle schoolers, and she has spent 25 years teaching the lower elementary grades, primarily kindergarten. We both find plenty of ideas and strategies that resonate with us in the original book because the learning principles identified by Jim are ones that apply to learners of every age. But college teachers have an enviable amount of freedom in terms of what they do in the classroom. Teachers at the elementary and secondary levels face a distinctive challenge, in that they have to learn how to balance what they know is best for their students with the demands of a number of other audiences: parents, politicians, and administrators. Negotiating the needs of all of these constituencies can create a climate in which teachers feel like they are being micromanaged from every angle.
“When August 1st comes around, I feel a sense of anticipation and dread,” Anne confided in me. “Don't get me wrong, I always look forward to arranging my classroom, meeting my new students, and labeling materials with their names. I even welcome the initial staff meeting where we get to hear who got married, who had their first grandkid, and whose children headed off to college for the first time.” But over the course of her first day back at school, at some point, Anne feels her new‐school‐year enthusiasm begin to dim when she hears the inevitable announcement of a fresh rollout, ambitious initiative, or program—effective immediately.
“Two years ago, we adopted a new math program,” she said. “I work in a large urban district and we had already adopted a new program two years prior. I remember sitting in a hot overcrowded classroom with everyone, while the book company's facilitator reviewed a million slides of all the ‘wonderful’ and ‘engaging’ lessons and activities we suddenly had on our plate. They handed us student workbooks, teacher's editions, and new online login information for my kindergartners. My head actually began spinning.”
I can sympathize. It happens every year. I have this moment where I think, “Is it too late to quit?” Federal data shows that about 8% of teachers leave the profession annually. A survey conducted by the RAND research organization found that after the 2020–2021 school year, one in four teachers considered quitting (Steiner and Woo, 2021). We stay because we love our kids and we want to make a difference. But, it can be hard to remember that when Chad from Unicorn Math Company is delivering a three‐hour presentation in a stifling mop closet that you just found out has been converted into your new classroom due to overcrowding. Then the wi‐fi goes down.
In Anne's case, she avoided teaching the latest new math program for as long as she could. Can you blame her? She was training up to 28 five‐year‐olds on routines, procedures, and expectations. It didn't help that she had no access to a laptop or a projector. Like so many of us, she went home each day feeling frustrated and disappointed with herself.
Her saving grace came in the form of Greg Tang, an elementary math guru who has authored a number of math picture books and created online math games and puzzles for young learners. Early that school year, Greg conducted a one‐day workshop with Anne and her colleagues, but something felt different. He gave them the space to express their true feelings about the new math program. She realized she wasn't alone; everyone was intimidated. “It turned out, the program just wasn't working for so many of us,” she said.
Greg encouraged the teachers to start thinking small. “He gave us tips on how to incorporate math throughout the school day,” Anne recalled. The moment her head finally stopped spinning came when Greg gave her a piece of paper to fold. “If a kid can fold this paper into two equal halves, they are already on the way to mastering a first‐grade math standard,” he told Anne. It was a tiny tip, but she felt her confidence grow. “I realized that making small, but effective, changes in my math lessons would be the key to success for both my students and myself,” she said.
Anne's experience of being asked to use some wholesale new teaching approach is not a unique one; I've encountered it as well. Sometimes I feel like public school districts have a big target on their backs to attract the sales staff of new programs, technologies, and software. Do I want my students to have access to the latest and greatest research‐based best practices in education? Yes, yes, yes! Do I want to miss class time for days or weeks of training on expensive new materials? No, no, no.
Jim and Anne have discussed this lower‐ed problem at their dinner table more times than they can count. On one occasion when they were kind enough to entertain me, Jim pointed out, “The fact that such initiatives wash up on shore so regularly, only to be replaced by the next big wave of new ideas a few years later, has left so many educators across America skeptical of any outside efforts to shape the work they do for their students.”
“And they're right to feel that skepticism,” Anne interjected.
Jim continued, “Whatever wholesale program your school or district has decided to impose upon you and your fellow teachers this year, you know full well that it won't change the most fundamental challenge you face as a teacher: spending each and every school day engaged in the slow, hard work of helping your students learn.”
“Don't get me wrong,” he added, “large‐scale educational initiatives can, at times, provide a useful framework for the daily work of teaching, but they can also get in the way of tried‐and‐true techniques that have always worked for you and your students. Worse, they can close your mind to the prospect that new ideas or research in education do have the capacity to help you evolve and grow as a teacher, and to improve the learning and achievements of your students.”
And so Jim and I, armed with the insights of teachers like Anne and others you will meet in this book, began the work of applying the theory of small teaching, initially developed for college faculty, to the K–8 environment. What you'll find here is exactly what college faculty found in the original book and what online instructors at every level found in the first sequel, Small Teaching Online (a book that appeared, providentially, just before the pandemic hit): a sensible and manageable approach to enhancing the everyday work you do in the classroom. The small teaching approach is unique in the way that it identifies a small number of learning principles that are applicable to all students and then translates those principles into quick and easy teaching strategies for any classroom. Whether you are looking to enhance your existing practice or struggling to adapt to a new context or district‐wide initiative, small teaching will ensure that the work of learning in your classroom will continue and improve.
Although this book might have special appeal to new and early‐career teachers, I really wrote it for the weary, the disheartened, and the exasperated. I am already too old and exhausted to be sold an entirely new approach to education every year. I want to know the fundamentals of how children learn and then be allowed to use my own creativity and experience to apply those lessons to my own classroom. No matter what new state mandate or administrative fiat has been sent down to shape my classroom, I want to make sure I am still staying true to the basic principles of education that will ensure my students are safe, happy, and learning.
In this book, you will find exactly the tools you need to accomplish this objective. Together with Jim, I have highlighted a small number of principles identified by cognitive scientists as fundamental to the learning process. I have then outlined easy and concrete strategies for putting the principles into practice in your classroom. You do not need special materials or pricey technologies. I don't want you to radically re‐think your hard‐earned experience. My hope is for you to recognize these principles in the work you are already doing and make small modifications to enhance them further in order to have a substantial impact on your students.
I am a Massachusetts public school teacher and many of the individuals consulted for this book are also Massachusetts educators. As such, I have tried to represent a diverse range of voices across K–8 education knowing that Massachusetts consistently ranks at the top of the Quality Counts Annual Report Card, a comprehensive assessment of the nation's K–12 system by state. In 2019, Massachusetts ranked second to New Jersey after leading the Quality Counts rankings for four consecutive years. High standards and strong accountability practices aside, the Massachusetts teachers I spoke with were just as tired, fed up, and overwhelmed as everyone else. My hope is to compile the individual models, backed by research, that are helping to keep them afloat—all in one place.
The original edition of Small Teaching became so popular among college professors because it amounted to bite‐sized steps that could be experimented with throughout the semester. The vast majority of my recommendations intend to do the same. Our models require little preparation and minimal (if any) grading. As Jim tells his readers, “If you have even five minutes of your day available to help your students succeed, then you are ready for small teaching.” If his sentiment provides you with a glimmer of hope, you are not a part of the 8% (and counting) who will leave K–12 education this year. Small teaching is here to rejuvenate you.
Part IKnowing: The Six‐Minute Fix
Sarah here—in Part I, I introduce basic learning principles to help students master the basics of your lessons: facts, information, simple concepts and ideas, even basic skills—six minutes at a time. We begin with the lowest level of Bloom's Taxonomy: retrieving. It turns out that giving students multiple opportunities to retrieve information from their memories is the most effective way for them to master basic knowledge. Similarly, the act of predicting encourages students to draw on their prior knowledge and strengthen their web of context for new information. Sprinkle in regular opportunities for students to get vocal and self‐explain what they've learned, and you can transform your classroom in six minutes a day with a relatively light lift.
You'll recall my love of the number six. For me, it all comes down to a 1956 publication by psychologist Benjamin Bloom titled Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. If you've spent more than five (or six) minutes in the field of education, you are likely already familiar with Bloom's conceptual framework. There are six major categories: (1) Knowledge, (2) Comprehension, (3) Application, (4) Analysis, (5) Synthesis, and (6) Evaluation.
When I introduce Bloom's Taxonomy to my middle schoolers, I explain that the first level of thinking demands uniform answers. Base‐level questions all have one correct response. “What is the capital of Massachusetts?” Boston. “What is the sum of two plus two?” Four. Meanwhile, higher tiers can yield any number of responses. “Imagine if the villain defeated the hero in the final chapter.” Or “Create a script that brings to life the account of a primary source.” In other words, Knowledge tasks require a “right” answer, free of debate, whereas Evaluation tasks merit infinite opinions.
In 2001, one of Bloom's former students, Lorin Anderson, revised the taxonomy to suit the modern age of learning. Don't worry, there are still six categories in Anderson's revamp. Today's version of the Taxonomy includes the categories: (1) Remember, (2) Understand, (3) Apply, (4) Analyze, (5) Evaluate, and (6) Create.
General education teachers, special education teachers, teachers of English language learners, and everyone else (present company most definitely included) have made the mistake at some point of thinking that the lowest levels of the taxonomy can be bypassed in favor of higher‐order thinking. Why should we focus on the facts, which just require memorization? Let's get right to the fun and creative stuff. But the literature on learning tells us that a solid mastery of the facts is precisely what students need if they are going to learn to engage in activities like applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. One educational writer, Ian Leslie, refers to facts and information as the “hidden power” of our thinking: the more facts you have at your disposal, the more deeply you can think about them. If you skip the ABCs or the basic rules of grammar, you probably aren't going to cultivate the next great American novelist in your classroom.
In the age of Google, skipping the basics can be tempting to students and educators. A decade ago, I became the first English teacher in my district to pilot a one‐to‐one iPad initiative. I remember feeling defeated at the end of the year when I asked students to complete a survey about their experience. One eighth‐grader wrote, “I like having my iPad in class because instead of asking the teacher questions, I can just Google the answers.” I felt as if I had been replaced. I was no longer the keeper of knowledge; I had become an accessory. As is the case in many modern professions, I was learning to augment the work of a powerful machine.
I came to understand that with Google at their fingertips, my students could rise through the ranks of Bloom's Taxonomy more quickly. But, access to limitless information did not mean I could dismiss exercises in Bloom's Level 1: “Remembering” and Level 2: “Understanding,” nor did it make them any less important. Far from it. My students still needed to put in the time and energy to master basic information if I wanted them to progress into deeper levels of learning.
Education scholar Mark Bauerlein warns against lower‐ed's fervor to reach higher‐order thinking skills, such as analysis and evaluation, right away. In his research, he observed many teachers obsessing over making students analyze text features rather than helping them comprehend content. “They regard the emphasis on knowledge at the elementary level as a soul‐killing boot camp of memorizing facts” (Bauerlein, 2020). But without a core knowledge competency, Bauerlein argues, critical thinking becomes nearly impossible. Students begin to see the results of their Google searches in total isolation. Mastering knowledge opens pathways for the analysis and creative thinking that lives at the highest echelons of Bloom's Taxonomy. Without factual knowledge, reasoning and problem solving have nothing to cling to.
As a simple illustration of the correspondence between facts and thinking, consider the example of a jazz musician building a performance in real‐time, improvising based on the decisions of the other players. We might think of a jazz musician, with precise pitch and natural rhythm, as someone who is an adept and creative thinker. But, if she were to listen back to her performances, she could likely pick out specific notes, melodic contrasts, and so on. More importantly, the musician's gradual mastery of her instrument over the course of years of study and practice, enables her to take what she encounters throughout the performance and imbue it with deep meaning by making connections to previous jazz performances and preparing her for critical thinking during her next song.
The same is true of our kids. If I ask my seventh‐grade English class to conduct a critical analysis of a Langston Hughes poem, the students with a contextual understanding of the Harlem Renaissance will outperform those who have simply googled the poet's bio. We need to store facts in our memories if we want to climb the rungs of Bloom's Taxonomy. Skipping steps will eventually result in a grave tumble from Bloom's proverbial ladder.
In an age of limitless access to information, students often hold biases or misconceptions about the science of their own learning. Memorization does not come naturally to most young people. When tasked with studying for a vocabulary quiz, how do most students respond? They Google the definitions, then they make flashcards, and finally, they commit the words to memory a night ahead of their assessment. Students who study this way might perform well on an assessment, but it's unlikely they will commit the words to long‐term memory for future application.
Understandably, most teachers prefer to devote their time and energy to the highest tiers of Bloom's Taxonomy—naturally, the higher levels are more stimulating for both teachers and students. Regardless, the Taxonomy will crumble beneath our students' feet if there is no foundation. Short and simple adjustments to practice can allow students to improve their own recall, making way for deeper engagement with the meaningful and complex learning tasks, which we fully consider in Parts II and III.
Chapter 1Retrieving
Retrieval is the foremost foundational skill taking place in our classrooms. My favorite memory of the retrieval effect goes back to a waitressing job I held in grad school. In retrospect, I spent far more hours waitressing to pay for my M.Ed. than I did on the Boston College campus. To fund my education habit, I worked at a farm‐to‐table restaurant called Armsby Abbey in the 2010s. It was the height of a “slow food” boom, which refers to the made‐to‐order nature of a kitchen, but never the service. At Armsby Abbey, we were expected to memorize all of the farms and an exhaustive list of ingredients on an ever‐changing menu. Our customers always had a lot of questions.
“What animal did the Blue Ledge cheese come from?”
“Goat.”
“What was the apple‐fed cow's name?”
“George.”
“How fresh are the strawberries?”
“I picked them myself, this morning.”
A shift at Armsby Abbey might sound like an episode of “Portlandia,” but it was my reality for five years—and I loved it. My family rarely dined out at restaurants when I was growing up, with the exception of my birthday. At Armsby Abbey, my palate blossomed. I learned to love pastrami beef tongue, smoky blue cheese, gobs of bone marrow spread on toast, and pickled watermelon rinds. Every shift felt like my birthday, with new oddities to explore.
We were routinely tested by management on pickle lists, allergens, and farmers' names. Coming straight out of grad school, this level of study felt natural. The career servers teased me about my binder full of flashcards and T‐charts, but I knew what worked for me. A lot of them could memorize the list of 22 rotating draughts, the soup du jour, and the specials with just one glance. I, on the other hand, would ask my colleagues to quiz me in the back while we polished silverware and brewed coffee. The owners even went so far as to leave certain information off the menu to encourage guests to engage in conversations with us about the food. By the end of my tenure, I had a personal story for every farm—an asset that Google could never provide to my customers.
It made sense why the lifers had such powerful memories; practice really does make perfect, or close to it. This learning phenomenon is called the retrieval effect. Put simply, if you hope to retrieve knowledge from your memory, you should practice retrieving knowledge from your memory. The more you practice, the more capable your memory becomes. Without the frequent assessments at Armsby Abbey, whether they came from guests or management, I would not have been forced to routinely draw the information from my memory. Had I simply read my responses to customer questions from a cheat sheet tucked into my notepad, I would have never had to activate my memory. This would be the student equivalent of studying by reading the textbook over and over again—a practice that cognitive psychologists deem one of the least effective modes of retaining information.
At the restaurant, even when I forgot the beekeeper's town of origin, or heaven forbid, the flavor profile of a foraged elderberry, I was forced to practice drawing the information from my memory by finding the answer to guests' questions. The same principle follows suit for K–8 students in the classroom. The more they practice remembering something, the more firmly that content becomes lodged in their brains for the long term.
Contrary to popular thought, the brain is not a muscle, but our long‐term memories can be trained like a muscle with frequent and deliberate practice. Our long‐term memories are capable of building stamina in the same way a marathoner gains endurance as she delves further and further into her training. Her very first 10‐mile training run might feel brutal, but come race day, mile 10 will have her feeling light on her feet. Alternately, our working memories are limited. An adult's working memory generally hits capacity at four new pieces of information. The best teachers are able to help students move as much information as possible from their working memories to their long‐term memories.
Another name for the retrieval effect is the testing effect. We normally think about testing as measuring student learning, but what we learn from the literature on retrieval practice is that it can actually be a potent tool to promote student learning. This is because tests force students to engage in memory practice. Rather than just viewing tests (and quizzes) as learning measurement exercises, researchers have pointed to them as highly effective learning tools. Frequent assessment breaks allow students an opportunity to transfer information from their working memories to their long‐term memories.
I'll be honest, when I hear “the testing effect,” it evokes a wave of foot‐tapping anxiety from deep within me. (Quick, somebody hand me a paper bag to breathe into.) It makes me think of standardized tests I have taken, and the standardized tests my students have to take. But the testing effect doesn't really refer to these kinds of high‐stakes, one‐off exams; it refers instead to the practice of “testing” student memories in frequent, low‐stakes ways throughout the school year. We can get the testing effect in everything from daily reading quizzes to oral exams, to gamified online assessments.
These kinds of low‐stakes memory practice exercises, or retrieval practice exercises, can solidify the knowledge base around which students begin to build complex networks of information in their long‐term memories. The research about testing that we will consider in the following section refers to learners who are recalling information, concepts, or skills from memory in regular, short bursts. Later, when I talk about testing, I won't be referring to high‐stakes final exams or standardized state benchmarks—I'll be talking about the kinds of quick activities that can take place in six minutes or less. These retrieval practices will refer to small teaching activities that can be implemented with minimal grading and little planning.
WHAT'S THE THEORY?
Recall the introduction to this part in which Bloom's Taxonomy is discussed. Retrieval practice supports the mastery of material at the base level of the Taxonomy, but that material is no less important than any other echelon of learning. Through retrieval, we solidify in our minds the facts, concepts, information, and basic skills that enable us to do our deeper thinking. Retrieval provides the foundation required for creative application and innovation.
The introduction of the Common Core Standards in 2010 did not just alter the content deemed most significant for American public‐school students. The Common Core Standards aimed for the application of content across disciplines through writing and speaking in order to show a deep understanding of the material. This shift fed a public misconception that we had done away with memorization in schools—the biggest scandal since teachers stopped teaching cursive. In reality, the memorization of foundational information became more important than ever before.
Shortly after the rollout of the Common Core Standards, Arizona State University Researchers Peter Rillero and Helen Padgett acknowledged that education was moving away from rote memorization in favor of deep conceptual learning (2012). Still, Rillero and Padgett championed a key finding: “The role of prior knowledge is important to deep conceptual learning, as it may support or hinder learning new material” (2012). The prior knowledge they refer to here is what we can support through retrieval practice. When students are encountering new ideas, or facing new challenges in their learning, they will be best equipped to meet those challenges when they have a solid foundation of facts, information, and basic skills in their brains—and not just in their Google search histories. The stronger their long‐term memories become, the more capable their working memories are of processing and holding new information.
The Memory Lab of Henry L. Roediger at Washington University in St. Louis has dedicated its work to test‐enhanced learning and the belief that retrieval practice enhances long‐term retention. But once again remember here that “test‐enhanced” learning does not necessarily refer to those fingernail‐gnawing experiences that we might associate with the word testing. In fact, the findings of the Memory Lab have been used by many teachers to identify small ways in which they can incorporate retrieval practice into their classrooms on an easy, everyday basis.
Three strategies that help students do this were discussed in a paper published by Roediger in 2018 in collaboration with Psychology Professor James S. McDonnell and Washington University doctoral student Oyku Uner. The first strategy, pausing to formulate a summary of a textbook chapter after reading, proved far more effective than merely rereading the chapter. But note that these summaries have to be conducted from memory, and not just from looking at the material again. Summaries like these are sometimes called brain dumps or free recall exercises;
