How to teach so students remember

 I placed a book order including Marilee Sprenger's How to Teach so Students Remember. When it arrived it seemed familiar and when I opened it up to scan the text I knew I had read it before. I searched my blog- no reference there. Clearly I did not learn the material well enough the first time through so I read it again. Some of the material that had not previously resonated with me clearly did this time. We want students to reread. We reread old favorites. This is why.

Marilee studied under E. Jensen, an educational specialist who looks at the implications of brain research on learning. She idenitifes a series of steps required to learn that she calls a memory cycle:

1. Reach- students must be involved in the learning. Passive students do not learn.
2. Reflect- compare what you know to what you are learning. What questions do you have about the material? Students may be asked to visualize, restate what they learned, made sense of confused. Explain what they just covered to a peer. As a teacher, this is part of my observation process.
3. Recode- reorganize the information. Graphic organizers come into play. Presenting information is through different learning styles- act out the scene from the play, chemical action, historical event; produce a newscast of the activity; explain to your parents; create a metaphor...
4. Reinforce- Feedback. Without feedback we do not grow. Malcom Gladwell spoke of 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert, but that is practice with feedback. How do you do better? Are you still confused about some areas? Are misconceptions still present in your understanding?  
5. Rehearse- rote practice (flashcards, singing the alphabet song, answering questions using programs like quia, quizlet or StudyBlue, or IXL) and elaborative practice (apply, analyze or create using what you know) both play an important role in learning. This puts things into long term memory. Getting enough sleep is a critical component of this step. Sleep enables the brain to process information.
6. Review- retrieve and manipulate information. More types of practice in a structured way. In order to get the material to be "remembered" it must have spaced review. That good old little bit of study each night rather than cramming is true. Cramming might get you through the test, but results in little real learning over time. Periodic spaced review enables long term learning.
7. Retrieve- use the material over time in assessment situations and practice sections. For example after learning the parts of the cell, students move to learning about cellular processes. Throughout this second unit, they must use the first information.

When I think my students I break this into fewer steps- the cycle of reflect and recode. Reflect at first and get feedback about how you're doing with knowledge. It could be through a homework assignment, class activity, computer practice or independent activity like self-quizzing. Take the stuff that you struggle with and recode it: transform a chart into a paragraph, use a graphic organizer, make and explain a metaphor, classify pieces of information or ideas, craft a song, poem or video about the information, try to teach a friend using your resources, ... The list goes on. Then reflect again- how's the information gauge now? Self-test and assess. Repeat as necessary. As more information is added to the pile of things one must know, incorporate old learnings into the review process to ensure learning.

One really important thing that Marilee stresses is that kids don't know what they don't know. I remember graduating from college and thinking I knew it all. It was a rude shock to have people present information that I knew nothing about when it came to teaching. Now, nearly thirty years later, I know a lot more and will tell you I feel very ignorant because I know how much I don't know. Kids do not have the metacognition to answer an "Any questions?" response. They need to learn how to self-test and evaluate so that they can see where their strengths and weaknesses are.

Sprenger created the following chart that I have slightly modified to include extra details to showcase the next step (p. 167). I particularly like the recall verses recognition part.

If a student cannot recognize the material	Go back to reach- reteach the material in a different way. The flipped classroom may offer the opportunity to revisit information but if the student is not engaged or does not understand your explanation, the material needs to be presented a different way
If a student cannot put the facts, concept or procedure in his own words but can repeat yours	Go back to reflect- give more opportunities to wrestle with understanding the material. Perhaps more vocabulary front loading is required. Perhaps more support in going through the process of thinking, more time to process or more feedback about success.
If a student can’t recall during a review	Go back to recode- interpret, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, explaining and using nonlinguistic representations are all possible parts of recoding. Provide better feedback about previous attempts or ask to recode in a different way.
If a student cannot recall on a practice quiz (name the steps of the scientific method, reduce the fraction, explain what genre this passage represents, identify the major battles and their significance)	Give a recognition quiz (multiple choice, true false, matching)
If a student can recognize but not recall	Go back to recode- try a new recoding process
If a student can recode but has difficulty with rehearsals	Go back to reinforcement and offer developmental feedback
If a student can apply, analyze and evaluate	Go to rehearsal and add creativity or another level of complexity; or review, assess and move on

For many of my students that is where they fall down. Teaching them to practice how they need to produce is important. If all you need to do is recognize the correct definition for the vocabulary word, flashcards will get you there. If you need to select the correct word to complete a novel sentence, recall is required. This level of skill is required. If students need to be able to draw and label the map they need to be able to do that in practice. Students who must be able to read a passage and identify implied character traits have a different challenge than being able to regurgitate a class discussion. If a graphic organizer was used to recode, but the test requires paragraph writing, the student needs to be able to use the organizer to write a paragraph. We must identify the demands of the assessment and provide instruction on the memory skills to that point, and perhaps beyond.

Overall Sprenger reinforces the idea that students need increased self-awareness of the process of learning and memory so that they can independently perform the tasks required for cementing things into long term memory and getting them out again. This helps them to have the motivation to put in the effort it takes to truly learn material.