Induction tutor materials
Training session - balancing exposition, retrieval, repetition and practice
Duration: 75 minutes
Session objectives
Learn that:
- 2.8. Requiring pupils to retrieve information from memory, and spacing practice so that pupils revisit ideas after a gap are also likely to strengthen recall.
Learn how to:
Increase likelihood of material being retained, by:
- 2h. Balancing exposition, repetition, practice and retrieval of critical knowledge and skills.
How to prepare for the session
Read Practice with Purpose: The Emerging Science of Teacher Expertise.
Ask ECTs to bring a scheme of work with them to refer to during the session.
Session structure:
Activating prior knowledge (15 minutes)
Welcome ECTs. Explain that this session is about balancing exposition, repetition, practice and retrieval of critical knowledge and skills.
ECTs will have experienced that there are some areas of knowledge and skills that are critical for pupils to have in order to experience success in their subject or phase.
For example:
- art students must know how to use shadow and light to make objects look 3D as they progress from novice to expert
- basic number sense precedes understanding fractions and decimals
Ask ECTs to work in pairs or groups to discuss what knowledge or skills they’ve identified as critical in their subject or phase.
Spacing practice strengthens recall (15 minutes)
Share this quote:
“A curious peculiarity of our memory is that things are impressed better by active than by passive repetition. I mean that in learning (by heart, for example), when we almost know the piece, it pays better to wait and recollect by an effort within, than to look at the book again. If we recover the words the former way, we shall probably know them the next time; if in the latter way, we shall likely need the book once more.” William James as quoted in Roediger & Butler, 2013
Ask ECTs to discuss what they understand as the aim when planning for exposition, repetition, practice and retrieval tasks in their lessons?
Draw out key points, including:
- the aim is to help new learning stick so that pupils remember it for longer
- we need to present the new information carefully (exposition), repeat and practise it, then go back and retrieve it at various points after the initial encounter
- to aid pupils' memory, we can draw on the evidence of techniques that will best support them to remember over time
- this links back to how pupils learn: for new learning to stick in the long-term memory it needs to be seen more than once
- research has shown that when pupils actively practise they’re more likely to remember in the long term
- expositions, repetition, practice and retrieval tasks can all be active tasks
Read the following summary:
The distributed-practice effect is robust. Cepeda et al. (2006) reviewed 254 studies involving more than 14,000 participants altogether; overall, students recalled more after spaced study (47%) than after massed study (37%). Dunlosky et al., 2013
Ask ECTs to work in pairs to groups to:
- discuss what this tells us about how practice should be planned
- share their scheme of work for the year with each other and explain where pupils will have the opportunity to practise previously learnt material at spaced intervals
Emphasise that pupils should have at least 2 opportunities to encounter new material, or more if it’s particularly important.
The gaps between encounters should be at least a few days, and perhaps weeks. This spacing will actually help pupils to remember the material better in the long term.
Balancing expositions, repetition, practice and retrieval (25 minutes)
Exposition. Share this summary:
An exposition is more than just a brief explanation: it’s a coherent and well-thought out presentation of an idea which may be communicated through multiple learning experiences, and over a sequence of lessons or activities.
When designing expositions, our aim is to communicate a concept or idea in the most efficient way. We want to support our pupils to develop a secure understanding of the content.
Remind ECTs that expositions should:
- support pupils to develop conceptual understanding and build strong mental models
- take steps to manage cognitive load
- give pupils the opportunity to actively process and think about the material
Ask, what are the characteristics of good expositions?
For example, they:
- provide carefully constructed, clear explanations
- use multimedia where appropriate
- provide an opportunity to build conceptual understanding through first-hand experiences, or by making use of examples, non-examples, metaphors or analogies to make the underlying meaning explicit
- present only small amounts of information at one time
- take into account pupils’ prior knowledge when planning how much content to introduce
- minimise distractions so pupils can focus attention on the material to be learnt
- eliminate unnecessary information, ensuring material is relevant and helpful for learning
- use high-quality talk to articulate key ideas or apply vocabulary
- ask questions to check understanding and encourage elaboration
Repetition.
Share this quote:
"Repetition is great for learning but terrible for motivation." Willingham 2009
Ask, what are the implications of this? Emphasise that we need to think of ways to vary repetition and keep it interesting for pupils.
Ask, what examples of repetition activities can ECTs think of?
Examples include:
- low-stakes quizzes: these can be fun opportunities for repetition at the start or end of lessons
- mastery problems: problems that use the same content but in different ways (for example, how many ways can you find a shape with a perimeter of 24 cm)
- flash cards
- matching activities
- verbal recall: get the class to repeat together
Practice. Share this quote:
"Practice is essential to learning new facts, but not all practice is equivalent." Deans for Impact 2015
You could share the full document with ECTs if helpful: Practice with Purpose: The Emerging Science of Teacher Expertise
Explain that there are 5 principles which are highlighted to make practice purposeful.
Push beyond: challenges help novices to move beyond their comfort zones.
Work towards well-defined, specific goals: these should be sequenced from basic to more sophisticated skills.
Focus intently on the practice activity: this should be low stakes.
Receive and respond to high-quality feedback: after feedback is given there should be time to respond to it.
Develop a mental model of expertise: pupils should know what ‘excellent looks’ like, such as through models or worked examples.
Ask, what examples of practice activities can ECTs think of?
Examples include:
- starting each day with a review or practice task, such as vocabulary, or remembering events or learning from the day or week before
- a weekly or half-termly quiz, which pulls a mixture of questions from previously learnt material as well as newly learnt material
- presenting new material in small steps, providing opportunities to practise after each new step
- guiding the practice, asking questions and giving additional explanations and examples, checking that pupils understand each step as you move along
- asking questions to allow pupils to practise their answers
Retrieval.
Share this summary:
"Learning is usually thought to occur during episodes of studying, whereas retrieval of information on testing simply serves to assess what was learned. We review research that contradicts this traditional view by demonstrating that retrieval practice is actually a powerful mnemonic enhancer, often producing large gains in long-term retention relative to repeated studying.
"Retrieval practice is often effective even without feedback (in other words, giving the correct answer), but feedback enhances the benefits of testing. In addition, retrieval practice promotes the acquisition of knowledge that can be flexibly retrieved and transferred to different contexts. The power of retrieval practice in consolidating memories has important implications for both the study of memory and its application to educational practice.”
Roedinger & Butler, 2011
Ask, what examples of retrieval activities can the ECTs think of?
Examples can be checked against the quote above. They include:
- think-pair-share: get pupils to think first of their response, share it with a partner, then contributing to discussion with the rest of the class
- low-stakes quizzes: include content from previous lessons
- brain dumps: get pupils to put everything they know about a topic or a theme onto one piece of paper, then share and compare to see if anything has been missed
- flashcards: either create them for your class or support your pupils to create their own set
Planning for action (15 minutes)
Ask ECTs to identify a critical knowledge or skill that they want pupils to remember over time.
Using the scheme of work they brought, ask them to work in pairs or small groups to identify spaced gaps when they can use one or more of the activities discussed above to practise over the year.
They should include a balance of exposition, repetition, practice and retrieval tasks.
ECTs should commit to a plan of action to put this into practise.
Review and next steps (5 minutes)
Ask ECTs to share what they’ll do as a result of today's training session.