Exam Study and Retrieval Practice

Depending on your school's semester structure, you are either right on top of exam time or will be shortly after Christmas (so I probably should have written this last week).  For those in content knowledge based classes, the best thing you can give your students is the chance to retrieve information from their brains.  

Why?  Because that's how we cement the knowledge in our brains.

It's a technique known as retrieval practice.  It isn't new; it has worked for hundreds of years. But the science revealing how powerful a strategy it is has only been published in the last decade. According to the website retrievalpractice.org, “Retrieval practice is a strategy of deliberately bringing information to mind,” and it is a powerful tool for memory and fluency.

While we typically think of flashcards and whiteboards for retrieval, there are many other methods that we can employ in the classroom.  Using a variety of methods, from brain bombs and summary sheets to Socrative, Quizlet, and clickers to think-pair-share, you can engage students in retrieval practice while preventing boredom.  In my BodyPump classes, Matt will sometimes stop and watch us cary out a movement without his cues. I’ve certainly never been bored when he engages us in this type of retrieval.  On the contrary, I feel empowered to succeed on my own.

Why does it work? Here's where I'll examine just a little bit of neurology.

Your brain cells are surrounded by a layer of fat, called myelin. It serves two purposes:

1. Insulating the nerve to prevent electrical signals from traveling to the wrong place. You wouldn't want a signal intended to contract your heart muscle to go to your bicep instead.
2. Enabling fast, efficient communication of signals. The denser the myelin, the quicker the signal travels.

When practicing a new skill or rehearsing information, the myelin layer around the neuron thickens (myelination), enabling faster communication the next time that pathway is activated.  In physical skills, we call it muscle memory, but muscles don’t remember things as they are just meat.  This thing we call muscle memory is simply a well-myelinated pathway, made of multiple neurons.  According to Stanislas Dehaene, the physical changes in a neuron when memorizing and practicing, strengthen the interconnections between them, “making it more likely that this set of neurons will fire in the future.” 

In the class I take with Matt at the Y, the routine is changed every six weeks or so.  When we first start a new routine, we are an absolute mess.  Hardly anyone in the class is doing the same thing as our instructor, Matt, in spite of the fact that he is cueing it well.  Two weeks later, most of us are getting it mostly right most of the time because we now have pathways that connect one move to the next due to myelination.  The same is true of academic learning.  As we retrieve the memory, we grow the myelin, allowing us to retrieve it more efficiently the next time we need it.  Thus, the old adage, “If you don’t use it, you lose it” is true because when we don’t practice something, we lose myelin or don’t myelinate the neuron in the first place.

I'm not suggesting that we use rote memorization alone.  The learning is obviously "stickier" if we connect the information to meaning.  But that can be done during retrieval.  Encourage students to go through their flashcards more slowly than they usually do, pausing to ask, "Why is this the answer?" or "Why isn't it a different answer?" As Kevin Washburn says in The Architecture of Learning, “Data not processed is short-lived.”  He makes the point that knowledge and thinking cannot be separated from each other if there is meaning to the content, which is why we often talk to ourselves (even if it is only internally) while attempting to learn something new. In How We Learn, neuroscientist and author Stanislas Dehaene describes how brain imaging reveals this “processing depth effect,” explaining that deeper processing activities activate areas of the prefrontal cortex that form loops with the hippocampus.  He does not advise one preferred method of deep processing but says that “all solutions that force students to give up the comfort of passivity are effective.”

It became trendy a few years ago to downplay retrieval and knowledge. People called it "drill and kill" because, for some reason, we believe things more if they rhyme.  As an experienced teacher, you know it works. Research from both neurology and psychology demonstrate that it works. Use it early, often, and without shame.

Since people Maybe we should start calling it "drill for skill."

The Motivation Success Cycle

Everywhere you look, there are resources for improving motivation.  Books, news articles, research studies.  You can have a whole career in motivational speaking.  Why, because we know that without motivation, there can be no success.  That doesn't necessarily mean all motivated people are successful because some are delusional about their abilities (think of those people in the first few episodes of American Idol who truly believe that the judges will regret their decision to not send them to Hollywood). But success and opportunity knock; they don't break into your house.  So, there is a lot of money to be made in helping people become more motivated.

But here's the thing . . .

Success breeds motivation.

We all know that motivated students are more successful.  But we often fail to appreciate that successful students are more motivated.  It's a happy little circle.  

It's probably not going to surprise you that I am about to use an example from the Y.  I have been having some motivation issues since October.  Not with going; I am always motivated to go.  I have struggled to push myself harder in my classes.  For over a year, I had been setting goals and improving, and then I hit a bit of a wall.  I just couldn't get any better.  When I went home and wrote my numbers in the tracking grid I had on the refrigerator, I was far from motivated.  In fact, I was demotivated.  

I didn't go out an buy a self help book or look up exercise motivational speeches on YouTube.  That may work for some, but I felt it was unlikely to help me get past this wall.  

I decided to take some time to appreciate exactly where I was.  I stopped tracking numbers for a while, knowing that just going and doing the workout was good for me.  I gave myself until Thanksgiving to just let things be what they were and not worry about it.  

This week, I started in my efforts to improve again.  I haven't yet sat down with a goal sheet or a grid, but in each class, I have said, "I want to increase my squat weight today" or "I want to average at least 16mph on the bike."  Is this back up where I was in the spring and summer - no.  Setting an unrealistic goal will no motivate because it will not lead to success.  These numbers are above where I was two weeks ago.  It may take a little time to get back up to where I was at my peak, but achieving these small successes will motivate me to get there.

How does this connect to education.  When students who have traditionally made good grades slip a little, they feel a sense of failure at a more profound level than your students who fail regularly.  They aren't used to it, and their instinct (as well as that of their parents) is to get them back up to where they were quickly.  Depending on the cause of the slip, that may or may not be possible.  If it resulted from night when they didn't sleep well or they had a cold on the day they took a test, then quick recovery is possible.  But, if they have slipped due to chronic illness, a long term absence, or an unidentifiable sense of demotivation, it will likely take time.  

That were the teacher comes in.  Give them a realistic sense of what is possible and help them set a goal.  "I'd like to make an A on my next test" will be demotivating if that isn't doable for them right now.  However, "I'd like to aim for 5 points higher on this test than I got on my last test" might be.  Perhaps they can get one excellent paragraph of an essay written or do four projectile problems in physics.  

Don't set the goal so easy that it results in meaningless success because that's not motivating either.  No one says, "Yeah for me because I walked to the mailbox today" (unless that was something they hadn't been able to do for a while).  But there is a sweet spot where it is motivating.  Just before an endurance song, I tell my cycle classes to set a goal that is "challenging but doable."  Succeeding at that kind of challenge improves what we view as "doable" and allows us to set bigger goals.

To sum up, if you want your students motivated in your class (especially those who don't think they "are good at it," you gotta get a few wins under their belts early on.  During the first week of class, set a challenge that they have to reach for but isn't out of their reach.  Then (and this is important from a growth mindset standpoint), don't just say, "Hey, look, it turns out you are good at this."  Instead, ask them what they did that enabled their success.  Encourage those actions for the future.  Point out each time they have a success, no matter how small it is, that it was the result of the work they did.

It's also helpful to remind them that growth is not a linear process.  There are twists and turns and ups and downs on your way to a long term goal.  While it may feel unpleasant, it is perfectly normal and part of what makes life so interesting.

Thanksgiving Post 2 - Students and Gratitute

In case you haven't noticed, anxiety is on the rise.  The data shows that the upward swing for adolescents began after cell phones became ubiquitous.  While they had access to social media before that, it was mostly something they did on their home computer, and that was back when wise parents kept the computer in a public space in their home.  Carrying their computers in their pockets and the invention of infinite scroll meant constant access throughout the day.  The pandemic increased the slope of the upward trend, to be sure, but it did not start it.  

We know that the more time a person spends on social media, the more prone they are to anxiety.  That's just numbers.  But numbers only show you a trend; they don't explain why a trend is true.  Cards on the table; I am not a psychologist.  But in my 25 year teaching career, I've seen enough to know a few things.  One of those things is that envy steals joy in everyone, but especially in adolescents.  Kids who grew up in the Great Depression were less prone to anxiety than modern students who live in relevant affluence.  Why?  I've heard multiple elderly people say, "We were poor, but we didn't know we were poor because everyone was."  They weren't comparing their lives to those above them.  But social media means we see the peak moments in the lives of others, from our friends to celebrities to random strangers.  We see the expensive things people buy and how often they get their nails done; we see their vacation photos and their accomplishments.  And, if they have something we don't have, especially if it is something we might be prone to want, we develop envy.  Adults have minimal ability to place this in perspective and remember that we are comparing our low points to their high points: adolescents have even less ability to do that.

How do we help?  Do we take the action Australia has just taken, banning social media for kids under 16?  While I imagine it would help, I don't see that happening in America.  And, I don't know how they are going to enforce it anyway as it is not hard to lie about your age online.  (I am, however, for parents delaying their child having an internet enabled cell phone for as long as possible.)  

Let's take one step back and remember that social media is the tool, but that tool is delivering the problem rather than being the problem.  

The problem is envy.  There's a reason envy is listed among the seven deadly sins and that coveting anything is forbidden by the Ten Commandments.  The problem with using social media to compare ourselves to others is that it makes us want what other people have rather than being grateful for what we already have.  And, it is never enough.  Even the wealthiest person you know likely still wants to obtain more wealth because they see what someone else has.  

As always, CS Lewis says it well:  "Envy is insatiable. The more you concede to it, the more it will demand."

So, if envy is the problem, what is the solution?  What is the opposite of envy?

It is gratitude.  Teaching our kids to be grateful will do more to help with everyday anxiety than anything else.  (Note:  I am using the phrase "everyday anxiety" because I am not talking about diagnosable anxiety disorders. Those are complex medical issues with layered solutions, and while gratitude will certainly benefit them, I am not trivializing those disorders.)

We should work thankfulness into our lived curriculum.  They should hear us expressing gratitude for what we have and for the people in our lives.  We should thank them for things, and we should be specific about it.  We should remind them of the things they have to be thankful for.  We should ask them what they feel positive about, especially because our minds don't have a natural tendency to dwell on positives.  

This isn't optimism or "toxic positivity." Those tend to ignore real problems that need real solutions.  This is the recognition that, even when there are negatives, there are also blessings.  Philippians 4:8, which reminds us to dwell on things that are "right, pure, lovely, and admirable" was written by a man who regularly reprimanded the churches to whom he was writing; so he wasn't telling them to ignore important issues but to spend time thinking about the good and thanking God for them.  

Sometimes, it is an issue of perspective.  During the Occupy Wall Street protests, it was common to see signs that read, "We are the 99%."  They wanted to draw attention to the fact that most Americans aren't CEOs of major companies that make millions of dollars.  While true, it only applies inside this country.  If those people camping out in city parks had taken a broader view, a world wide view, they would have recognized that they were, in fact, the 1% globally.  Our students see celebrity Instagram accounts and TikTok influencers and believe that is a standard way of living.  We have to help them take the wider view and recognize that others would envy what they have.

Will this take care of all the anxiety issues in our culture.  No.  Will it dramatically help.  Absolutely.