5 Tips to Design the Most Powerful Retrieval Events

1. Go for recall over recognition:?

Don’t use multiple choice questions in formative assessments because in the real world learners won’t be given a set of options where one is the correct answer. Being challenged to generate the information is more effective. Free recall is more effective than cued recall and recognition. It is prudent for learners to work their way up to from recognition to recall, but recall is the ultimate goal.

2. Make sure the context and mode of retrieval is varied:?

Mix it up. One day they post a video. Next, have them write something. The next day, have them create a diagram or map, etc. Generating information in multiple modes is even more powerful than being presented information in multiple representations. What’s more, this also goes for practicing related information in varying combinations. See Interleaving.

3. Make sure retrieval practice is properly scaffolded and elaborative:?

Go from concrete to abstract, simple to complex, easy to difficult; from questions to answer to problems to solve. Each retrieval event along the curve should be increasingly more involved to create a Desirable Difficulty. This is what Bruner called a Spiraling Curriculum. See also Reigeluth’s Elaboration Theory.?

4. Push the creation of concrete examples, metaphors, and analogies:?

Concrete examples and analogous thinking have a high positive impact on memory. Especially if it is learner-generated. This provides students with the opportunity to put new, abstract concepts in terms of what they already know. It updates their existing schemas. Research shows that new information is more likely to stick if it is attached to already encoded information.

5. Give corrective feedback, and time it right:?

If you’re not giving feedback that is corrective and often, your learners might suffer from confusion or even start to develop bad habits. You’re their “guide on the side”, so guide them. But don’t wait too long to do it. The sooner the feedback the better. Check out PREP feedback and Quality Matters helpful recommendations.