“The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach them accordingly."

 

American psychologist David Ausubel

’Retrieval Practice’ is a buzz term in education right now.

But what is it? How is it helping to improve learning outcomes in the classroom? And how can we utilise it as coaches to enhance the development of our players?

What is Retrieval Practice?

A lot has been written about Retrieval Practice (shortened here to RP) in an educational context.

For this article, I’m going to use Retrieval Practice guru Kate Jones’s definition: "Retrieval Practice is the act of recalling information, embedded in long-term memory, in order to further improve and enhance long-term memory."

What does this mean and why is it important?

There are three reasons why Retrieval Practice benefits learners.

1. Learning something new is more likely when linked to what you already know.
2. Recalling prior knowledge successfully increases the chance that it can be recalled again far more easily in the future.
3. Recalling prior knowledge successfully makes it easier to anchor new information. 

How do teachers use this in the classroom? 

Before a lesson, a teacher might think about:

• What pre-requisite knowledge do students need to access this lesson?
• What prior knowledge might be relevant to, but not essential for, the learning of this content?

During a lesson, the teacher might use RP in a variety of ways:

• At the start of a lesson, for example, they may use a quick, low-stakes quiz where students are asked to recall pre-requisite/prior knowledge. Sometimes, teachers may provide cues - a word that is likely to trigger student memory - to increase success rate.
• At any point, a teacher might use a planned question that requires students to recall prior knowledge which is relevant to the content about to be taught. Again, this can take many formats - perhaps a ’think, pair, share’ or a ’turn and talk’. Or, alternatively, it can be part of an application task at the end of a lesson, where students are asked to combine prior learning with new content in a variety of ways, like exam questions, essays or something more creative.

After the lesson, as a reflection, teachers should ask themselves:

• Were there any gaps in knowledge? What were they and who did they belong to?
• How will this inform my planning for retrieval in the next lesson and future lessons?