Page 95: The importance of using revise and revisit opportunities in practice
If I had endless time, no more blog posts to write, children to teacher or my lifestyle to live, this particular page could really go on for ever! It is so important for our children to know more to remember more. If you have read any of my previous pages, specifically those around cogntive science, we know that children only have a limited working memory, which often can become overloaded. We need to resurface prior learning drawing connections from our learners unlimited long term memory so they are able to build on this prior knowledge to form meaningful connections in their working memory.
When we are supporting our children's learning, we have established that learning is underpinned by memory, through the transfer of knowledge from pupils' limited short term memory, to their infinite store of knowledge - their long term memory. Unfortunately, working memory is limited. As teachers, we need to overcome this barrier to support our children in acquiring new knowledge and maximising progress. It has been established that prior knowledge plays an important role in how pupils learn. Through establishing and consolidating larger and connected patterns in prior learning, it accommodates for space to be freed up in our working memory. Rosenshine is a theorist, well known for his extensive research on cognitive load. He established that recalling and revisiting relevant prior knowledge aids pupils to recall related concepts and vocabulary and can reduce the pressure placed on working memory. It is suggested that when introducing a new concept in learning, building on pupils' prior knowledge reduces the risk of overloading the working memory. So how does this look in the classroom? Daily review is fundamental in resurfacing prior learning supporting fluency and confidence in recalling key knowledge. Working memory is limited, therefore daily review combined with weekly and monthly review provides the opportunity to review and recall, allowing the level of mastery to become automatic.
When making these important links to prior knowledge, it can also greatly support the learners in understanding the meaning of new content and begin to be able to apply this to a range of different contexts. It is fundamental to use a combination of retrieval activities to activate and support previous and new knowledge acquisition. Some of these include:
Retrieval grid
These are simple a table in which children are able to 'jump around' to prompt retrieval practice. They allows a great opportunity for feedback and can be combined with many of the questioning strategies discussed last week such as 'think, pair, share' to elaborate on ideas deepening understanding.
Brain dump
This is a nice way to describe a mind map! Get the children to recall as much prior knowledge on the area of learning that they can remember to be built on throughout the lesson. It is useful and ties together well for setting your learners the plenary task of finishing and strengthening their brain dump with new knowledge surfaced.
Cops and robbers
This is a lovely retrieval activity that supports communication and partner work too. In the 'cops' column, children are challenged to write as much information as they can about their topic in a set time, then in the 'robbers' column children are able to 'steal' by sharing ideas with their peers.
Prompt pictures
Visual cues and the use of imagedry is a simple prompt tool to recall ideas from memory. We are able to choose carefully considered images which supports the children to become more specific in their recall improving the quality of their answer and detail given.
Retrieval practice pyramid
This is one of my all time favourite starters, particularly when I was in KS2 but can be adapted across all phases of learners. This is a useful way to scaffold different questioning to lead to higher order thinking. Pupils take pride and self motivation in through challenging themselves to step up their thinking and application through participating in this retrieval practice activity.
I hope you have found this post useful when considering and exploring helping our learners understand the bigger picture and formulate meaningful responses. Preparing and providing our children with the opportunties to build on prior knowledge through such revise and revisit opportunties, interconnected learning and the ability to answer 'why?' questions are deeply strengthened.
Miss Yeoman
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