There are lots of ways to create opportunities for the repetitions that students need to secure new learning as long-term memories.

On this page you can find out more about some of the strategies you can use for Step 5: Repetition. These are:
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• Quizzes.
• Questioning strategies.
• Plenaries.
• Homework.
• Guided practice.
• Social media.

Short review sessions

The idea here is to keep it short and snappy. The focus is on giving a really good explanation, rather than a long waffly one that overloads the student’s Working Memory.

These short review sessions for repetitions can be done with quizzes, questioning, or plenaries.

 Quizzes

You can do this at any point in the lesson, but this is often done at the start. Ask your students 10 quick-fire questions which cover the material from the last few lessons. Get the students to mark their own answers, or mark each other’s work.

This strategy makes good use of spaced practice. You can also adapt it to your students to give more repetitions and time to areas that your students are struggling with.

Don’t worry about whether your students cheat. Either way, they still get the repetitions! You could give the answers very quickly, or you could ask individual students for their answers.

 Questioning

Questioning is a highly effective strategy for both Step 4: Feedback and Step 5: Repetition. It’s fast and gives immediate feedback and plenty of repetitions with no need for marking!

The most effective questioning strategies are those that require all the students to participate, such as assertive questioning and mini whiteboards. There’s lots of information here about different questioning strategies and their effectiveness.

‘Hands up’ questioning strategies are far less effective, especially when the students volunteer rather than being nominated by the teacher.

 Plenaries

This refers to an activity at the end of the lesson where you get the students to recap what they have learnt.

It’s important to remember that the first repetition needs to be at least 20 minutes after the initial learning.

The evidence suggests that homework in primary school is not very effective, but it becomes increasingly effective from the start of secondary school. (Have a look here and here for more information.)

For maximum effectiveness, homework should be:

1. An integral part of learning, not an add-on. It should link with what is being learned in the classroom.
2. Followed up with feedback (see here), with the opportunity to then act on the feedback.
3. Short, planned, and focused.

You might set your students a project, a specific target connected with a particular area of learning, or a book or game to use at home.

As with Step 3: Challenge, it’s important to get a balance. Too challenging, and the students become downhearted or can’t do it on their own, but too easy, and the students don’t learn anything from it.

The evidence on the value of challenging tasks for older students is closely related to the evidence about discovery learning (or student-centred learning). These approaches are effective if they are used to reinforce learning and provide repetitions, but are not effective if there is an expectation of new learning.

The evidence shows that homework is a helpful tool for repetitions of material that has been learnt in the classroom.

As teachers, we can be reluctant to use homework as repetition, because the students seem to have learnt the material in the classroom.

However, we know from the evidence that students need plenty of repetitions to secure new learning as long-term memories. Otherwise, students forget the new learning because long-term memories haven’t been formed.

The student needs to activate the new brain pathway several times (see here) for the new learning to become long-term memories. The first repetition is the most important. This might be an activity in the classroom, or it might be a homework task.

If the homework is done in the same day, or as soon as possible, the new pathway is reinforced. Homework can be a useful tool, acting as one or more of the repetitions needed for long-term memory formation.

A common approach to teaching is to introduce the new material, give the students a task to apply the new knowledge, and then set them independent practice (eg. homework) to secure the learning.

The research suggests that we often move too quickly to independent practice, before the student is sufficiently familiar with the new material.

This video from Classroom Instruction That Works makes the case for guided practice before independent practice to ensure 80% mastery. This is the level required for new knowledge to be secure.

Social media

Social media has happened so fast that there hasn’t been time or enough stability to conduct reliable research.

However, the same principle applies as with the general evidence about the effective use of IT: if social media allows you to implement an evidence-based method more effectively, it will be successful.

There is no evidence that shows that the use of IT (or social media) in itself is effective.

Social media can be an effective tool, if you are confident using it and you know how to set up suitable protection and get parental agreement.

For instance, questions posed to a class Facebook group are often answered by other students before the teacher reads them. Similarly, asking questions on Twitter can create repetitions, which is particularly useful if you won’t see your class for several days.

On the other hand, if you are unfamiliar with social media, if the paperwork is too onerous, or if the students don’t engage with it, there is no evidence as yet that you should persist!

Image credits

• Header image: https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/making-guiding-happen/growing-our-membership/promoting-guiding/promoting-guiding-online/promotion-using-social-media/
• Image of two students working together on a tablet: https://www.theweeklyreview.com.au/learn/using-social-media-as-a-tool-for-learning/
• Image of students working in a small group: http://www.pac.by/en/news-feeds/actual-information/academy-hosted-student-quiz-competition-on-venezuelan-history-and-culture_i_0000003344.html
• Image of two children playing a game: https://www.educationaltoysplanet.com/blog/turn-learning-math-concepts-into-game/
• Image of a group of students playing a maths game together: http://www.gamification.co/2016/01/20/3-beneficial-impact-games-education-students
• Social media image: http://news.liputan6.com/read/2973637/waspada-persekusi-gaya-baru-di-media-sosial-merajalela