How we remember things, and why we often don’t

To remember, retrieve…

‘Memory is the residue of thought’, says Daniel Willingham. We remember what we think about. Logically, the harder we think about a thing, the more likely we are to remember it. Teachers who have been teaching for a while will remember the ‘Think Hard’ strategy, which is based on this principle that memories are formed by activities that promote thinking. That makes sense. However, as Doug Lemov has pointed out (in a Teach like a Champion blog called ‘On learning and thinking’), when we are presented with new information, thinking is often not enough to make it stick.

There are a host of reasons why students might not learn what they are taught, including obvious ones such as not paying attention in class, and not understanding the teacher’s explanation. But let’s assume for a moment that students are paying close attention, their Geography teacher has just explained ‘Erosion’ to them for the first time and, pleasingly, they ‘get it’: why might they still not remember the definition of ‘Erosion’, say, six weeks later when they need it to answer a test question? Lemov cites 2 likely reasons:

 

1. They don’t have enough background knowledge, so the new learning has nothing, or too little, to stick to (this chimes with me; see the reference to Prof. Stephen Hawking’s book in my last blog. I was trying to think hard about that book!). The point here is that we can’t think hard about something we know little about.
2. Not enough practice has been done in the interim to make the definition of erosion stick. We don’t usually learn something from one study session, or even two. Learning happens over time, through repeated practice.

Some of the hazards with learning

We often think we ‘know’ a thing because we ‘get it’ when it is first presented and so we expect it to stick and we’re surprised when it doesn’t – there is plenty of research that supports this idea that as learners we tend to be over-confident in our estimation of what we will remember. Over-confidence is a hazard.

Reading or re-reading notes or a textbook is a very poor guide to how well we know a thing, first because the sense of familiarity the reading gives us creates the illusion that we know it (‘Oh yes, I know this stuff, I’ve read it before’) and second because it presents very little cognitive challenge; reading is something that most of us have been able to do since age 5-7. The point here is that the learning is IN the cognitive challenge; we have to force ourselves to struggle if we want the learning to stick; not struggling is a hazard.

What learners should do

1. When learning new material, think hard about it, by asking questions like, ‘Why is that so?’, summarising the key points/ideas in your own words, telling someone else what you have learned – doing the right thing up front will help the learning to stick.
2. Think around the topic; try to build up a broader body of knowledge – more facts; the more knowledge you have, the more knowledge will stick.
3. Practise retrieval of the new learning by going back to it again and again, over time, through self-testing: ‘What is erosion?’ Write out the definition without having the answer in front of you, then compare what you have written with the answer, and fill any knowledge gaps. Absolutely resist the temptation to just copy the definition instead of self-testing; that way lies frustration and failure to make it stick.
4. Repeat step 3, over time. This is crucial.

What teachers can do

1. Aim to provide a firm foundation of broad knowledge of the topic
2. Provide clear explanations and plenty of practice and check for understanding, at the point of presenting the new learning; teachers tend to do this well, it’s part of their typical practice
3. Build in regular retrieval practice opportunities for students after that initial work – students need to return to the topic of erosion several times at least, over time – this simply has to be done, for the learning to stick
4. Remember that some kinds of retrieval practice are far more effective than others: testing, low-stakes quizzing and self-quizzing are, I think, the most powerful forms of retrieval practice in the world – making sure that the answers are available afterwards to fill any learning gaps uncovered; these activities need to be used systematically in lessons, and by students at home.

Teachers rightly spend a lot of time presenting new material and getting students to do practice at that point, often both guided and independent practice – there is no doubt that this aspect of practice is well-established in teaching. The bit that is harder to manage, and is therefore less well-established, is how to get students engaging in regular retrieval practice of key knowledge, because that requires a) Teachers andstudents being absolutely clear about what the key knowledge is (that’s what Knowledge Organisers are for) and b) the systematic engineering of opportunities for retrieval practice of the key knowledge over time. This latter point requires very careful planning or it will either not get done or it will get done in a haphazard way.

To summarise:

• We remember what we think hard about
• Provided we revisit the learning regularly, through retrieval practice
• Provided we do effective retrieval practice: testing and teacher-quizzing, self-quizzing, explaining to someone else in our own words etc…
• And we fill in any gaps in our learning each time we do our retrieval practice
• We are likely to forget when a) we don’t think hard in the first place and/or b) we don’t systematically do retrieval practice of key learning over time, in the right ways.

Learning is hard, there’s no doubt about it. It’s a staccato, messy business, but despite that, everyone CAN learn and remember well – if they do it right, and if they persist.