The book Powerful Teaching by Bain and Agarwal has taught me a lot about how the human brain works and how we learn. As someone who admittedly never taken a psychology class, this book felt like the best way to learn about how our students learn. In prior posts, I've talked about their ideas in relation to Retrieval Practice and how to use those different strategies to help students retrieve information that has already been stored. This post continues on that idea but instead talks about two other ideas- spaced practice and interleaving. Spaced Practice: The image above is one that I think we can all relate to. We study so much the night before a test and in a week or so we forget almost everything. Spaced practice is something we can use as language teachers to help that. When we engage in retrieval practice, we are always focusing on bringing forward the words, structures or cultural information that we learned in the past. If we only do that one time during a unit or with a particular set of information, we are lessening the chances that it will be stored in our students' long term memories. So how do we fix that? The easiest solution from Powerful Teaching is to space out your retrieval activities- hence the name, spaced practice. So instead of practicing something one time in the beginning of the year/semester, we plan out some strategic times in the curriculum when kids will need to retrieve information. For example, let's say that in September we are working with vocabulary related to food. By the end of the unit, we've had lots of input with the food vocabulary, we've maybe looked over/practiced for vocabulary quizzes and have outputted the words in speaking and writing. In October, we move on to the next unit which might be something like technology. By the end of that unit, we have done the same thing but with technology words instead of food words. What happened to the food words? There's a strong likelihood that a lot of these words have been forgotten. So what can a teacher do to fix that? It could be as simple as creating a warm up asking students to list all of the fruits and vegetables that they remember or giving them a homework assignment that involves food vocabulary or finding resources that combine the topics of food and technology so students need both sets of words. The answer is this- just because we finish a unit doesn't mean that students will remember everything a month or two down the road. Let's try another example but with grammar. I have a feeling that we've all been in a similar situation. In October we worked really hard on how to use the two past tenses to narrate about past events. We focused on form, we used different strategies like PACE, structured input and some potential explicit practice. When they did the assessment, it seemed like they really got it. Fast forward to March when we've already done a few more grammar points and I'm now asking them to narrate in the past. They learned it in October, so they've got it, right? When you see their performance, you realize that they seem almost at the same point there were in September before you even started the unit. What happened and what do we do? It's become clear to me over the years that just because I taught something, doesn't mean that they will remember it. So with the past tenses example, I learned that I need to be intentional about asking them to use it and retrieve those forms as frequently as possible. This could mean asking for a brain dump of all past tense verbs in the yo form they remember and then asking them to use them in sentences, creating retrieval guide activities where questions about past tenses come up, or designing tasks throughout my other units that require past tense as well. The more deliberate I am about spacing out when they practice these concepts, the more likely they will be to retrieve them and use them with more ease. Interleaving: Interleaving is a very similar concept to spaced practice and has a lot of similarities. The difference in interleaving and spaced practice is the idea of mixing up concepts throughout the curriculum vs finding times to retrieve information at different points in the curriculum. Take, for example, the image above. You have two kinds of practice- blocking and interleaving. With blocked practice, you cover the 4 topics extensively but you never revisit them throughout the year. With interleaving, you see that you cover less of each topic but you see the spiraling of how the topics are always returning to the forefront of the curriculum. In a world language classroom, the best way to think about this is from the grammar lens. Let's take a typical year 3 course and choose the 4 most common grammar points that are taught- the present tense, the past tenses, the subjunctive and the future tense. In a blocked pattern, you would spend unit 1 working on present tense, unit 2 working on past tenses (with no mention of present), unit 3 working on subjunctive (with no mention of present or past tenses) and unit 4 working on future tense (with no mention of present, past or subjunctive). This is how I taught for many, many years and how I wrote curriculum. My honest thought was that it would be too much for students to handle if I kept revisiting grammar points throughout the year. I now see that revisiting grammar throughout the year is actually what's going to help keep the information in their working memory which enables them to use it. in most circumstances, it would be hard to teach all 4 tenses in one unit all at once and not have students leave confused. Take a look at this example from a presentation I did with Stephanie Carbonneau at the annual FLAME Conference. Notice how there is a progression where unit 1 focuses on one grammar point (the present tense) but unit 2 starts to add a little more. In unit 2 we introduce the subjunctive but then we also revisit the present tense within the context of that unit. In unit 3 we do the same and add the past tenses while also revisiting the present tense. The subjunctive is avoided purposefully because I want them to express opinions in the present tense for a while before introducing past subjunctive. In unit 4, we see how all four major grammar points from the year come to play a role. The students learn a new set of structures (the future tense) and combine those with present, past and subjunctive.
The key to interleaving is the intentionality behind our curriculum planning. Textbooks are not accustomed to recycling previously learned vocabulary, grammar or cultural knowledge so we have to take it into our own hands and do that ourselves when we plan units. It doesn't necessarily mean that I have to reinvent a lot of what I'm teaching. Sometimes it could be as simple as an activity you do in class or a warm up but it could be as complex as creating a series of learning targets in your unit where you address prior knowledge. It's all about being intentional in our planning. If we want students remembering what we taught, we have to help them remember and not just expect that they will.
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Retrieval practice is often referred to as one of the simplest yet most effective strategies in the classroom that we are sometimes using but, potentially, not as often as we should. We know that in a language classroom that when words/phrases/concepts aren't fresh in your memory or you aren't using them frequently, then there is the possibility of forgetting/losing that information. This is where retrieval practices comes in to help us bridge the gap between what was remembered at one time and what is remembered now. There's no such thing as a bad time to engage in retrieval practice. After a school break, Monday morning, prior to an assessment, prior to a lesson or spontaneously in the middle of a lesson. Retrieval practice can fit into any lesson plan and the best part is that it takes very little time to create or implement and the benefits are long lasting. Here are 3 specific strategies I've used in my classes over the past year or so to help them with retrieving information from the previous class, the previous weeks, the previous unit or even prior years. Brain Dumps This strategy is a great way to take inventory of what's in students' heads. Some teachers refer to it as brain dumps but I prefer a more poetic name- "Vómito de palabras" or "Vómito de cultura" which means word vomit or culture vomit. As gross as the name sounds, this visual is a great way to remind students of the expectations/directions each time we do it. Here's how it works- I show students a slide like the one below and tell them they have 3 minutes to complete the task. The task could say "write down all of the words that describe parts of the house, furniture or appliances that we studied". It could say "write down as many past tense actions as you can in 3 minutes". It could also say "what is everything you remember about teenage life that we studied in class from resources we read/heard". In those 3 minutes, students simply make a list and dump (vomit) all of those words/concepts on their paper. Around the 1 minute mark I tell kids to keep going and use that brain power to remember any other words they can. After time is up, students compare lists with their partner. If their partner has a word that they had forgotten about, students should write it on their own list. Then, we create a class list with input from as many kids as possible to make a comprehensive list of what we remember. This activity works for a few reasons. First, we are getting the chance to see/hear what words/concepts they were able to retain from previous classes. Second, we are asking kids to compare lists with a partner and have those "a-ha" moments when their partner says a word that they forgot about. It's not uncommon to hear kids say "I knew that" or "how did I forget that one!". As Powerful Teaching tells us, the act of forgetting is actually beneficial for long term retention. Third, this is helping kids study without them really knowing it in the moment. They are recalling vocabulary, verbs or cultural content which brings it back to their memory and enables them to use those words in their future performances. Two Things: Again, this idea is as simple as the name itself. At the beginning of a lesson, ask students what are 2 things they learned last class. Or at the end of a class, ask students what are 2 new words they learned today or 2 questions they still have about the content. For my grammar people, do you see the grammar in context embedded in this activity? This is an actual way to use the past tense with any level in a meaningful context. This activity serves as formative data for me as the teacher because I now can see what my kids remembered, what were the sticking points, and what points were not retained or not comprehensible and that need more input going forward. Also, if you are studying cultural information, you can address any cultural inappropriateness that comes up, misunderstandings or generalizations or stereotypes and how to avoid those. Retrieval Grid This is one of my favorite techniques for retrieval practice but, I have to admit, it takes more time to prepare than the other options. Start by looking at this example in English and then look at the step by step to creating it. Here is my step by step to creating this outstanding activity: 1. Create a Google Doc and make a table with as many boxes as you'd like. I have done as few as 5 and as many as 20. 2. Create a key/legend with 5 separate boxes at the bottom of the chart. Label each box as 1 point, 2 points, 3 points, 4 points, 5 points. 3. Think of the most recent content (vocabulary, grammar, cultural knowledge) you have been working on in class. Whatever that is, write it out in the 1 point box. For example, if you are working with food vocabulary you would write "food vocabulary" under that box. 4. Choose another area of content that is somewhat recent from class but maybe from a week or two ago. Write that in the 2 point box. Continue this with the 3 point box with content from longer ago. 5. Think of content from earlier in the year and write that in the 4 point box. 6. Think of content from last year and write that in the 5 point box. If this is their first year of the language, then do information from September) 7. Randomly assign point values to the boxes you created in the large table above the key. Put them in a random order. 8. Write a question in each box that corresponds with your legend. For example, in your 1 point box you might ask them to list 5 words related to the current vocabulary you are studying. In your 3 point box you might ask them for 5 verbs you learned in the yo form from earlier in the year. In the 5 point box you might ask them for 5 ways of saying hello to someone. In the example above, the red questions are vocabulary from the health unit we were doing right before April vacation. This was easier for them to recall. The orange questions was cultural information we studied as well that was a step up in terms of difficulty. The green questions involved the grammar we had been studying (present perfect) and asks them to demonstrate usage of that grammar point. The blue questions were involving vocabulary, grammar and content we had studied in prior years of Spanish 3. This was more difficult in terms of recall for them. And then the purple questions were vocabulary words from last year that I wanted them to recall. The point values are only meant to add an element of "school fun" to the activity and don't amount to anything grade wise. When students complete this activity, there's a healthy level of frustration that you can see as they work through it. They know that at one point they were able to answer all of these questions and are wondering why they are struggling at this moment. Again, remember that the process of forgetting is beneficial to the brain in the future. All of these ideas and more come from the book Powerful Teaching which was such an inspiration to me as I thought about helping kids retrieve vocabulary, grammar and cultural knowledge from throughout the years of studying the language.
Let me know if you try one of these ideas in your classes! Let me start by asking you a few questions to see what you remember from high school. 1. How do you say "friend" in the language that you teach? 2. What is the quadratic formula? 3. What is the capital of Argentina? 4. What is the capital of Australia? For most people, I would say that questions 1 and 3 were probably automatic while questions 2 and 4 might have caused some questioning or resulted in you Googling or just saying "I don't know". Why is it that you were so easily able to say the answers to some of them and other ones caused problems? I mean... your teachers taught you these things at some point in their curriculum. This same phenomenon is what's happening with our students. They remember some vocabulary words or grammatical structures so well and others aren't. The act of forcing yourself to recall information that was encoded and stored in our brains is called Retrieval Practice. This information and the inspiration for this post comes from an outstanding book that I read last year called Powerful Teaching and it has revolutionized the way I think about planning units, planning lessons and assessing students. In future blog posts, I'll go deeper into some of the ideas mentioned in the book and some of the strategies that I incorporate in my own teaching and planning but I want to give you a taste of the four "power tools", as the authors call them. Retrieval Practice We spend so much time working to get information and input into students' heads that we rarely take inventory of what actually stuck and what they retained. Retrieval practice is a way to take that inventory to provide both you and the learners with the data they need to see how well they are progressing with the unit goals. For example, let's imagine a unit on food where you teach students a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy products, grains, desserts, cultural dishes, drinks, utensils and how to order food in a restaurant. This sounds like every year 1 food unit I've ever seen. And so as the good teacher I am we work with these words in the input and start getting students ready to use these words in conversations and in writing. Then in the next unit we work with clothing and a few weeks into that unit I use a word from the food unit and the students look at me with a blank look. ¿Qué? Señor no comprendo la palabra. Deep down inside I'm like "yes you do I taught you that" and here we see the problem. I taught the word but my students didn't retain it. Through different strategies such as brain dumps, exit tickets, mini quizzes and retrieval based activities I can work to keep essential vocabulary in the working memory. Spaced Practice
This concept goes so nicely with retrieval practice because what happens in real life is that we don't only talk about food or only talk about clothing but we mix and match topics in our everyday lives. Learning progressions should be set up in the same way. It's not out of the question to ask students to recall words/structures from unit 1 just because you are in unit 4 now. Actually, it's better for them to be asked to recall those words so they can continue to recycle the vocabulary with new purposes. Powerful Teaching does a great job explaining that the process of forgetting is actually helps future retrieval of information. Think of this for an example. You forgot a student's name in class and you knew their name last week but you completely blanked. That act of forgetting and being told their name has now made you less likely to ever forget their name going forward. In language classes we can do this by intentionally planning to bring back vocabulary and grammar from previous units and refresh students' memories and ask them to use it. Interleaving This concept sounds similar to spaced practice but has some noticeable differences. Interleaving, again, goes hand in hand with retrieval practice and spaced practice and to me it affects how I write curriculum. In the past when we wrote units they looked somewhat like this: Unit 1- What makes a good friend? Vocabulary- Adjectives, Free Time Activities Grammar- Present tense Unit 2- What happened on the news? Vocabulary- News vocabulary, Current events Grammar- Preterite vs Imperfect Unit 3- How do I live a healthy life? Vocabulary- Health, Doctors office Grammar- Subjunctive Unit 4- How will I make an impact on the world? Vocabulary- Environment, Animals, Nature Grammar- Future tense And how often do you get to unit 4 and ask kids to use the preterite and they are so confused where to even start? What if our units included the previous grammar and it was incorporated in learning targets, activities and assessments? So in the third unit from the example they could have a targeted grammar of the subjunctive but also be asked to tell about a time they got injured. Or in the fourth unit describe what the environment used to be like and then compare it to what it will be like in the future using the targeted structure. Feedback-Driven Metacognition This has happened to a lot of us and definitely to our students. We think we've studied so well and we're ready for the test and we don't do too well. This is because we don't often take the time to evaluate how we are studying and if the way we are assessing is actually helpful or even the right way. Metacognitive feedback is a way to help kids realize what they know and what they don't know yet and make a plan to figure out how to do that. This can be done by asking kids to do a Judgement of Learning to say "I got this" or "I'm still working on it" and feel comfortable saying that. They can also judge their confidence of their learning by answering a question and saying "I know this is right" or "I'm not so sure on this one". This sounds like it would just work with vocabulary but it could work with all kinds of things like structures, text type and cultural knowledge. Getting students to think about their thinking is a skill that will help them throughout their lives and it can start in language class. I hope these have intrigued you and there will be future, in depth blog posts on these topics coming soon! |
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Photo used under Creative Commons from _ferloz