Tag: Science of Learning

The Classroom Lie Series: The forgetting curve

It was late in the school year, and I was giving my students an end-of-course assessment. We had worked hard all year, done some review leading up to assessment day, and both the students and I felt confident that we would be ready. So when I started grading the assessment, I was surprised to see that the topics that my students did worst on were some of the ones that we had learned most recently. As a teacher, when we were reviewing, the students and I felt we needed to focus more on the material we had learned earlier in the year and spend less time reviewing our new material. The data told me something different.

At the time, I assumed something had gone wrong in my instruction of what we had learned most recently. Maybe the students were not as engaged in the learning because we were doing it in May. Or maybe it was something about my instruction – was it too theoretical and not concrete enough? Did I model enough to support their learning? Or maybe something else went wrong. Ultimately, it felt like I had failed my students in that portion of the learning.

What I know now is that there is a truth to how the brain works that I didn’t understand while I was still in the classroom. You see, forgetting is a default state of memory. It’s not a sign of failure, it’s how the brain works. Our students will forget about two-thirds of what you teach them this week!

The human brain does not prioritize information that we have not reviewed. The research that helps us understand this actually dates back to the late 1800s and has been replicated in a variety of cognitive science studies over the years. Hermann Ebbinghaus used his research to create what has become known as the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve.

What this curve tells us is that if we teach something in class today, by tomorrow, students will only remember about 60% of what they learned. If we review that material tomorrow, we decrease that rate of forgetting. Each time we review the material, we increase a student’s ability to retrieve it. This is why spaced retrieval (also known as spiral review) is such a powerful tool. It doesn’t prevent students from forgetting something – students are going to forget what you teach them because that is the default state of the brain – instead, it exploits the brain’s ability to move information from working memory to long-term memory, and helps develop the neural pathways for learners to access that information.

More recent research suggests nuance in what learners will forget and what they might remember more easily. Bjork & Bjork (1992) note that forgetting can be highly variable and dependent on the student’s context. The student who loves baseball is likely to recall more details from a story about a baseball player than students with no interest in baseball. However, even with these factors, the study reinforces that the newest information we learn generally does not stick.

Most teachers probably aren’t aware of what this study tells us about memory (I know I wasn’t until researching this series of articles). The first thing we learn from the research is the idea of retrieval strength and storage strength. Retrieval strength is the ease with which something can be recalled. As educators, remembering the names of our current students has a high retrieval strength, like remembering your best friend’s phone number when you were in high school. Storage strength is how well we’re able to recall something learned in the long-term. I know that all of us say we’ll “never forget” our students, but we have probably all run into a former student in a public place and not been able to recall their name. Or that number of your best friend that you dialed every day is a number you haven’t used in years, and now you can’t recall.

Our brains are good at storing information we use regularly, but when we no longer use it, the pathway to that information becomes weaker. Likely it is still there – there is no known limit to human memory – but if you don’t use it, the retrieval strength goes away.

Periodic recall of information increases the retrieval strength. While Ebbinghaus’s curve tells us that we might forget something the day after we learned it, that memory has not been erased. Instead, since it hasn’t been retrieved recently, our brains don’t have a strong connection to the information. In a classroom, the risk we run is assuming our students know something because they have a high retrieval strength of the material during the lesson, but if it’s the first time we’re learning that thing, our storage strength is low.

So, how do we increase both the retrieval and storage strength of a topic? Cepeda et al.’s (2006) meta-analysis of 254 studies shows that distributed practice produces 10-30% better retention than massed practice. What does that mean?

Distributed practice is when we practice a skill a little bit every day over a long period of time. Let’s say that we spend 20 minutes a day over 2 weeks. That’s almost 5 hours of practice! Massed practice is when we practice the same skill in a single day. The research shows that when learners are tested on those skills, those who used distributed practice show 10-30% more retention than those who used massed practice.

Knowing this research should be a sign for all of us – creating opportunities for our students to practice a skill again and again, with time to forget in between – will strengthen their retrieval strength for that piece of information. When students have to recall something they have started to forget, we increase both retrieval and storage strength.

One way to support this in our learning is to build a spiral review into our lesson planning. Imagine if you added a section near the end of your lesson plan for review questions from today’s lesson. Have a spot for “tomorrow,” “next week,” and “next month.” Then, when you are planning today’s lesson plan, you go back to your plans from yesterday, last week, and last month. Your warm-up has been created by your past self, and your future self will thank you!

The key thing to remember is that people don’t forget things because they are careless, but because the brain’s ability to remember something is directly related to how often it has to recall that information. The forgetting curve helps describe a learning process that we, as teachers, can exploit in thoughtful design to boost learning.

What does this make you think about in terms of your practice? Are there changes you might make knowing more about how we can exploit the brain’s natural state of forgetting? Let us know in the comments!

The Bottleneck

This fall, The Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning at the University of Indianapolis is offering a Science of Learning Micro-Credential. When I saw information about it over the summer, I immediately signed up. I have long been fascinated by the human brain’s learning process. That makes sense, as I was reminded in a recent professional development session, because learning is the top value I selected when reading “Dare to Lead” by Brené Brown.

This Micro-Credential has an engaging format, comprising a total of 8 asynchronous modules and 4 synchronous learning opportunities. InnerDrive, a mindset coaching company based in the United Kingdom, presents the asynchronous learning. The company works closely with education. The first module of learning focused on Cognitive Load Theory, which I have previously written about (you can find those posts here, here, and here).

If you haven’t learned about Cognitive Load Theory, it’s based on the idea that our working memory has a limited capacity (for most people, approximately 4-7 pieces of information), while our long-term memory is very large – potentially even unlimited. During the first asynchronous module, InnerDrive presented an interview with Zach Groshell. He is a teacher, instructional coach, educational consultant, and author. I’ve referenced him and his book Just Tell Them in past posts.

He describes Cognitive Load Theory and the process of moving information from working memory to long-term memory as a bottleneck. If we define learning as creating a change in long-term memory, then our job as educators is to determine how to address that bottleneck.

Credit: Scott H. Young, Cognitive Load Theory and its Applications for Learning

Research tells us that there are several ways to address the concept of the bottleneck:

  1. Break learning into smaller bits: If you chunk information, you’re able to take complex ideas into smaller and more digestible steps. That might include starting with simple examples and then gradually adding complexity. Alternatively, you might use a worked example where you show step-by-step most of the problem, leaving students to complete the last portion on their own. Or you might scaffold learning by providing support like a sentence starter or graphic organizer, and you fade the scaffolds over time.
  2. Remember that busy does not equal learning: As I mentioned earlier, learning is about making a lasting change to long-term memory. One of the realities of education is that sometimes we focus more on what students are doing than what they are learning. Cognitive science tells us that utilizing retrieval practice, promoting connections between topics of learning, utilizing spaced practice, and creating opportunities for students to utilize self-explanation out loud or in writing.
  3. Success drives motivation: All humans gravitate towards assistance and support. When we feel successful in a learning environment, we strive to learn more. I don’t know about you, but I love to utilize YouTube as a learning tool. I can’t tell you how many of my YouTube searches involve fixing something. The other day, I was told that one of my brake lights had gone out on my truck. I spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out how to access the brake light, and finally pulled out my phone, watched a 30-second clip, and had the brake light replaced in under 2 minutes. Because of that success, I feel comfortable trying to learn more through a video format again. As teachers, it’s essential to find ways to help our students achieve success within the classroom setting. That maintains their motivation in the learning environment.

Understanding how the human brain learns is a key part of supporting students. We need to focus on the key points of learning. It’s what we’re here for!