This document provides tips for using retrieval practice as a study strategy. It recommends writing or sketching everything you know about a topic without references, then checking your work against course materials. It also suggests taking practice tests, making your own flashcards, and recalling links between ideas rather than just definitions. The key aspects of retrieval practice are checking your work afterward and working to recall information independently without resources before verification.
This document provides tips for using retrieval practice as a study strategy. It recommends writing or sketching everything you know about a topic without references, then checking your work against course materials. It also suggests taking practice tests, making your own flashcards, and recalling links between ideas rather than just definitions. The key aspects of retrieval practice are checking your work afterward and working to recall information independently without resources before verification.
This document provides tips for using retrieval practice as a study strategy. It recommends writing or sketching everything you know about a topic without references, then checking your work against course materials. It also suggests taking practice tests, making your own flashcards, and recalling links between ideas rather than just definitions. The key aspects of retrieval practice are checking your work afterward and working to recall information independently without resources before verification.
This document provides tips for using retrieval practice as a study strategy. It recommends writing or sketching everything you know about a topic without references, then checking your work against course materials. It also suggests taking practice tests, making your own flashcards, and recalling links between ideas rather than just definitions. The key aspects of retrieval practice are checking your work afterward and working to recall information independently without resources before verification.
Retrieval Practice P R A C T I C E B R I N G I N G I N F O R M AT I O N T O M I N D
LEARNINGSCIENTISTS.ORG
HOW TO DO IT
Put away your class materials, and
write or sketch everything you I TE OR E TC H CH ECK WR SK know. Be as thorough as possible. Then, check your class materials for accuracy and important points you missed.
Take as many practice tests as you
can get your hands on. If you dont have ready-made tests, try making DE TESTS your own and trading with a friend TRA
who has done the same.
You can also make ashcards. Just
make sure you practice recalling the information on them, and go beyond denitions by thinking of links between ideas.
HOLD ON!
Retrieval practice works best when you go back to check your class materials for accuracy afterward.
1 2 3 Retrieval is hard! If youre struggling, identify the things youve missed from your class materials, and work your way up to recalling it on your own with the class materials closed.
Dont only recall words and denitions. Make sure to recall main ideas, how things are related or dierent from one another, and new examples.
RESEARCH Read more about Roediger, H. L., Putnam, A. L., & Smith, M. A. (2011). Ten benefits of testing and their retrieval practice applications to educational practice. In J. Mestre & B. Ross (Eds.), Psychology of learning and as a study strategy motivation: Cognition in education, (pp. 1-36). Oxford: Elsevier.
Content by Yana Weinstein (University of Massachusetts Lowell) & Megan Smith (Rhode Island College) | Illustrations by Oliver Caviglioli (teachinghow2s.com/cogsci) Funding provided by the APS Fund for Teaching and Public Understanding of Psychological Science
