Teachers Shouldn’t Remind Students What They Learned Previously

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A math class can look smooth because nobody’s really thinking very hard.

The class starts, and before students even get a problem to work on, the teacher says:

“Remember yesterday when we divided by a fraction? We’re gonna do that again today, and this is a reminder of how you do it.”

They walk through the whole procedure again, give students a nice refresher, and now the class is warmed up.

But the problem is:

They didn’t actually have to retrieve that information from memory.

You just gave it to them.

You robbed them of the opportunity to retrieve the fuzzy information from memory.

And that is really where the retention gain comes from.

When you have to think:

“Huh, how did I do that again?

I know we did this yesterday.

What did we do?”

And then after some effort, you remember. That’s what really extends your memory duration.

You don’t get your memory duration extended by somebody reminding you right then and there.

That’s like going to the gym and then having the spotter lift the weight for you.

You have to lift the weight.

Not your spotter.

It’s the same thing in math or any other subject where you have to remember information.

So if a student learned it yesterday, they should have to reach for it again in their head today.

And if you ask them and they just stare at you blankly for a few seconds…

That’s not automatically failure.

Sometimes that’s just the moment when the learning is actually being pulled back into place.

Further reading:

• Don’t Look Back at the Reference Too Often
• The 2 Most Common Ways that People Get Retrieval Practice Wrong

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