Reflection and the Curve of Forgetting

Reflection and the Curve of Forgetting

     One of the learning concepts I like to brief my students on is "The Curve of Forgetting". The concept deals with how memory is stored/lost over time, and has huge implications for all types of learning. The graph below shows generally what is going on when a student is trying to learn something. 

Forgetting curve: Showing % remembered per day. Taken from 4mylearn.org

     The various studies vary, but most agree that within a day most people will forget ~25% of what they have learned, and if you stretch that out to 3 months that increases to well over 80%. That loss can be mitigated through well timed repetition, typically 1h after learning, 24h after learning, 1 week after learning, then 1 month after learning. Reviewing material at those four critical stages has been shown to flip the results, and increase the retention of the learning to 80% rather than the loss of that information. 

     Even with the decreased content in the new BC curriculum, I don't think there is time to review the same content four times. Ideally your students would be studying on a regular basis, but I don't think risking students forgetting the vast majority of what they learned is worth the risk. Reflections are helpful here. Let's take a math class as an example (as I feel this curve is especially apparent in the math classes I've taught) 

Beginning of class Reflection: What do you know about the Pythagorean theorem?

Example: "I don't know anything about it, I know theorem has something to do with an idea, and the name Pythagorean sounds foreign to me"

Direct Teaching: During the class you provide examples of how if you make squares out of the two smaller sides of a right triangle, you can cut up those squares and they will fit inside the square made from the largest side. Introduce the language of "Leg" for the smaller sides, and "hypotenuse" for the largest side. 

Student independent learning:  Students practice what they have just learned hear, example problems should start simple, and move to more complex problems with real world examples. Challenge questions can be useful here

Final Reflection: "Compared to what you knew at the beginning of the lesson, what do you know about the Pythagorean theorem? What do you think we are going to learn about next?" 

This serves as the first "inoculation" of learning. This is the review ~1h after learning something that students require in order to ensure long-term learning. It also provides you an easy feedback mechanism. If you get 20 reflections stating they didn't remember anything, then you will have to go back to the start :( 

The Next Day: Alternate between a reflection "What did we learn last class" and a one question quiz with a simple example from the last class. This is the review 24-48 h after the learning. This is the second booster shot to their learning

One week later : What do you remember about the Pythagorean theorem? (This should not take longer than 3 min) 

One month later: Provide an example of how you could use the Pythagorean theorem with [insert what you are learning here] 

This is a time intensive process, and it takes a LOT of planning. Your day plan might look like this

Expressions Lesson

Reflect: 

5 min -Pythagorean Theorem && Cartesian Coordinates ;  

5 min -Flash back quiz- tessellations; 

6 min -"If I have a formula 3-5x, what will happen if x=0? What do you think will happen if x gets bigger?" 

60 min -Insert lesson on expressions here including practice-

10 min- Final reflection "how did my prediction at the beginning of class pan out? Was I right? What did I base my answer on? What would I have to change about the formula in order to make my prediction right?

It isn't perfect, and it is time consuming, but I feel like it is best practice. What do you think?