Why do they always seem to forget?

Why do they always seem to forget? PedagooLondon presentation by David Fawcett and Fran Bennett. 

"Why is it that you can teach a lesson in which all students clearly demonstrate they understand a topic, but then a few days, weeks or months later, students have forgotten it?  How is it that things seem to be learnt and then forgotten so quickly?"In the session we will explore various principles from cognitive science and psychology research.  We will look at what these findings say and how we as teachers could begin to incorporate them in our practice.  We will provide examples of how this research is already being put into practice and allow the opportunity for attendees to begin planning how to make learning stick (for the long run!)."

I took away these key points from the presentation:

• When something is introduced the students really need to think about it, and do something with it, to remember it. 
• 3 or 4 different exposures, in different ways, is required to put information into long term memory. 
• Multiple choice pre-tests help with learning. It also introduces the key words before the topic begins.
• Re-cap gaps should increase over time to improve long-term storage. 

I will be incorporating some of the effective testing methods from the last picture into my lessons on a weekly basis to repeatedly test commas/conjunctions/spellings etc as I seem to have many students who suffer from poor memory storage and retrieval. I am also going to try out the pre-tests. I hope that this will help them!

Interestingly, there was a lot of discussion about the benefits of giving multiple choice options in tests. This technique certainly helps learners with dyslexia, as often a student with dyslexia will know the answer, but will struggle with the retrieval process from the long term memory. By giving multiple choice options it can help the student be directed to the answer they already know.