Learning on Repeat – Retrieval Practice and Interleaving

by Rachel Goodliffe, Teach­ing and Learn­ing Fac­ul­ty Devel­op­er, CTLI and Prac­ti­cal Nurse Instruc­tor, Prac­ti­cal Nurs­ing Pro­gram

Mem­o­ry is a key fac­tor to suc­cess­ful learn­ing.

When infor­ma­tion in long term mem­o­ry is repeat­ed­ly accessed, it sup­ports eas­i­er recall and con­sol­i­da­tion (Oak­ley, ND, Zakra­jsek, 2022). Repeat­ed recall of infor­ma­tion from long term mem­o­ry strength­ens the path­ways to the infor­ma­tion help­ing to make it more estab­lished and eas­i­er to retrieve (Agar­w­al et al. 2020). Stu­dents often asso­ciate recall of infor­ma­tion with the sim­ple act of know­ing the infor­ma­tion and not build­ing upon or scaf­fold­ing it to strength­en their learn­ing (Car­pen­ter, 2023). Dis­cussing evi­dence-based strate­gies such as inter­leav­ing, and retrieval prac­tice with stu­dents can help to inform them about ways to change or strength­en their study habits with pos­i­tive out­comes for all.

Retrieval Prac­tice is a learn­ing strat­e­gy where “we focus on get­ting infor­ma­tion out” and not just cram­ming it in (Agar­w­al et al. 2020). Retrieval prac­tice is the inten­tion­al act of hav­ing stu­dents retrieve infor­ma­tion pre­vi­ous­ly learned, from long term mem­o­ry. This process of repeat­ed­ly work­ing to access infor­ma­tion helps to con­sol­i­date the neu­ronal path­ways to the infor­ma­tion, mak­ing it eas­i­er to access each time. Using this process helps stu­dents see what they have for­got­ten and con­tributes wide­ly to metacog­ni­tive think­ing. Retrieval prac­tice may also be a strat­e­gy to sup­port neu­ro diverse learn­ers (Knouse et al., 2020).

Ideas to apply retrieval prac­tice in the learn­ing envi­ron­ment include:

  • Get out of class tick­ets. Hav­ing stu­dents recall key points from class helps with the ear­ly stages of recall.
  • Fun quizzes in class (not for grades)
  • Think-pair-share of facts recalled from class or pri­or classes/content and then com­pare infor­ma­tion.
  • Fact check­ing of skills: ask­ing stu­dents to write out steps for skills and then fact check­ing them against their text.
  • Word Cloud guess­ing on Men­time­ter – put in one word and have stu­dents add words relat­ed to the top­ic. Bold words will stand out, and this will pro­vide great dis­cus­sion on why bold words are impor­tant.

Inter­leav­ing is described as “switch­ing between ideas” when study­ing (Wein­stein & Smith, 2023). Inter­leav­ing sup­ports the process of estab­lish­ing impor­tant con­nec­tions to long-term mem­o­ry. Repeat­ed recall of infor­ma­tion and switch­ing between top­ics strength­en path­ways, mak­ing infor­ma­tion eas­i­er to pull for­ward for appli­ca­tion pur­pos­es, and has been proven to increase test scores ( Rohrer et al, 2015).

Ideas to inte­grate inter­leav­ing in the class­room include:

  • While focus­ing on one con­cept in class, inte­grate learn­ing from a pre­vi­ous class to estab­lish con­nec­tions between both. This recall will help estab­lish the con­nec­tiv­i­ty of con­cepts.
  • Mix dif­fer­ent prob­lems togeth­er, e.g., math (mix­ing geom­e­try and alge­bra) or nurs­ing (solv­ing prob­lems with issues relat­ed to patient co mor­bidi­ties).
  • Flash cards that can quick­ly be accessed about one top­ic while study­ing anoth­er.

As an instruc­tor in the nurs­ing pro­gram, I apply retrieval prac­tice each week in the lab with my stu­dents. Learn­ing infor­ma­tion week by week about the same patient using the Unfold­ing Case Study ped­a­gogy, we start off in class by retriev­ing what we already know about “the patient.” In groups, stu­dents sup­port one anoth­er to recall what they know and how the week­ly con­cepts learned in the pri­or week’s con­nect, there­by repeat­ed­ly work­ing and strength­en­ing those neu­ronal path­ways to the infor­ma­tion. A bonus to this process is that I see stu­dents enjoy­ing the fact that they are retain­ing infor­ma­tion. They feel inspired by their abil­i­ties to recall and con­nect the infor­ma­tion in a quick­er man­ner. Stu­dents tell me that they are start­ing to feel like things are com­ing togeth­er. This builds self-effi­ca­cy, which is anoth­er fac­tor to enhance suc­cess­ful learn­ing. It’s a win-win sit­u­a­tion!

Ref­er­ences for More Learn­ing