Technology to Facilitate Active Recall

What are retrieval practice and active recall?

Drawing on the work of Peterson and Peterson (1959), Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968), Agarwal et al (2021) and others, retrieval practice describes the importance of recalling information from the long term memory, making it available to the working memory and strengthening long-term retention.

In practice, this means challenging students to recall information during lessons, making them active instead of passive participants in their learning. As we will see, this shift can be challenging and uncomfortable, but is essential.

Almost all information stored in short term memory that is not rehearsed is lost within 18 - 30 seconds. (Peterson and Peterson, 1959)

The Multi Store model of memory, described by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968, shows a process by which initial exposure to information can lead to the information being either forgotten or absorbed into either the sort term, or long term memory. It is through rehearsal that information becomes established in the long term memory and through retrieval that information is transferred form the long term, to the working memory. It is this last stage that is important to retrieval practice.

Active recall and retrieval practice are closely linked, sometimes considered to be synonyms. For me, there is a subtle difference between the two terms.

'Active recall' focuses on the actions of the student, while retrieval practice explains the broader overall theory. Both terms are essentially advocating the same thing, but I appreciate terminology that emphasises student actions and agency.

In the Chartered College for Teaching research summary, entitled, 'What is retrieval practice and how can I use it in the classroom?', Tom Sherrington and Sara Stafford outline how the retrieving information from our long term memory into our working memory strengthens our capacity to build knowledge.

The implications of this are significant.

Knowledge is the foundation for creativity. In Sherrington's famous metaphor, 'the Learning Rainforest', knowledge forms the 'trunk' of successful learning, while the 'canopy' represents creativity and new ideas. The 'roots' represent stable learning conditions. With sufficient knowledge, creativity blossoms and has a deep and interesting structure. Without knowledge, creativity is stifled, superficial and short-lived.

Children need to remember information in order to successfully and eloquently express their ideas. This information can be technical, such as vocabulary, facts or concepts, or procedural.

There is an important opportunity for metalearning present here. Children should be aware of the need to recall information and, as we will see, the difficult in doing this! They should be aware that learning takes effort and the willingness to confront knowledge gaps, rectify them and then re-evaluate.

Why is active recall important?

This year, while walking to work, I would listen to the same phrases in Mandarin every morning. At first, I could understand barely anything. After several months of listening to the same phrases, I could understand most of what was being said.

This was a was comfortable and rewarding experience that I looked forward to every day. However, in a speaking situation, I realised that I could remember almost nothing!

My learning had been passive, listening to phrases playing one after another without my control. Whether I knew the language or not, the next phrase played and never challenged me to reproduce anything I had listened to.

When I switched to a more active process, using Book Creator to make flashcards and regularly testing myself with these, I started to make real progress in being able to recall and speak basic sentences.

Book Creator is ideal for making digital flashcards. Learners can include audio and photo prompts and turning the digital pages makes active recall quick and effective.

Challenging yourself to produce language and phrases is uncomfortable, laying bare deficiencies and gaps in learning. But it is by addressing this discomfort that real progress in learning is made.

Methods of practising active recall

The simplest way of learners realising what hey know and don't know is to take a blank piece of paper and write everything down that they can. This activity can start off simple, but progress to a spider web of topics, connections and areas for study. This simple act of active recall can be done immediately after studying, or when some time has passed (ideally both!)

Flashcards are another, more structured form of active recall, where topics are broken down into learnable chunks that enable learners to challenge themselves to explain concepts and check against explanations on the other side as often as is required. The very act of making flashcards is important, challenging learners to take ownership of distilling information into the components that are vital for success.

'Low-stakes' testing, or quizzing is another important means of active recall. Teachers might provide quizzes during lessons, after key inputs or videos, or at the end of lessons. Students get used to these tests and see them as useful tools for assessing the extent of their learning, to inform their future efforts.

Explaining concepts, either to oneself, or to a friend is another way of actively recalling information. Teachers often ask children to 'turn to the person next to you' in class, and answer a question. This can be a simple method of active recall in class, with the added bonus of requiring all children to participate and answer questions ready for whole class discussion.

Flashcards - Book Creator, Keynote, Google Slides

The iPad app, Book Creator, is a good solution for making digital flashcards. It provides a platform that is more aimed at children than tools like Anki or Quizlet and allows primary children to organise and review their learning.

Using Book Creator, students can add text, writing and drawings to a prompt slide. This can give as many clues as needed, even using the emojis from the text tool as further prompts, or recording audio phrases. On the next page, the answer or explanation can be given. The benefits of using Book Creator for this are that it is quick, easy and fun to do and that pages can be turned almost instantly, without being able to see the next page until it is turned.

Children can use Book Creator to make multi-media sets of flashcards, which they can use to test their own recall of facts and topics.

Slide deck apps like Google Slides or Keynote could also be used for making flashcards, since they support the process of breaking topics down into manageable chunks. However, for me, the fluency of turning pages in Book Creator makes it the best tool for making digital flashcards.

Mindmaps - Freeform/Canva Whiteboards

Freeform and whiteboards in Canva both serve similar functions, allowing students to freely express ideas using writing, text, images, lines and shapes. This can be a very fluid and dynamic experience for students. Set up correctly, students can even collaborate on boards, sharing their knowledge in a pair or a group.

As with using any technology or method or learning, children will need training in how to use digital whiteboards effectively. Although they have freedom to recall knowledge and make connections as they see fit, they will benefit from seeing clear examples of this kind of expression and the teacher setting high standards for organisation and quality.

Asking children to create mindmaps is a good way to encourage them to retrieve information. Freeform and Canva whiteboards allow multi-media whiteboards to be created

Frequent, low stakes testing - Google Forms, Kahoot, Wayground

Many teachers engage children through frequent, low stakes testing during lessons and at the end of topics as assessments. These can be as simple as asking children directly in class to explain something, asking children to explain something to their peers, show their mini-whiteboard, or answer questions in short, written tests. All of these methods prompt children to retrieve information, strengthening recall.

In some cases, digital platforms can be useful and engaging ways of prompting children to recall information. Digital platforms have the added bonus of providing instant results and storing results for continues teacher assessment.

Digital platforms like Kahoot and Wayground have features that can engage and refocus children, offering scores, mini-games leaderboards and other gamified features. Wayground in particular offers a wide range of response types, meaning that children can answer in short sentences, word clouds, from multiple choice, or other methods.

Google Forms has the advantage of integrating seamlessly with the Google ecosystem, if the school has adopted this. Quiz assignments created in Google Classroom stores children's marks centrally, making teacher assessment and tracking seamless.

All of these methods can offer effective ways of prompting active recall, teachers will need to use their best judgement whether to use a traditional method, such as a paper-test or mini whiteboard, or a digital tool to frequently prompt children to recall their learning.

Explaining concepts - iMovie, Voice Memo

As explained above, sometimes asking children to pause in their learning and explain a concept to their peers is an effective means of prompting their recall of information.

Technology can take this a step further, encouraging children to turn these explanations into outcomes themselves. This could be through children using Voice Memo to keep an audio journal of their learning, or using iMovie to add images of their learning and use the voiceover tool to narrate this. Children could use screen record on an iPad to record their voice speaking over apps, such as Google Earth, or even use AR tools, such as those in Delightex (CoSpaces) to narrate AR scenes. All of these prompt children to draw upon their learning, strengthening their memory of concepts.

Conclusions

Like many physical activities, learning is hard and required patience, perseverance and determination. This is something that we should teach children, helping them to be aware of what is required to develop their knowledge and skills. We should also be aware and help children be aware that due to the demanding nature of learning, children need time to relax and recover after periods of effort when they are really grappling with knowledge.

In terms of using technology for Active Recall, teachers will need to decide when to use technology and when to use traditional methods. We have explored some of the benefits of digital tools, including being able to add different types of media and engagement benefits. However, there are occasions when traditional, non-screen based methods are appropriate and teachers will need to consider this balance carefully.