The Nova Revision Vision - a teacher's guide

These are the principles that have guided the development of Nova’s revision vision:

• Students need to retain knowledge of key information in our subjects
• Good knowledge in a subject is the necessary backbone of more difficult skills, such as synthesis, analysis and evaluation: you cannot think deeply without having something to think about
• Forgetting is important to the formation of strong long term memories (cf. the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, the work of Robert Bjork – see link below)
• To make it easy for students to recall the information they need in exam situations, they must practice the retrieval of these memories.

Knowledge Retention and Retrieval Practice

Some classic revision techniques don’t work effectively because they do not make use of the ways our memories actually work. For example, re-reading, highlighting, mind-mapping and summarising. In these techniques, the answers are right there in front of you, so there is no pressure on you to retrieve memories of prior learning. On the other hand, testing yourself (or having someone test you) on the same material, even if you don’t know the answers first time around, both strengthens the memories of the required knowledge and makes it easier to retrieve at the crucial time. This won’t make the memories totally reliable first time around, but neither would re-reading or highlighting. The advantage of testing is that it is far more efficient, so less revision time is needed overall, with improved outcomes to boot.

Distributed Practice

We all know cramming is not effective. The main reason for this is that no time for forgetting is allowed between coverage of the material. So, the most effective revision is spaced out, or distributed – i.e. you repeat your revision, but with a few days (at least) between repeats. In other words, one hour of revision of a set of material is best shared over six ten-minute slots rather than done at once.

Applying these ideas

The simplest method to get students testing themselves on material rather than revising it in inefficient ways runs as follows:

1. Give them the material they need to know – on a knowledge organiser or in a textbook or a revision guide. (The advantage of a knowledge organiser is that it allows you, the subject specialist, to decide on the core knowledge required for good learning of the topic. Further, it can be written in a way that facilitates the writing of a quiz for students who are novices at this.)
2. Have students write quizzes based on the information given. This is not immediately easy for students, so they’ll need the writing of quizzes to be modelled before they try their own, so that they avoid irrelevant questions like ‘How do you spell knowledge?’ or ‘How many bullet points are there in the third box?’. However, with good modelling and practice, all students can write a good quiz (with the answers!), as the examples below attest (appendix). It is worth investing this time as we are teaching our students a revision technique that will last them a lifetime.
3. Once student have written their quizzes, they are not done with them, but must test themselves (or have e.g. a parent test them) on the material multiple times. Not all in a row, but with each re-test spread out – distributed practice. Compared to writing a quiz, this part is much easier for students, but harder for us to assess if they are doing it for homework. However, once this part of the process has been modelled in lessons and students understand the importance of repeated self-testing, they will do it.

It is up to each faculty where they have students write their quizzes. Separate homework/quiz books could be issued, or students could start at the back of their exercise books and work the other way through them. Their quizzes must be safe, and are best kept together, as students will be using them over and over again.

Modelling Distributed Quizzing in the Classroom

Once we acknowledge the value in distributed testing to improve retention of knowledge, it follows that we teachers should model it in the classroom; a process that has the benefit of checking how well our students’ revision is going. Furthermore, it is vital to remind students that what was learned last week doesn’t belong back then and can be safely forgotten today; rather, we expect students to recall everything learned over the year so far – indeed, over all their years with us. To remind them of this, expect them to do it. Here is a model for starter quizzes that can be used in any subject:

• Set two questions based on last week’s lesson(s)
• Set two questions based on the week before
• Set two questions based on material taught a month ago
• Set two questions based on material taught last term
• Set two questions that require recall of more than one topic to successfully answer (i.e. require synthesis).

That’s ten questions, and the order of the questions isn’t important – in fact, it would be useful to shift the last two (the most challenging type of question) earlier to ensure all students get to them. This type of starter has three massive benefits: it shows students that recall across long periods of time is normal and a standard expectation; it gives them retrieval practice in addition to their homework quizzing; and it models, every lesson, good examples of questions like those you are requiring they write for homework. Here’s an example: a typical Y7 science starter.

Some useful links:

http://www.science20.com/brain_candyfeed_your_mind/how_learn_robert_bjork_director_ucla_learning_and_forgetting_lab-86451 - interview with Robert Bjork

http://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/5/10-1

Student quizzes from a range of subjects: