Mrs Rowe, Deputy Team Leader of Science, has been researching 'Revising efficiently: using research on Metacognition and self-regulation'
A toolkit released by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) earlier this year has led me to think more about how well we are teaching our pupils to revise. This guidance is called Metacognition and self-regulation. Many Perins students put aside hours every week to revise for tests or exams. They are dedicated and want to succeed but are they always using the best techniques to ensure this knowledge sticks?
Using the EEF guidelines I have been trailing a 4 stage approach to revision:
What can you remember?
This needs to be done completely independently to find out exactly what knowledge has stuck thus far. This should be on a small section of a topic (something it would not take longer than a couple of minutes to write about) so as not to overload the learner.
Fill in any gaps in what you could remember
Our pupils have access to a wide range of resources to do this. These include revision sessions from in class, revision guides or websites. This step is crucial before pupils move onto step 3 to ensure they are confident in tackling independent practice.
Independent practice
There has been a number of studies over the last 20 years or so that show that regular testing helps with recall of information. Pupils do not always like testing themselves because it is not an easy thing to do. This said, it is much more effective than copying out facts or highlighting fact sheets. 10 short answer questions on a topic, or a short essay style question could be used, dependent on the subject or topic being revised.
Reflection on what you now remember
Pupils are often encouraged to use a simple mark-scheme to identify which questions they need to work on further.
Regular use of these 4 steps will hopefully empower students to use the technique across any topic in any subject. The whole strategy should be completed in approximately 15-20 minutes, helping pupils to break down their revision into manageable chunks.
