Realization- pages 168-179

The seven steps to remembering help us teach metacognition to our scholars.  This book has reinforced so many memory-building steps and introduced me to several strategies to make it happen!  I hope you have enjoyed this book as much as I have.

  😃

The final task for this year's Summer Book Club:

Take the time to reflect & review the 7 steps (pages 169-173).  Which steps do you see yourself implementing or focusing more time on this next school year?  How has this book changed your thinking and how might you spend time helping scholars create long-term, working memories with content?

Keep your eyes open for your PGP certificate to arrive in your email!  

I hope you have an amazing start to your new school year.  

Please reach out if I can help in any way!

Step 7:  Retrieve- Pages 148-167

Retrieval of memory in its most universal form is the ability to bring a past event or prior knowledge to one's mind. (Sprenger, page 149)  If information or memories are not encoded or stored correctly, it is harder to retrieve the information.

My two favorite takeaways from this chapter are:

1.  Often a problem with retrieval occurs when the instructional strategies used DO NOT match the reviews or the assessment.

2.  Use good academic vocabulary words in classroom lessons and discussions and on formative assessments that when you use them on summative assessments, students will understand the words in context.

It's your choice!  Choose one of the following reflections and share your connections and thoughts on the question.  

1.  Sometimes retrievals fail, not just for our scholars but for us too. :)  What from the list on page 166, do you feel like you could adjust and focus more attention on to get more retrieval to happen from your scholars?

2.  The ability to retrieve information quickly and easily offers scholars a feeling of self-confidence.  How do you reinforce these feelings in every scholar in your classroom?

3.  Some scholars are naturally slow processors and retrievers.  What do you do in your classroom to provide them with the optimal environment for assessments and retrieval of content?

4.  A constant reminder:  Does what you are accepting as evidence that your scholars have enduring understanding match your instructional strategies?

Step 6: Review- Pages 127-147

I absolutely LOVED this chapter!  This chapter provided me with some definite connections, new ideas, confirmations, and questions.  

Confirmations: Incremental learning and reviews are key! When I think about the Saxon curriculum some of our schools use for math, it validates the theory behind why it was developed with a distributed approach. All learning needs to be taught in small, spiraling increments with consistent review methods built in.   

This also confirms why my 16-year-old struggles at times with assessments.  He is notorious for procrastinating and cramming the night before!  :) 

Connections:  I used to study in college in the evening and then go to sleep.  I would then wake up and study in the morning.  It was amazing how much I would retain after sleeping.  

I loved incorporating Marzano's 8 review strategies in my classroom when I was a classroom teacher.  The ones I used the most were the demonstration, presented problem, questioning, and conceptual maps.

New Ideas:  I loved the 6 reteaching ideas on page 144.  The new ideas I liked are the "Sage and Scribe" technique and "Photo Quick Writes".  I also love the idea of giving scholars a blank piece of paper for them to visually map out their thinking at the same time they are learning new information.  

Another Ah-ha for me was if the assessment is mostly in written format, then practice should be in mostly written format.  For example, if they use manipulatives in math but the test is going to be written, we should transition from manipulatives to the written expression of content during the course of the lessons.

Questions:  My question is whether a pop quiz's purpose is to gather an understanding of where our scholars' learning currently is and then make instructional adjustments or should it be to get a grade for our grade book?

Your task this week is to provide comments to someone else's question and then end by posing your own question on the reading for others to comment on.  Tag, You're it!  😀

Step 5:  Rehearse- pages 103-126

"We remember better the more fully we precess new subject matter."

-Larry Squire and Eric Kandel

I have always said we, as teachers, wear the content we teach on us.  I also believe our classroom walls and space contribute to our scholars' episodic memories.  "Rehearsal" helps us transfer information from episodic pathways to semantic pathways.

https://placoachingcycle.com/dashboard 

Below, are five rehearsal techniques that aid in memory.  Use the visuals to trigger your memory from this week's reading.  For each letter bullet, paraphrase in your own words how each technique helps our scholars remember and how you have similarly applied this technique in your own experience.  (personally or professionally)