Effective revision

There are only three proven strategies for effective revision: spaced practice, retrieval practice and interleaving.

Space practice

Attempting to retrieve knowledge frequently. Doing the same practice again and again over a long period of time. Just because you think you have learned something, don’t put it to one side. Although there is some merit to “cramming” at the end of a course, or days before the exam, it is far more effective to turn knowledge gained from working memory to long term memory. The only way to successfully achieve this is to start the revision process early and do little and often. Spending hours on revision is just not effective. It is far better to do short bursts of twenty minutes to half and hour at a time.

So when should you start revising? While it is typical for schools to aim to finish a course between 3-4 months before the exam to allow enough time for revision, this should not be necessary. Instead, the revision process should start after the very first topic has been taught and then continue until the exam. Leaving revision to the end of a course does not allow for spaced practice which has been proven to be more successful.

Low-stakes quizzing can be surprisingly effective at keeping knowledge fresh in a student’s mind if used over a long period of time. Consider including a multiple choice quiz using diagnostic questions in every lesson as a starter or plenary activity.

Retrieval practice

Instead of rereading content, e.g., using revision guides or flashcards passively, challenge students to write the content and definitions instead. This has a much bigger impact on performance than just reading. Using past papers has the biggest impact on revision. However, be mindful of using products that claim to cover the course, but in fact do not get the pitch right. It is important that questions cover the specification in sufficent depth, but also do not go beyond it. Too many authors include questions that students will simply never see in a real exam. Compare the specifications, topic guides and any clarification documents provided by exam boards to revision guides you intend to use first.

Creating mind maps or spider diagrams from all the content of a unit using the minimum number of words to ease recall can be helpful. Using notes if they are sufficient, text books, knowledge organisers or revision guides. Create the map with concentric rings with an increasing level of detail from inside to outside the diagram. The inner ring for “what”, i.e. the key terms and definitions, one ring for, “how”, i.e. how that concept works, and one ring for, “why”, i.e. why that is necessary, or comparing one concept to another. Once complete, remove all the text so you are left with the skeleton of the diagram only. Now periodically challenge students to fill in the skeleton with the content. Compare what was created with the completed map. Not only will you create a visualisation in your mind of the topic (because the structure of the diagram does not change), but you will more easily see what students remember and what they don’t.

Interleaving

Recent research has shown mixing up topics that have been previously taught is three times more effective than ‘blocking’ (only looking at one topic at a time). Quiz students on a variety of topics they have learned to date within a single quiz. When teaching, making the links between concepts explicit. E.g.

An array…

…is like a variable

…but has multiple values of the same data type instead of a single value,

…uses indexes to load and store elements in the structure.

…Therefore requires an index register in the CPU,

…and contiguous addresses in RAM.

…This is why it is static,

…because if you wanted to increase the number of indexes you would have to recreate the structure elsewhere in memory,

…because another program may be using the next address,

…recreating the structure is inefficient and should therefore be avoided.