Improving The Learning Experience Of Students

In classrooms all across America, students sit perched over their desks in the process of taking standardized tests. As the students take the tests, teachers pace nervously up and down the rows of their classroom, hoping and praying that their students can recall the information which they have presented. Some children sit relaxed at their desks, calmly filling in the bubbles and answering essay questions. These children are well prepared and equipped to handle their tests. Other children, however, sit hunched over their desks, pondering over questions, trying to guess an answer. They struggle to recall information that has been covered many times in class, but they can’t.

“Those who have characterized instruction tasks express dismay about the focus on low-level facts and skills and the omnipresence of worksheets in American classrooms” (Blumefeld, 1991, p. 370). Whenever I think about my own educational experiences, I remember thinking how what I was learning in school was separate from the outside world. Oftentimes this made learning difficult as I found myself finding the topics uninteresting and wondering if I would ever use this information in real life. I constantly tried to learn new information through route memorization and struggled with remembering information that I had previously “learned”.

When a student merely reviews the information in a textbook or notes, but doesn’t take the time to test themselves to see if they really understand what they are reading or if they review the test questions while looking at the answers, it can have a negative effect on their test scores. However, if the student were to alter their study patterns they could not only do better on the test, but retain more of the information.

This study takes a look at the benefits of frequent quizzing, and how it aids in both memory and attention when studying. The study also looks at the brain’s tendency to wander particularly during long periods of studying or lectures, lowering the amount of material being consumed. The quizzes are defined by the study as low stakes tests that allow students to review material, whether given by a professor or when studying out of class.

Tran suggests that ‘testing is undoubtedly a useful technique for promoting information acquisition’ (Tran, 2015, p.140). Self testing was a vital part of Trans experiment, the participants in the experiment studied and reviewed information by rereading or taking a test, the testing option produced the better results in the participants. The effectiveness of testing as suggested by Tran has been found in the classroom, if the review of subjects was done in a testing method rather than in a restudying of the same topic the students attained better results and had better memory retrieval process (Tran, 2015).Although Tran does support the effectiveness of self testing as a way of improving memory recall when studying, he also suggests that there is still questions as to when and how it does and does not in fact facilitate learning (Tran, 2015).Therefore, Tran is in agreement with Ariel and Karpicke that the practice of self testing is effective on students studying for the PSYC101 final exam, as it does enhance the memory recall process, and does produce better results in the results of the

The majority of students develop study habits that may not be effective in the long run or suitable for their learning style. According to a research done by psychologists Henry Roediger and Mark McDaniel, re-reading information over and over again is one common mistake students make. They may often wonder why they fail exams even though they are studying for a long period of time. Studying a short amount of the material every day after class for at least twenty minutes will help you retain the information a lot better than to cram everything the

Finally, for both types of instruction, I asked students to agree/disagree with a pair of questions; “I understand most of the information taught during [type of instruction]” and “I remember most of the information taught during [type of instruction].” For lecture, a significant portion of students said

Book: Schmoker, M. J. (2011). Focus: Elevating the essentials to radically improve student learning. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

In the results provided in the journal, we see that in the free recall testing, the use of the 3R method was more successful across the board than those who used note taking or rereading as their study strategy. The results of the students who used the note-taking strategy and the rereading strategy were not as significant as students using the 3R strategy.

In order to obtain this information on retention two experiments were conducted using psychological testing to collect data (Weiten, 2014). The first was a experimental 2 x 3 factorial design, using one hundred twenty undergraduate students from Washington University, ages 18 to 24 (Roddiger & Karpicke, 2005). The independent variables that were manipulated were the different learning conditions and time between studying and test taking, as well as when the subjects would take the final retention test which occurred either 5-minutes, 2-days, or 1-week after the end of the 1st phase of the experiment (Roddiger & Karpicke, 2005). The dependent variable were how much information could the subjects reten and their performance on the final retention test given in phase 2 of the experiment. The order of learning conditions and the order of the passages given to the subjects were the same were counterbalanced across all the subjects. After the experiment was

Throughout this research article “Test-Enhanced Learning: Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention” by Henry L. Roediger, III, and Jeffrey D. Karpicke, they created a study that investigated the improvement of long-term memory through the practice of memory exams. These researchers conducted two experiments that helped determine whether restudying the material effects the enhancing of long-term memory. To determine this case, researchers used similar test effects from regular general educational test. These tests revolved around essay tests, multiple choice, and short answers. In experiment one, the participants had the option to either take the test on the material or study it again before taking a retention test. In the retention tests the participants will study the material multiple times before taking the exam within 5 minutes, one week, or one week later. In experiment two, the participants would be observed closely based on the number of study sessions. Afterward, they would take the exam once or multiple times depending on the amount of studying they have done.

Why can a child remember how to ride a bike but they can not remember the elements on the periodic table? While almost everyone knows that memory plays a big role in learning, not everyone knows exactly how memory impacts learning. Most believe that memorizing material is the best way to learn. Many students try to study by memorizing before an exam but they still suffer from “mind-blanks”. “It is not bad memory recall that causes these “mind-blanks”, rather it is teaching methods. Teachers do not involve students enough in exciting hands-on activities that create memories. In order to improve performance in schools, we need to change traditional methods of teaching.

The approach of learning in high school is centered around a given test after a specific session or lesson on a given topic. The problem arises when students receive their tests back. While some students do well, others don’t. Those who don’t do so well wonder why they did not obtain a better score and want to learn from their mistakes. When it comes time to review the test, teachers do not spend enough time reviewing and teaching the lessons where students struggle the most. Students are then not given the opportunity to completely understand each topic before moving on to the next. Since most advanced topics are closely related to the previous lessons, students who have not built a solid understanding of the fundamentals are likely to continue to suffer a repeated cycle of “failure” as the discrepancy between the level of understanding among the students increase as the semester progresses. Thus, I believe that the education system should be revised in such a way that we spend more time helping students build that solid foundation and break that cycle of

Deciding on the research question was one of the hardest parts about the research process. 2 or 3 weeks were spent filling out lotus diagrams, doing small research, and discussing possible topics with Research Project teachers. The question was decided upon after a discussion with a teacher about their personal experiences of working with multilingual students and how that impacted on their learning experience. According to her, multilingual students seemed to perform better in their education and had higher mathematical ability. I wanted to investigate this claim further; I was also completing Russian Stage 2 at that moment, and found that the topic was relevant to my personal experiences.

This happens because students are not realizing the importance of review, thereby succumbing to cramming and studying a lot longer than needed. The best way to not forget our facts is to keep the memory fresh regularly. We do so by implementing study habits and incorporating different techniques in order to retain learned material. One way to accomplish this is to know when the next exam is, and from there we spread out how much time we will commit to study leading up to the exam. Nate Kornell, an associate professor of cognitive psychology, stated that “learners would profit from taking advantage of the spacing effect, both in classrooms and during unsupervised learning… because spacing does not take more time than massing, it simply involves a different distribution of time” (Kornell). Spacing involves wisely planning out our time earlier before the day of the exam. An example includes the strategy of looking over notes after class and studying for half an hour each day, which is better than having to actually start studying the day before the exam for hours. Distributing time to study is key, because we avoid the problem of overworking and agitating ourselves by studying all of the information. In addition, we allow the information to be stored long-term, which is advantageous for retrieving information when we need it. Most of all, testing ourselves regularly is another crucial practice that can reduce cramming. Scientist Sean Kang’s