Teach17

Memorable Teaching explores how teachers can use what we know about memory to build secure and lasting learning. Peps McCrea offers an evidence-informed approach that focuses on managing pupils’ thinking and helping important knowledge move into long-term memory.

1. Remove unnecessary information from your slides, worksheets and explanations so that pupils can concentrate their limited attention on the content that matters most.
2. Tell pupils exactly what they should be looking at, listening for or thinking about during each stage of the lesson to keep their attention focused.
3. Connect new information to knowledge that pupils already possess so that unfamiliar ideas can be understood and stored within an existing mental structure.
4. Break complicated ideas and processes into smaller, manageable parts before asking pupils to combine them or apply the complete process independently.
5. Use familiar lesson structures and classroom routines so that pupils can devote more of their mental effort to understanding the new material being taught.
6. Model new processes clearly and narrate your thinking before expecting pupils to complete similar work without guidance or support.
7. Use carefully chosen worked examples to reduce the demands on pupils’ working memory while they are learning an unfamiliar method or concept.
8. Present examples alongside non-examples so that pupils can recognise the defining features and boundaries of an important idea or concept.
9. Ask pupils to explain how and why ideas are connected so that they process the meaning rather than simply repeat a memorised definition.
10. Revisit the same concept in several different contexts so that pupils learn to recognise, transfer and apply it beyond the original example.
11. Use short retrieval questions that require pupils to recall previous learning from memory without immediately looking at their books or notes.
12. Give pupils sufficient thinking time before offering clues because the effort involved in successful retrieval can make their memories stronger and more accessible.
13. Space practice across several lessons and weeks rather than completing all the practice immediately after pupils first encounter the material.
14. Include questions from earlier topics in regular quizzes so that important knowledge continues to be recalled, strengthened and connected to newer learning.
15. Provide clear feedback after retrieval activities so that pupils can correct their errors before inaccurate answers or misconceptions become firmly established.
16. Choose teaching methods that match whether pupils are first encountering, practising, connecting or independently applying the knowledge being studied.
17. Teach pupils how to plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning so that they gradually become more effective and independent learners.

You can find Memorable Teaching by Peps McCrea on Amazon UK.