We have all heard the saying practice makes perfect. I have recently learned though that practicing is a little more than just repetitive drills. There are in fact six principles of effective practice and they go along well with teaching tips ☝:
Tip # 38 - Shaping- This practice takes place during the early stages of learning. The teacher moves the students through practice with different levels of assistance which may include: structured, guided practice, independent practice or homework. A critical key to this component is to make sure that mistakes are corrected ensuring the student does not memorize incorrect information.
Tip # 39- Length of practice - My teacher said it best "Short, intense, highly moticated practice periods produce more learning than fewer longer periods." Any seasoned student can recall cramming for that final exam the night before and then trying to remember the information a week later and what do we remember? nothing, NADA. The majority of the time all the information from the cramming is gone.
Tip # 40- Monitoring- Similarly to shaping when we monitor our students we must ensure that we correct any incorrect practice right away otherwise the incorrect information will interfere with learning. "Correct learning is stabilized when it is reinforced quickly."
Tip # 41- Level of Accuracy- This part of practicing can be very tricky and it involves patience. "85% to 95 % level of acuracy at the current practice level should be achieved before moving on." We might be tempted to move the learning along, but it is critical to ensure that all students have either achieved this level of accuracy, or have help in place before moving forward.
Tip # 42- Distributed practice- "80 % of new information is forgotten within 24 hours." If we can spread a number of practice sessions over an extended period of time (4- 5 months) more information will move from our working memory to our long-term memory.
Tip # 43- Amount of Time Between Practice Sessions- At the begining of the learning process practice sessions should take place frequently, once correct principles have been established the practice sessions can be scheduled further apart. Practice sessions do not have to be complicated, they can be as simple as a quick oral review of the lesson.
For further clarification you can check out my class slides below:
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Tip # 44 - When students are asked to access prior knowledge so new information might be connected to it, it is called elaboration. A great way to improve our learning is to connected back to prior information. it is amazing how much more information we retain when we connected to prior knowledge. Students more thoroughly process and engage when asked to connect new information to prior knowledge.
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