This is Jennifer Gonzalez, welcoming you to episode 250 of the Cult of Pedigogy podcast.

In this episode, we're going to learn a handful of easy, fun, fast, and effective strategies

for adding more retrieval practice to your classroom. If there is one learning strategy I have probably talked the most about on this platform,

it is retrieval practice.

In the 10 years since I chose a book called Make It Stick for a book study in the summer of 2015,

I've been encouraging teachers to add more retrieval practice to their teaching. But if you're new

here, I'll give you a very quick overview. Retrieval practice is the act of trying to recall

something you learned from memory by doing things like taking a test on it or using

flashcards instead of just looking at it, rereading, or reviewing the information.

A big and growing body of research tells us that when we study with retrieval, we learn and

remember things much better than we do by other review methods.

While I think we've established the value of retrieval as a learning strategy,

I think there's still room for more practical ways to build it into our teaching.

I have encouraged giving frequent quizzes, think pair shares, and teaching students to use flashcards,

but there are a lot of other ways to do it,

and in today's episode, we'll get a lot more.

Joining me are three cognitive scientists.

The first is Dr. Pooja Agarwal, who has been a guest twice already to talk about retrieval

practice.

Dr. Agarwal has been regularly sharing research and resources on retrieval through her website,

Retrievalpractice.org, and just recently she published a book, Smart Teaching, Stronger Learning,

practical tips from 10 cognitive scientists. Each chapter in the book was written by a different

...