Why most learners don't need timely practice

Doing some assessment for learning, prior to planning teaching, is far more effective than doing none, however it can be complex to do, record and use. These complexities mean that for most learners minimal - and on the hoof - assessment for learning is the best use of the teacher's time.

Common obstacles are:

• insufficient detail - as national curriculum statements are so broad,

• insufficient detail  - as it would take "too much" time and effort to pre assess in finer detail,

• insufficient detail  - as too much detail is at best unwieldy for the teacher to use effectively,

• not accurate  - as learners tend to forget what they have learned over time - e.g. assessment in May of year 6 will not be accurate by September of year 7,

• not accurate - as ensuring learners don't copy is hard within a class room situation,

• not accurate - as a small variation in the way a question is asked can mean the difference between a learner being able and not able to answer a question

• too late - the teacher has all the resources for what they planned to teach, so unless teachers have a “magic time machine” and can prepare for multiple eventualities, they are likely to have to “plough on”, perhaps at a slower rate.

Hence in our opinion although RAG recording of exam performance may be better than nothing, they are not a good use of the teacher's time.

More highly attaining learners can often manage to learn and fill in, or steer around, learning gaps as they learn new skills. So teachers of more highly attaining learners can often fill learning gaps they discover, as and when they discover them.

Lessons can fail to be effective because of unexpected gaps in learning. We know that good assessment for learning can improve learning outcomes, so for low attaining learners - who, by definition, need more help to learn - assessment for learning is far more likely be worth a bit more effort.

Once the teacher has spent time re-establishing pre-requisites skills, in order to teach something harder, both the department and the teacher want to "get on and make the most of it". Part of why schools use a teach-each-topic-once-a-year SOL is that it avoids “wasting teaching time revising” and means the teacher needs to do less differentiation and they can teach from a common beginning point.

but isn’t this another way of saying that teachers are encouraged by the SOL to teach in a way that avoids noticing forgetting?

Teaching a "large bite or several small bites” rather than a "small bite" will be a more efficient use of time providing most of the learners retain most of the new learning. Sweller’s research says that teaching better becomes learning if the teacher teaches the correct grain size.

The more a learner knows and the larger their working memory capacity and/or the longer their initial retention is, the more new learning they are likely to be able to learn from a topic at a time.

The less a learner knows and the smaller their working memory capacity is and/or the shorter their initial retention is, the smaller the amount of new learning the learner is likely to be able to learn from each topic at a time.

By learn we mean: learn within the lesson and retain after the lesson.

An annual scheme of learning makes learning harder for low attaining learners, as they often have "nearly but not quite remembered the pre requisites" before they are asked to use those pre requisites, not just for the next step of learning, but also for one or two steps after that. With a teach-each-topic-once-a-year scheme of learning we are asking the lowest attaining learners to follow the learning style which works for the highest attaining learners. Thinking of sport, it is like asking a swimmer with arm bands to follow the training regimen of member of the swimming team.

High attaining learners can usually easily remember the learning of the lesson for over 4 weeks - so homework and end of unit tests, work well as unacknowledged retrieval practice.

Learners at the median can usually remember the learning of lessons for about 1 week - so homework and end of unit tests, works reasonably well as retrieval practice - although most of these learners will need to do some out of class revision to “do as well as they can”. Weekly quizzes followed by perhaps fortnightly tests - which include increasing interval retrieval practice on prior learning - are likely to work even better. 

Learners at or below the lower quartile can usually remember the learning of the lesson for only a few days - so homework and testing are far less likely to make well timed retrieval practice. Additionally even if testing and homework is scheduled every few days, it may not extend the durability of the recall-ability of new learning (because the durability of the learning isn’t stretched because questions are asked too early or too late).

So unless we use additional strategies - such as increasing interval retrieval practice, which timely practice uses - we can’t legitimately complain when low attaining learners can’t remember what we taught them last week/month/term/year.