Active recall ping.
Retrieval practice= memorization and recitation?
I found this to be a wonderful method for cramming for a test (I put dozens of slips of paper with questions and answers in a hat and kept it up till I could answer every question in the hat), but for long term knowledge there’s something to be said for reading stuff in context as well. Both methods reinforce one another.
I don’t know. Seems to me that repetition and memorization won’t do much for the outside the box thinking often required in many of the sciences.
Memorization and activity reinforcement.
“... a powerful way to enhance conceptual learning ABOUT science.”
This all reminds me of the mania for “process” in software development in recent years. It always seemed to me, as a participant, that it diverted my concentration and effort from the task at hand.
Um... don’t you need to read the book to get it in there in the first place?
However, this is true, I use to have a lot of trouble memorizing lines for plays, reading the script over and over, but when I actively recalled, I did tremendously better.
As we consider cutting government spending how many of these obscure and unnecessary departments exist throughout our government?
I find this description of this study, "Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning Than Elaborative Studying With Concept Mapping,", to be intellectual and bureaucratic double speak. Retrieval is remembering. What are they remembering? They are remembering what they learned, of course.
What is concept mapping? Some call it mind mapping, and it is quite the vogue in some circles. It is simple forming associations between basic concepts. What is so new and revolutionary about that? When they were first starting to develop Artificial Intelligence the professors at MIT decided that if they were going to have computers mimic the human mind they had better learn more about how the human mind works. To oversimplify, they basically determined we learned by association.
At about the same time they were coming up with structured methods for developing software dependent systems. This included Structured Analysis and then Object Oriented Design and Object Oriented languages. The main purpose was better communication between developers and between developers and end users. It also facilitated documentation and modular design. Modular design makes upgrading much easier and documentation shows those coming later what their proceeders were doing.
Back to this study, did it tell us anything new? Perhaps it debunked the idea that concept mapping was a superior learning technique but it also suggest that it be replaced by "Retrieval" methods. Weren't we already doing that whether we knew it or not? Some people learn better with top-down, start with the big picture and get into more and more detail as you go, and some learn better just jumping into the middle of things and figuring it out as they go.
The article did mention study materials on the desk so perhaps they are saying students do better if they remember how to do quadratic equations than they do if they have to look it up in the text book at test time. If so, it is no wonder we have fallen behind the rest of the world in science and math.
Unintended consequences? I think not.
To learn science, be a scientist.