Taughtology: The incorrect science of teaching wrongly

https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2021/10/5-1

Today, generally, spellings are tested weekly, but they are not interleaved with previous week or week’s spellings to allow forgetting and re-testing and thus the weekly spelling tests become single units of massed or blocked practice. … Essentially, many students are learning a block of words for a weekly spelling test that is not revisited afterwards. Blocked practice.

Testing is one of the best methods for learning [5] but the recall must be effortful. For many students, learning weekly spellings is simply not effortful retrieval [6].

We used interleaved spaced retrieval [4] to mix up the weekly spelling lists so that recall of the correct spelling was much harder. Weekly spelling strategies were taught explicitly but the tests were on random spellings from various weeks and not just on the spelling pattern of the week. Time was devoted to meaningful feedback afterwards and opportunities to look up the correct spellings given. Words that students experienced particular difficulties with were noted by the student and teacher and re-tested in subsequent weeks. The learning was harder but stronger and lasted longer [8].

References

[4] Bjork, E.L., & Bjork, R.A. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. In M.A. Gernsbacher, R.W. Pew, & J.R. Pomerantz (Eds.), & FABBS Foundation, Psychology and the real world: Essays illustrating fundamental contributions to society (pp.56-64). Worth Publishers. https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/wpcontent/uploads/sites/13/2016/04/EBjork_RBjork_2011.pdf

[5] Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-Enhanced Learning: Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x

[6] Bjork, R. A. (2011). On the symbiosis of remembering, forgetting, and learning. In A. S. Benjamin (Ed.), Successful remembering and successful forgetting: A festschrift in honor of Robert A. Bjork (p. 1–22). Psychology Press. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-23868-001

[8] Brown, P.C., Roediger, H.L., McDaniel, M.A. (2014) Make it stick, the science of successful learning. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2015.1053373