For ‘Retrievalists’, this has the scope to be one of the most useful posts we’ve come across in a while.
Because, whenever, we deliver a session on memory – one of the questions that we always seek to address is how often and at what intervals should we be spacing retrieval practice – the answer, sadly, isn’t as exact as we’d like. That’s in part because the research doesn’t seem to offer a hard and fast rule – it’s more rules of thumb: 1) We need to allow enough time for the forgetting curve to kick in (so that we can create enough desirable difficulty in retrieving the information) 2) The newer the information, the shorter the space between retrievals 3) Retrieval should be ‘little and often’.
Which, for theory, is all a bit fluffy – but that doesn’t even consider the challenge of putting that fluff into practice!! Trying to keep track of what to retrieve when can cause head spins. Enter Lee Wheeler’s (big tip of the hat) ‘Spacing Calculator’. This simple, but clever tool is free for educators to plot which lesson to retrieve what in, when.
How to use it is neatly explained in Lee’s Substack. Happy spacing, retrieving and embedding key knowledge!
