Four weeks dark – most likely the longest blog break I have taken in thirteen the years I have been putting down my thoughts on paper. Two significant tasks took priority, renovating our home on a very tight budget whilst looking after three children and readying RememberMore for the start of term (for me and all teachers).
Being home as a family again – is fantastic.
The first of three components of RememberMore launched last week and I used https://classroom.remembermore.app/ this week. I was right chuffed with the learners response.
Assuming that our renovations project is not why you are here, let me tell you a little bit about RememberMore. Well, let me give you a very brief summary about the part of the project and a little more details about the part of the project that could support your teaching tomorrow.
I have been interested in retrieval practice (later Spaced Retrieval Rractice SPR) for approaching seven years ago, pronouncing back then that “Retrieval more important than revision” and following it with numerous posts over the years. Connect that interest in what would become Spaced Retrieval Practice with Graham Nuthall’s research
“In most of the classrooms we have studied, each student already knows about 40 to 50 percent of what the teacher is teaching,” (Nuthall, 2007 p24-25).
“…but that 50 percent is not evenly distributed. Different students will know different things, and all of them will know only about 15 percent of what the teacher want them to know,” (Nuthall, 2007 p35).
Nuthall, G., 2007. The Hidden Lives Of Learners. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) Press.
and you have a ‘wicked problem’ to solve.
A problem I had the opportunity to revisit in September 2019.
With the benefit of the growing interest in research-informed pedagogy, a further six years classroom experience and a very supportive department environment, I set about a series of classroom trials that would led to the development and investment in RememberMore.
So what is RememberMore?
Remembermore started off as a theoretical proposition and ambition to both improve the SPR experience for learners and leverage the benefits. I wanted learners to learn more, know more and RememberMore; to be able to think more deeply about their learning to enable me, so that as their teacher, I could take these learners further and deeper into their learning during lesson. At the same time, I knew that working in the cloud could open up all sort of educator collaborations and efficiencies and reduce teacher workload.
RememberMore has now evolved and developed to be a spaced retrieval practice ‘system’ of essentially three parts (however there are further development planned) with a small team of educators pushing forward with the content and feedback on it’s use in the classroom. Here is where you come.
Remembermore.app is vehicle for delivering the substantive content, our adaptive, confidence-based assessment, accelerating the learners time to competency and knowledge mastery. The app is essentially our response to the wicked problem.
Very soon, that app information will service and connect with classroom.remembermore.app (CRM) and be made visible using dashboard.remembermore.app. Hence, I am still working flat out.
We have made “classroom” or CRM open and available to support busy teacher everywhere, many of whom are mobile, moving between classrooms and meeting students seated and waiting for their teacher. With CRM you can have a directed, “Do Now” task on the board faster than Usain Bolt can run the 100m. Yes, you can leverage retrieval practice, but CRM is so much more flexible than that. There is even a routine you can adopt, refine and develop.
All we ask for in return, is your feedback and that your share the site.
Thank you to all those teachers, students and wider education friends that have contributed either your time or your insights. Enjoy your Sunday folks knowing your “Do Now” tasks for the year could be considered – done.