Ten Testing Strategies: A Range of Activities for Varying Retrieval Practice

I have said in previous blogs that this is not an academic, research-based approach to blogging. I read a lot of these types of articles, and a lot of books, but I am not the type to type up my own scientific response to these ideas. I won’t be providing a series of detailed references, or any links to back up why I do this. But one thing I can say, is I firmly believe testing works.

By testing, I obviously mean low stakes recall tasks which force students to bring information out of their long term memory, or in same cases, fill in the blanks in that memory. I don’t mean long, summative, extended tasks which require the teacher to provide feedback. I mean activities which are marked by the student themselves, thus allowing them to know what they know, but – more importantly – to know what they…