{"id":5554,"date":"2020-03-27T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T13:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=5554"},"modified":"2020-03-24T10:10:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T15:10:27","slug":"the-neuroscience-of-retrieval-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/the-neuroscience-of-retrieval-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"The Neuroscience of Retrieval Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

What’s the best way for students to practice? Should they review<\/strong> information or procedures? Or, should they try to remember or enact<\/strong> them?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We’ve got scads of research showing that retrieval practice<\/strong> helps brains learn.<\/p>\n

That is: if I want to learn the definition of a word I’ve studied, I should try to recall<\/em> it<\/em> before I look it up again<\/em>. (For a handy review, check out RetrievalPractice.org<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

So, we know that retrieval practice works. But: why?\u00a0<\/em>What’s happening in the brain that makes it work?<\/p>\n

Two Possibilities<\/h2>\n

We’ve got several possible answers, but let’s focus conceptually on two of them.<\/p>\n

Increased<\/strong> neural connections<\/p>\n

Reduced<\/strong> neural connections<\/p>\n

That is: when I engage in retrieval practice, I push myself to remember X. But it takes me a while to get to X. I might start with S, and then wonder about Y. Perhaps I’ll take a detour to gamma. Eventually, I figure out X.<\/p>\n

During this mental work, I both remember<\/em> X and\u00a0connect<\/em> X to all those other (rejected) possibilities: S and Y and gamma. By\u00a0increasing<\/strong> connections among all these topics, I make it easier to remember X later on. If I accidentally think about S, I can quickly get to X.<\/p>\n

Or, maybe the opposite process happens.<\/p>\n

The first time I try to remember X, I waste mental time with S and gamma. But, the\u00a0next<\/em> time, I’ve gotten better at remembering X, and so I take less time to get there. I can “prune away” extraneous mental connections and thereby simplify the remembering process.<\/p>\n

In this account, by\u00a0reducing\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>the steps involved in remembering X, I see the benefits of retrieval practice.<\/p>\n

We Have a Winner (?)<\/h2>\n

A research team in Europe took on this question<\/a>, and looked at several studies in this field.<\/p>\n

Whenever you start looking at neuroscience research, you should brace yourself for complexity. And, this research is no exception. It’s REALLY complicated.<\/p>\n

The short version goes like this. Van den Broek and colleagues identify several brain regions associated with memory formation and retrieval. You might have heard of the angular gyrus. You might not have heard of the inferior parietal lobe. Anyway, they’ve got a list of plausible areas to study.<\/p>\n

They then asked: did retrieval practice produce more activity<\/em> in those regions (compared to review)? If yes, that finding would support the “increased connection” hypothesis.<\/p>\n

Or, did retrieval practice result in\u00a0less activity<\/em> in those regions? That finding would support the “reduced connection” hypothesis.<\/p>\n

The answer? Less activity<\/em>. At least in the studies van den Broek’s team analyzed, the “reduced connection” hypothesis makes better predictions than the “increased connection hypothesis.”<\/p>\n

To be clear: I’ve left out a few other explanations they consider. And: I’ve simplified this answer a bit. If you’re intrigued, I encourage you to look at the underlying review: it’s FASCINATING.<\/p>\n

To Sum Up<\/h2>\n

We have at least a tentative idea about\u00a0why<\/em> retrieval practice works.<\/p>\n

And: we have SUPER PERSUASIVE evidence\u00a0that retrieval practice works<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Even though we’re not 100% sure about the why, we should — as teachers — give our students as many opportunities as we can to retrieve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We know THAT retrieval practice helps students learn. It would be really cool to know what difference it makes in the brain. Well, we’re starting to learn…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[17,12],"class_list":["post-5554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-neuroscience","tag-retrieval-practice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5554"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5559,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5554\/revisions\/5559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}