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Do you meticulously specify every concept that pupils will master in each year, along with precise definitions? Do you decide and organise every piece of knowledge in advance of every unit you teach? Do you sequence and revisit knowledge from previous units explicitly and systematically?
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Do you meticulously specify every concept that pupils will master in each year, along with precise definitions? • Do you decide and organise every piece of knowledge in advance of every unit you teach? • Do you sequence and revisit knowledge from previous units explicitly and systematically? • Do you test pupils’ knowledge of all these facts multiple times, even after a unit has ended? • Do you assess whether pupils have remembered those facts even a year later? • Do you know to what extent pupils have remembered or forgotten the precise definitions of those concepts? Kirby. J ( 2016) Knowledge, Memory and Testing in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers. Woodbridge: John Catt, p.19
Using knowledge organisers as a planning, retrieval and retention aid ‘The most powerful tool in the arsenal of the curriculum designer is the knowledge organiser.’ Joe Kirby
Why Knowledge Organisers? New specifications have seen an increase in the amount of knowledge pupils need to retain. Research has been conducted into the methods that best support pupils’ retention of knowledge. Retrieval practice has been identified as one strategy to support pupils in their retention of knowledge.
Point 1: Pupils forget what we tell them Ebbinghaus (1885) - The Forgetting Curve The forgetting curve highlights how information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it. Within 20 minutes, pupils will only remember 58.2% of what they have been taught. After 6 days, this is reduced to 25.4%
Point 2: Spaced practice better aids retention of knowledge The idea of spaced practice was derived after Ebbinghaus conducted his own research into retention. ‘He examined his own ability to learn and retain nonsense syllables such as TPR, RYI and NIQ over time. … He first read a list of nonsense syllables, then tried to recite it perfectly. Of course, he couldn’t get it right every time. To determine how long it took him to learn the list, Ebbinghaus counted the number of attempts it took for him to get a perfect recitation. He then tested himself again after various delays, and counted how many more attempts it took him to relearn the information after each break, and how that differed depending on his practice schedule.’ After a number of years testing himself on different study schedules, Ebbinghaus concluded the following: ‘With any considerable number of repetitions a suitable distribution of them over a space of time is decidedly more advantageous than the massing of them at a single time.’ (1885/1964) Weinstein. Y and Sumeracki. M (2019) ‘Understanding How We Learn.’ Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, p.88
Point 3: Testing (or quizzing) better aids learning and long term retention than ‘studying’
Retrieval practice – Roediger and Karpicke(2005) ‘If students are tested on material and successfully recall or recognise it, they will remember it better in the future than if they had not been tested.’ (Roediger, and Karpicke: 2005)
Retrieval practice – Roediger and Karpicke(2005) Experiment 2: Students studied a passage four times (and took no tests), studied it three times and took one test, or studied it once and took three tests. They then took a final test either 5 minutes or 1 week later.
Point 4: The curriculum should, therefore, Establish what knowledge needs to be retained Plan for regular retrieval practice to better aid retention
Reflection time Are you clear on the most important knowledge you want pupils to retain? Is this planned for consistently across your department? Are the pupils clear on the knowledge they should be retaining? How do you assess whether pupils have retained this knowledge? How often do you assess whether pupils have retained this knowledge? Do you space your testing for increased retention over a longer period of time?
Point 5: But where do Knowledge Organisers feature in all of this?
What is a knowledge organiser? A knowledge organiser is an incredibly simple strategy to aid knowledge retention and retrieval practice. A knowledge organiser is a one page document that establishes the essential knowledge that every pupil needs to know by the end of a topic or unit of work.
What should we include in a knowledge organiser? Thinking time Think of the first unit you will teach with year 11 when they return in September What is the most important knowledge your pupils will need to retain? What order will this knowledge be taught? Think! – concepts, facts, dates, definitions Joe Kirby, a Deputy Head with Inspiration Trust states Knowledge organisers specify in meticulous detail the exact facts, dates, characters, concepts, and precise definitions that all pupils are expected to master in long-term memory. They organise onto a single page the most vital useful subject knowledge for each unit… At a single glance, knowledge organisers answer the question for teachers and pupils: ‘what is most important for us not to forget?’
Point 6: Using a knowledge organiser to aid retention • Simple quizzing at the start of a lesson. Tip 1 – number the points on your knowledge organiser. Each week set pupils a section of the knowledge organiser to learn. Between 3-5 knowledge points. Then the following week, test pupils on their retention in the lesson. For example, What is abrasion? If rocks are being carried by the river, smash together and break into smaller, smoother and rounder particles then this is known as…. ……….. Are processes relating to erosion, transport and deposition by a river. 3b. What is erosion?
b. Using a knowledge book At Michaela Free School, ‘all pupils are issued with a knowledge book to keep all their knowledge organisers in over the course of the year. There is one knowledge book per year, with a section for each subject. They are 80 pages long so each subject has between six and ten knowledge organisers per year. For example, in English, in year 7 pupils are given organisers for myths, grammar, poetry, poems to be memorised, rhetoric, vocabulary, spelling and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar; everything they study that year. All pupils keep these with them at all times in school, and take them home with them to revise each evening, weekend and during the holidays. Kirby. J (2016) Homework as Revision in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers. Melton, Woodbridge: John Catt. Pg. 59
c. Self-quizzing Every pupil is given a self-quizzing book. ‘To self-quiz’ means to memorise: they cover up one side of the knowledge organiser, look at the concept, write out the definition from memory (in a black pen) then self-check and self-correct any spelling mistakes, omissions or inaccuracies (in a green pen). They test themselves until they have learned it by heart for a minimum of 30 minutes each evening to prepare for a written quiz in class the next day. The teachers simply check the practice books to ensure sufficient quantity and quality. On quantity, pupils must complete at least one page of self-quizzing for prep, with no spaces left on the sides or at the top or bottom of the page. On quality, it must be neat and accurate, with all spelling mistakes corrected. We set weekly in-class quiz, so we can see precisely whose self-quizzing is ineffectual, and support them to improve their revision. Teachers simply sort these into three piles: those who have struggled, those who have passed, and those who have excelled. We support those who regularly struggle in class, and stretch those who excel with extension activities.
Self-quizzing in practice Head of English and Associate Senior Leader, Rebecca Foster, @TLPMsF adopted self-quizzing within her department after reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers and blogged about her own department’s approach Foster. R (2017) ‘On Self-Quizzing Homework’. Available at: https://thelearningprofession.com/2018/01/13/on-self-quizzing-homework/#jp-carousel-3824
e. Using online platforms Kirby states that all knowledge organisers are online, using Quizlet or Quizziz. This means all the pupils have the knowledge they most want them to revise available online and on their phones. Pupils can revise anywhere, anytime, at their fingertips, in their pockets, even without the internet, on the tube, on the way to school, on the way back from school and during evenings, weekend and holidays. Quizlet / Quizzizturns knowledge organisers into digital flashcards, quizzes and tests with feedback. Once uploaded every pupil who ever comes to the school can use it to revise independently of teachers’ effort, and it requires no marking whatsoever.
Using online platforms On Quizlet, you can create quizzes for your classes. You can use question and answer as below or you could have a technical term and the definition. I use predominantly for quotations giving pupils the first half of the quotation and them then recalling the second half of the quotation.
Using online platforms Benefit as a teacher, is that for 30 euros, you can then track the progress of your class to see how many are quizzing and testing themselves. Used last year. In 4 weeks pupils went from knowing a handful of quotations to over 60. Class result: 75% grade 7-9
And finally, the benefits of using knowledge organisers…. For teachers ‘When a new teacher starts in a school, one of the first questions they have is ‘what do I teach?’ Joe Kirby (2015) argues that ‘knowledge organisers clarify for everyone, from the Head teacher to brand new teachers, exactly what is being taught.’ The creation of knowledge organisers can, therefore, enrich discussions within subject teams about the content of their schemasleading them to a ‘consideration of pedagogical content knowledge, the integration of subject expertise and an understanding of how that subject should be taught’ (Ball et al., 2008) Kirby, J (2015) ‘Knowledge Organisers’. Available at: https://pragmaticreform.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/knowledge-organisers/
And finally, the benefits of using knowledge organisers…. For pupils Louise Lewis, a Research Lead, said that using knowledge organisers to aid retrieval meant that her pupils ‘reported that they liked having a tight foucs for retrieval practice each week. And they found that, when it came to whole topic (and subsequently whole-paper) revision, they felt better-equipped to deal with the volume of information they were expected to cover. They felt more in control, and their scores for end-of-topic tests improved from earlier topics.’ This supports the evidence on Cognitive Load Theory with Paas et. Al arguing that knowledge organisers and retrieval practice help to free up our working memory. ‘Our working memory capacity is limited, so by storing more in our long-term memory, we can free up working memory capacity’ (Paas et. Al, 2004) Lewis, L (2019) ‘Can knowledge organisers boost students’ exam results? Available from TES online
Bibliography Kirby. J, (2015) Knowledge Organisers. Available at: https://pragmaticreform.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/knowledge-organisers/ Roediger. H.L and Karpicke, J.D. (2005) Test-Enhanced Learning. Available at: http://learninglab.psych.purdue.edu/downloads/2006_Roediger_Karpicke_PsychSci.pdf Weinstein. Y and Sumeracki. M (2019) ‘Understanding How We Learn.’ Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, p.88 Birbalsingh. K, (2016) ‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers.’ Melton, Woodbridge: John Catt. (Reference to Joe Kirby’s Chapters – Knowledge, Memory and Testing and Homework as Revision. Foster. R (2017) ‘On Self-Quizzing Homework’. Available here: https://thelearningprofession.com/2018/01/13/on-self-quizzing-homework/#jp-carousel-3824 Miller. M, (2018) Organising Knowledge: The Purpose and Pedagogy of Knowledge Organiser. Available at: https://impact.chartered.college/article/organising-knowledge-purpose-pedagogy-knowledge-organisers/ Lewis, L (2019) ‘Can knowledge organisers boost students’ exam results? Available from TES online Hutchinson. J (2019) ‘Beyond Knowledge Organisers: Building the Best Curriculum in the World.’ Available here: https://pedfed.wordpress.com/2018/09/29/beyond-knowledge-organisers-building-the-best-curriculum-in-the-world/
