By: Safieh Moghaddam, PhD, and Malama Tsimenis, PhD
Full text here. Excerpts below.
How can we boost student learning retention in our courses? How can we help our students transform newly acquired information into long-term knowledge they can recall and activate in the future? Colleges and universities can be overwhelming for many students, especially first-year students, so building strategies to help them improve learning retention is essential.
Strategies to connect new information to prior knowledge
Some of these strategies include:
- Brainstorming
- Concept maps
- Think-Pair-Share
- Do it like Socrates!
- Incorporate reflection activities
- Scaffold students’ learning
- Try to connect new information to real-life experiences and examples that resonate with this generation of students.
Peer and group-based strategies
- Use the Jigsaw technique
- Foster a culture of debate
- Gallery walk
- Peer instruction using audience-response systems
Strategies for assessing student retention
- Ticket-out-the-door
- Self-assessment and reflection activities
- Frequent exercises and low-stake quizzes