{"id":1685,"date":"2026-04-22T16:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T20:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/?p=1685"},"modified":"2026-04-22T16:48:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T20:48:05","slug":"how-to-use-retrieval-practice-before-group-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/featured\/how-to-use-retrieval-practice-before-group-work\/","title":{"rendered":"How to use retrieval practice before\u00a0group work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D.<\/a> (she\/her, @RetrieveLearn<\/a>)
Founder, RetrievalPractice.org<\/a>
Cognitive Scientist & Associate Professor
Author, Powerful Teaching<\/a> <\/em>and Smart Teaching<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually, I share how to implement retrieval practice with\u00a0a brain dump<\/a>, as the first step in\u00a0think-pair-share<\/a>, or as\u00a0an entry or exit ticket<\/a>.But retrieval practice is an effective tool for group work, too<\/strong>. Here\u2019s how you can enrich group work with retrieval practice\u00a0before<\/em>\u00a0groups get together:Take your time thinking about<\/strong>\u00a0what students will be working on during group time. For example, will they be completing a worksheet? Answering specific discussion questions? Preparing for a presentation? If you\u2019ve been doing group projects for a long time, breaking this down might be harder than you expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take a step back and zoom out to the bigger picture.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ask yourself: how can students do that work individually?<\/strong>\u00a0For example, they could complete part or all of the worksheet on their own, write out thoughts to discussion questions beforehand, or brain dump what they plan to share during their portion of a presentation. This is the key step where retrieval practice happens\u00a0before<\/em>\u00a0group work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Give students time to retrieve individually<\/strong>. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This can feel awkward. Remind yourself and your students that during retrieval practice,\u00a0silence is golden<\/a>. Yes, this takes class time, but it\u2019ll also save you time later (see step 5).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Give groups a \u201cmission\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Have each student share their retrieval\u00a0before<\/em>\u00a0discussion. There is no leader, notetaker, or roles. Everyone is participating equally. If your students are used to jumping straight into group work, they may skip this step! I recommend displaying the mission instructions on the projector to keep them on track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start the Group work<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After each student has shared,\u00a0now they start their group work<\/strong>. Now, the collective group has richer ideas\u2014and literally more ideas\u2014than they would have had without individual retrieval practice. Plus, because students already generated their ideas in advance, the group work will actually go\u00a0faster<\/em>\u00a0than usual.

Here\u2019s a screenshot of my slides from my Cognitive Psychology course, where students read a research article independently, do a brain dump on a half sheet of paper, and then share\u00a0before<\/em>\u00a0group work:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Screenshot<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As my colleague, cognitive scientist-teacher Dr. Janell Blunt says,\u00a0\u201cAnything students do from memory is retrieval practice.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0And it doesn\u2019t have to be after instruction;\u00a0make retrieval practice part of your instruction<\/strong>.\u00a0Here\u2019s how to add retrieval practice to group presentations, too<\/a>. With this retrieval approach, each student takes ownership for their own learning, retrieving, thinking, sharing, and contributions to group work. Good luck with the end of the school year!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More resources for retrieval practice are on the Retrieval Practice web site<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"2<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D. (she\/her, @RetrieveLearn)Founder, RetrievalPractice.orgCognitive Scientist & Associate ProfessorAuthor, Powerful Teaching and Smart Teaching Usually, I share how to implement retrieval practice with\u00a0a brain dump, as the first step in\u00a0think-pair-share, or as\u00a0an entry or exit ticket.But retrieval practice is an effective tool for group work, too. Here\u2019s how you can enrich group work with retrieval practice\u00a0before\u00a0groups get together:Take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kathryn Byrnes","author_link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/author\/kbyrnes\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1695,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685\/revisions\/1695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}