By: Megan Smith & Yana Weinstein

The purpose of today’s post is to give students a resource to help them take charge of their own learning. We’re going to do a series of these over the next few weeks; today’s post is about retrieval practice – a useful method for studying any material that you’d like to remember in the future.

What is retrieval practice?

Retrieval practice involves recreating something you’ve learned in the past from your memory, and thinking about it right now. In other words, a while after you’ve learned something by reading it in a book or hearing it in a class or from a teacher, you need to bring it to mind (or “retrieve” it). The word after is really important; you need to forget the information at least a little in order for retrieval to be effective! You don’t want to just immediately recite what you see in the book or what the teacher told you, but rather you want to bring the information to mind on your own, once it starts to get a little more difficult to remember what you studied.

What happens when you practice retrieval?

This process of retrieving makes the information more retrievable later; compared to simply studying by looking over your notes, if you practice retrieval you’re more likely to remember the information later, and also more likely to be able to use and apply the information in new situations.

How should you practice retrieval?