How to Use Retrieval to Improve Learning

Consider all the possible information available to learn on a topic. It can seem infinite and overwhelming.

If we want to improve ourselves personally or professionally, we must continue to learn and be life-long students regardless of our current understanding or status. Always have the beginner’s mind if you will.

Oftentimes, retrieval, a key aspect of learning, is either unknown or simply ignored.

My favorite resource in understanding the impact of retrieval to improve learning is the book Make It Stick. In it, authors Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel explain the retrieval of new information, especially effortful but successful retrieval, enhances your ability to learn. This applies to literally anything new the brain must learn from the most complex of topics to even new movement skills (remember, training is testing and testing is learning!).

What is your current strategy for learning?

Is it rereading? Highlighting text? Underlining? Rewriting notes on your computer?

If you’re really trying to learn something, I suggest you start to develop a method to test your understanding of new material. It may seem like the last thing you want to do if you’ve spent a great deal of time in formal academia, but it remains one of the most powerful tools to accelerate learning.

Two methods that I mention in the brief video below are the use of flashcard (notecards you make yourself) and Quizlet.

I’ve used both successfully. I think a notecard system is a more favorable method to make information meaningful because you’re doing the writing and creative work that makes the effort more meaningful. Attaching emotion to learning can also enhance the effect.

Quizlet is not my primary tool, but I will use it as a tool for retesting in some cases. It is also shareable if you’re learning new information with friends or colleagues.

As a clinical instructor, I set aside time at the end of the week to review, reflection, and questioning of my intern in regard to new information presented. This forces him to retrieve that which we may have talked about during the week to assure that he is understanding and retrieving correctly. However, one does require an instructor to provide testing. Create a methodology that challenges you to retain and retrieve information. Each time you do so successfully, you make it easier to retrieve and to utilize that information in multiple circumstances (this is a reference to being a neo-generalist but that’s another topic for later).