Quotes About Retrieval

Researchers began to ask whether the schedule of testing mattered. The answer is yes. When retrieval practice is spaced, allowing some forgetting to occur between tests, it leads to stronger long-term retention than when it is massed.

the kind of retrieval practice that proves most effective is one that reflects what you'll be doing with the knowledge later. It's not just what you know, but how you practice what you know that determines how well the learning serves you later.

But few students practice these strategies, and those who do will need more than encouragement if they are to practice them effectively: It turns out that even when students understand that retrieval practice is a superior strategy, they often fail to persist long enough to get the lasting benefit.

where more cognitive effort is required for retrieval, greater retention results.

Ease of retrieval after a delay, however, is a good indicator of learning.)

When you space out practice at a task and get a little rusty between sessions, or you interleave the practice of two or more subjects, retrieval is harder and feels less productive, but the effort produces longer lasting learning and enables more versatile application of it in later settings. Trying to solve a problem before being taught the solution leads to better learning, even when errors are made in the attempt.

Retrieval practice—recalling facts or concepts or events from memory—is a more effective learning strategy than review by rereading. Flashcards are a simple example. Retrieval strengthens the memory and interrupts forgetting. A single, simple quiz after reading a text or hearing a lecture produces better learning and remembering than rereading the text or reviewing lecture notes.

One of the most striking research findings is the power of active retrieval—testing—to strengthen memory, and that the more effortful the retrieval, the stronger the benefit.

The act of retrieving learning from memory has two profound benefits. One, it tells you what you know and don't know, and therefore where to focus further study to improve the areas where you're weak. Two, recalling what you have learned causes your brain to reconsolidate the memory, which strengthens its connections to what you already know and makes it easier for you to recall in the future.

When you space out practice at a task and get a little rusty between sessions, or you interleave the practice of two or more subjects, retrieval is harder and feels less productive, but the effort produces longer lasting learning and enables more versatile application of it in later settings.

Cambridge, through a long series of studies, have shown that birds can store food of different kinds in hundreds of distinct places to retrieve later, and can remember not only where they have put food but what was put in each place, so the more perishable items can be retrieved before the longer-lasting ones.

all their men of valor set out, journeyed all night, and retrieved the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth-shan. When they arrived at Jabesh, they burned the bodies there.

The Lord said, “I will retrieve them from Bashan, I will bring them up from the depths of the sea,