“Improve the learning impact of your training through spaced learning.”
Making knowledge retention work
It has probably happened to you before. You're just getting started as an emergency responder and suddenly a difficult question comes up: "Do you remember step two when someone has to evacuate the building?”. Or you are in the middle of a guitar lesson and think: "What was that chord again?”.
Answers that you knew, but which after some time faded away and seem to have disappeared from your long-term memory. Even though you have spent so much time memorising those facts, processes and other useful information. The learners of your courses will probably experience the same.
How is this possible? And what can you do about it? In this blog I will take you into the wonderful world of the forgetting curve. I also give tips on how to successfully use the specific learning tools (e.g. the MemoTrainer) in your training, so your learners will learn smarter and perform better.
Forgetting curve
The situation above is a typical example of the forgetting curve. German researcher Hermann Ebbinghaus published a groundbreaking research in 1885 (yes, you read that right) with his theory "Über das gedächtnis", about the memory. The research has been replicated more recently with similar results.
Ebbinghaus developed a set of 2300 three-letter syllables, tried to learn them by heart and repeated them. Within hours of learning these syllables, he had already forgotten a large portion of them.
Over a period of several days, he had forgotten every syllable from his memory:
Based on Murre & Dros (2015) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0120644
It seems so simple, but everyone will recognise it. From primary school to secondary school, from higher education to professional education; with insufficient repetition, over time you will not fully remember information.
Criticisms of Ebbinghaus
The forgetting curve you see above is not entirely free of criticism. In his scientific research, Dr. Hermann used himself as a test subject. Something that actually would not be accepted in this day and age.
But one of the main elements of criticism is the fact that Ebbinghaus chose meaningless syllables to carry out the research. He tried to disconnect it from real life and prior knowledge, but this had implications for the outcome of his research:
- Little influence of prior knowledge
- Little knowledge that could be taken away from 'real life' interactions
- Minimal coherence of remembered knowledge; which encourages forgetting knowledge
- No differentiation between difficult and easy syllables
Strong criticism, but ultimately we can learn from this if we try to influence the forgetting curve of our learners. How? We will come back to that later. First, let's have a look at another concept of Ebbinghaus; spaced learning.
Spaced learning
The ultimate goal is to store all the knowledge you have acquired over time in your long-term memory. That way, you can immediately recall it when the information is needed. By training on how to retrieve that information, you strengthen the connection between the neurons in your brain. One way of doing this is by making practice questions of the material from the past weeks. This is also called spaced learning.
Many learners tend to study all the material shortly before a test and then hope for the best. However, this makes little sense; your memory can only cope with a limited amount of information over a certain period, after which your short-term memory is 'full' and you can no longer absorb any information.
It's like a computer; if you open all the programmes on your computer at once, your RAM will fill up. The solution? Rebooting or closing some programs. The same goes for your memory; at a certain point it’s full and putting something in means something falls out. You need to continue another time.
Now what?
Maybe you are already familiar with the forgetting curve and spaced learning. But how do you as a teacher, trainer or educational developer ensure that, despite knowing this, you don't fall into the same trap? One way is to successfully implement learning technology that has been developed specifically for this purpose.
Let's take the example of the knowledge retention tool in aNewSpring: the MemoTrainer. This functionality helps you and your learners, over a certain period of time, to better remember the material: knowledge retention.
Theoretically this is what it looks like:
Fun fact: aNewSpring started out as 'MemoTrainer', after which we built a learning platform around it. A functionality that has already earned its stripes!
A large number of aNewSpring users use this functionality for their training and courses. There is lots of positive feedback on the learning effect of this functionality.
At least once a week, learners receive a notification from the platform that a MemoTraining is ready for them. This consists of a selection of questions, prepared by the developers of the training. The MemoTrainer decides which questions will be shown to the learners, based on an algorithm. Let's take a closer look at how you can organise this in practice.
Relevance!
First, let’s tackle the criticism of Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve by making content applicable and relevant.
Use these three tips:
1. Make sure you develop repetitive moments that connect to a participant's prior knowledge.
2. Develop content that touches on a participant's prior knowledge.
3. Make sure the content is coherent with each other.
If you use a tool in combination with a training course, make sure that the questions are related to the information the learner has already learned. This is very important if the knowledge to be remembered is difficult and new. Give the learner ‘a hook’ on which to hang the concepts that are repeated.
Timing of your retention training
The moment at which you present certain questions to your learner is crucial for the success of your retention training. Depending on the structure of your training, you can choose to use the retention tool before, during or after your training. A combination of those three is of course also possible! Think carefully about the goal and whether the learners already have enough knowledge to enter the retention tool; otherwise it becomes a frustrating process for them.
Example
As an example, let's look at the MemoTrainer in aNewSpring. When you activate it in your training, you have three choices:
1. You can make questions 'MemoTrainable' immediately.
2. You can make questions 'MemoTrainable' after they have finished an activity with these questions.
3. You can set extra 'MemoTrainable' questions after the learners have completed an activity.
Which option you choose depends on which questions you want to repeat. In some cases, for example in training comprehension, it can be stronger to have the tool repeat other questions than in the training itself (3). This way, participants can practice with questions that are similar to them.
Do you want to train specific knowledge and have it return in the repetition process? Then use the same questions in the tool (2).
When you want to retrieve prior knowledge, you can also make questions that match MemoTrainable immediately. Learners then immediately start with a retention exercise the moment they start the training (1).
Incorporating into a learning programme
An important condition when implementing a (knowledge) retention tool in your training is embedding it in the learning process. Some trainers see it as a nice functionality 'on the side', but then it loses its value.
The moment you, as a developer, emphasise the importance of (weekly) knowledge training and also reserve time for it in the training schedule, the added value for a learner becomes greater. This is also a great way to differentiate your courses from your competitors.
Developing good, trainable questions takes time. Of course, you also want the learners to take this seriously and to benefit from your carefully developed questions!
Repetition: how much is enough?
Retention is nice and all, but how many times does a question need to be repeated before you, the developer, feel that retention has been sufficient? That depends on the complexity of the training and the diversity of questions.
An example: if you develop an emergency response training course (have a look at our customer cases) in which you mainly train on processes and steps, your questions will consist of many components. Think, for example, of the correct steps for the recovery position. In such a case, it is good if you repeat the questions more often, so that you can be sure the participant knows the steps by heart.
When developing a conceptual training course, it may be possible to do with less repetition. Consider the concept of "adjective". Once you demonstrate that you have mastered this concept, for example by answering a question correctly three times, this may be sufficient.
Example
Let's have a look at the MemoTrainer in aNewSpring again. When you start working with the MemoTrainer settings, you need to choose a training level. With this level you determine how often a participant has to repeat a question before 100% retention is reached.
Have you set the training level to "No repetition"? Then all questions have to be answered correctly once for 100% retention. Set the training level to "Excellent"? Then all questions must be answered correctly six (!) times in a row for 100% retention.
Our advice? In any case, make sure you think carefully about the level. For the majority of aNewSpring clients, repeating it three or four times is the sweet spot, so participants can keep it manageable and see their retention bar rise with each MemoTraining.
Training with learning goals
On a deeper level than training at the ‘question level’ is retention training at the ‘learning goal level’. Thinking back to our example in the previous paragraph, training concepts in our spelling, such as the adjective, does not need to be done at question level. That would mean that you practice each question x-number of times. If you train by learning goals, then you link questions about the adjective to the learning goal of the same name. In this way, you can demonstrate at a higher level that the concept is well embedded in your long-term memory.
Looking at the aNewSpring MemoTrainer: if you set it to work with learning goals, it is recommended to set the training level a bit higher. You link questions to learning goals, but instead of scoring per question, you score per learning goal. If you have 40 questions divided over 5 objectives, a learner will get 5 questions per MemoTraining. If you set the training level low, a learner can finish the MemoTraining quite quickly.
The big advantage of training on learning goals is that it is clear to the learner on which learning goal the retention lags behind. Especially with an upcoming exam or other test, this can provide very valuable information.
How to proceed?
Did this inspire you and do you think a retention tool will make your training even more effective?
Great! Here are some general tips before you get started:
1. Make an analysis of your target group: is there a need for a retention tool? Does it suit their learning style to log in at least once a week and do a retention training?
Check out the customer cases that use the MemoTrainer
Fire-Learning: the fire and theory under control
To train firefighters, they first need to learn the theory, and only after that can they put their knowledge into practice. But what do you do when they turn up at the field day, totally unprepared?
112BHV: het creëren van een adaptieve e-learning voor BHV’er
In-house emergency response officers have to go through the same training, regularly. Why couldn't they just refresh their knowledge of the parts they've forgotten?
NIBE-SVV: how they took the step towards online learning
While NIBE-SVV’s classroom courses were solid, they lacked substantial online components. How do you transform a training portfolio from completely offline, to mostly online training?
Konnect: intuitive e-learning about the daycare centre app
Childcare workers have a full agenda, so how do you get them get acquainted with a new daycare app? By using the power of storytelling throughout the course.
2. Question development: have you reserved enough capacity to develop strong questions? It differs per retention tool which type of questions you can use. It is advisable to develop various questions, so that participants are stimulated to reproduce the knowledge in different ways.
3. Take a good look at your didactic concept and integrate the retention tool as a real learning activity into your concept!
Getting started with the MemoTrainer
Are you already using aNewSpring, but you have not yet activated the MemoTrainer in your learning journey? Now is the time to do so! Choose a suitable course, start developing questions and offer the functionality to your learners. You will see the learning effect and the retention of your courses skyrocket.
Do you have any questions after reading this blog?
Feel free to send a message to support@anewspring.nl and we will help you on your way.
Roy de Vries
Enthusiastic educational scientist with a passion for innovation. Loves to help and learn.
On the wish-list to learn: how-to write good thrillers.
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