These are my notes on [_**Powerful Teaching**_](https://www.powerfulteaching.org/). I’d like to say I finished the book, but I only made it 3/4ths of the way through before I ran out of time. I may add more content below, but these are my big take-aways. I still have a bit more to add to these notes, but since I almost lost my notes (I was playing with [**Dillinger.io**](http://Dillinger.io) Markdown Editor (a great Markdown editor that saves your work to cloud storage of choice, but [**StackEdit**](http://stackedit.io/) remains my favorite) to transcribe my handwritten notes), I decided I’d better post them ASAP. 

This was a great book on four powerful teaching strategies. It’s well worth it to master their usage in K-Adult classrooms. 

# Four Powerful Teaching Strategies

There are four powerful strategies that boost student learning. These include the following:

## 1-Retrieval Practice

This strategy occurs when learners recall and apply multiple examples of previously learned knowledge or skills after a period of forgetting.

* It boosts learning by pulling information out of students’ heads (e.g. quizzes/flashcards)
* It works by enabling students to practice bringing information forward to remember it better.
* Helps students remember what to transfer
* Learning strategy, not assessment strategy
* Retrieval practice boosts transfer learning
* Students do better when they are quizzed versus not quizzed, as much as 13% more.
* Provide a mix of fact-based and HOTS retrieval
* Multiple choice questions are as, or more effective than short answer questions
* Writing down works better than concept mapping for retrieval practice

## Retrieval Practice Activities

### Brain Dumps/Free Recall

* Pause lesson, lecture
* Write down everything you can remember
* Continue lesson
* Ask students to swap Brain Dump with a peer.

_Then, do a Think-Pair-Share:_

* Is there eanything in common that both of us wrote down?
* Anything new that neither of us wrote down?
* Any misinformation?
* Why do you think you remembered what you did?

### Two Things

* Pause lesson
* Ask, “What are two things you learned yesterday? Today?”
* Ask, “What are two things you’d like to learn more about?”

### Retrieve-Taking

* Pause lesson
* Students write down what they want to study
* Give feedback on what they wrote
* Continue with lesson

### Daily MiniQuizzes

* Formulate questions
* Put clues on slips of paper
* Students write down answers
* Collect clues
* Analayze Mini-Quizzes

### Retrieval Routines

#### Colored index cards

* Label cards with “A” “B” “C” “D”
* Have students hold cards up in response to questions

#### Bell work/exit tickets

### Retrieval Guides

* Provide students with an outline of your lesson
* Read text aloud
* Retrieve and write down information in Retrieval Guide
* Think-Pair-Share

### 2-Spaced Practice or spacing

Boosts learning by spreading lessons and retrieval opportunities over time so learning isn’t crammed all at once.

### 3-Interleaving

Mixes up related topics and encourages discrimination.

### 4-Feedback

* Provides student opportunity to know what they know, and know what they don’t know
* This increases students’ meta-cognition or understanding their learning progress.
* Helps students apply knowledge correctly

## Benefits of Strategies

Research shows that there are various benefits. These include

* Enhance higher order thinking skills and knowledge transfer
* Raise student achievement by a letter grade or two
* Boosts learning for diverse students and subject areas
* Increases use of effective study of strategies out of class
* Improves mental organization of knowledge
* Increases student engagement and attention
* Blocks interfering information
* Improves learning of related information
* Increases HOTS and transfer learning
* Identifies gaps in students’ knowledge
* Increases meta-cognition and awareness of learning

## Stages of Learning

There are several stages of learning. These include the following:

### 1-Encoding

When we meet information for the first time, or initially learn something.

### 2-Storage

Keeping encoded information and how long it is retained.

### 3-Retrieval

When we reach back and bring out of our minds the information we previously learned. When we access information and bring it to mind.

## Connections

### Social-Emotional Learning

* Investigates how we interact with the world around us, or what happens outside our heads.

### Cognitive Science/Psychology

* Behind the scene behavior in our heads or invisible behavior