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.

This was a great book on four powerful teaching strategies. It’s well worth it to master their usage in K-Adult classrooms. **[Be sure to view the companion website to the book](https://www.powerfulteaching.org/).**

# **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