Students don't have time to revise in ineffective ways - this is what science says is the best way to learn!
Our guest blogger is Kit Betts-Masters, Director of Learning Science at Abbeyfield School in Northampton, and the science teacher behind “Gorilla Physics”, a YouTube channel dedicated to helping students get the top grade in their exams. Kit has used Tassomai in his school since 2017 and is a big fan of the program so it made sense for us to support his channel and to invite him to share some tips for exam success.
It's not easy being a GCSE student. And sometimes they don't get the credit they deserve! They study 10 different subjects, (or even more!). In my experience the vast majority of them have the best intentions of putting time and effort into revision.
They usually imagine themselves to be able to put hours and hours of time into making the most beautiful revision notes. They imagine they’ll have the time to cover absolutely everything, in all of their subjects, and they will have these amazing notes to revise from.
But then they get started and they realise that that's going to take more time than they have! They're never going to have enough time to revise in the way they want to, and they get disheartened.
It’s totally understandable.
So, students need to hear this advice!
They need to hear what science says is the most effective, the most time efficient, way to study.
Watch the latest Gorilla Physics video, supported by Tassomai.
The evidence suggests that students prefer making notes rereading and highlighting texts as their main method of revision. But the evidence also shows that this is the least rewarding way to revise.
Making notes takes a high investment of time, for little gain. The evidence suggests that students should be discouraged from spending time making notes and encouraged to use existing materials as their study guide.
The thing about making notes is that a student isn’t forcing their brain to work at a high level. Because of this none of the detail gets retained in the long-term memory.
But there is hope, and luckily it’s a strategy which involves a lower investment of time, for a higher gain in exam performance. The evidence says that the most time effective way to revise is for students to quiz themselves.
You see quizzing forces students to think, and that makes it an incredibly powerful revision tool.
I say to students in my science department that I would much rather know that they did 10 minutes of quizzing four times a week to revise than two hours at the weekend simply copying out notes, rereading or highlighting a book.
It's kind of counter intuitive at first to think that spending less time, but revising effectively using self-quizzing, leads to better results. But we have lots and lots of evidence which suggests that it leads to better retention of facts, and far better performance in exams.
I've seen too many students sit tests, confident that they've done hours and hours of revision, only to be disappointed with their performance. So I have to share this with you!
Please, please, make sure that your students, your children, your young people, follow this advice and revise effectively!
Kit Betts-Masters
@gorillaphysics on Twitter