How to Improve Student Retention

Teachers and parents can often forget what it’s like to be a student learning information for the first time. Many factors influence student retention, but “the more you know, the easier it is to learn new things,” said Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. When children learn new information, their ability to take in that information is informed by their prior knowledge of a related topic. However, when students lack the foundational knowledge that they might be able to relate to the new information provided, they may struggle with retention while attempting to get to a good understanding of the material.

Additionally, students who are pressed to memorize information without truly understanding the material can stymie their future learning. Why? When students are required to memorize information that they don’t understand, “that’s going to be something you’re going to forget really rapidly,” Willingham continued. “Understanding is really the cornerstone of remembering.” Another reason why students can’t remember what they learned is because people just forget things. According to Willingham, “forgetting is a natural part of memory.”

Cara Goodwin, a child psychologist, said there is a neurological reason why students may not remember something that they were present for. The prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, the regions of the brain responsible for memory integration, retrieval, and retention, are not fully developed until 25 years of age, she said. “Our brain is developing very gradually throughout the course of childhood, so…these memory skills should get better and better as children get older,” she said.

According to Willingham, one effective strategy for learning is low stakes and ungraded quizzes with immediate feedback. “Going into your memory and trying to find something, even if you fail, is a really good way to cement something into memory that was in there, but kind of fragile,” he said. Context clues can also be very helpful when helping students retrieve information that they think they’ve forgotten. This is also true for adults, said Goodwin. For example, if someone asks you what the capital of Virginia is, you might not remember, but if they give you a context clue like “it starts with the letter ‘R’” you might be able to guess that it’s Richmond, she continued.

Teachers can help students retain knowledge, but these processes need to be baked into the curriculum, at appropriate times, said Willingham. If there’s a skill or knowledge that must be retained by the time a student graduates from high school, but that student acquired this information for the first time in middle school, “then that content needs to be periodically revisited,” in meaningful ways, Willingham said.

Allison Green
Boston Tutoring Services