I was reading a recent article by Tom Sherrington, former Headteacher (who now also hosts the Teacherhead blog) and came across a great means for encouraging long term learning, particularly in the case of when students come about to revise for exams. Next time a student appears worried or confused about how to approach their revision, just tell them to keep calm and ‘FACE it!
FACE it, as detailed below, encourages students to not just learn facts but to apply these to a context (giving meaning, an important element in moving information from our working memory to long term memory), connect these to other areas of learning (links to previous knowledge) and then practice these in the context of exam questions (giving the opportunity for retrieval practice). Here’s how the model works, as discussed by Sherrington:
On first glance, I thought this seemed obvious but in reality, it’s not so straightforward for many students, as they struggle to grasp ‘how’ to revise. This simple formula gives students a format to help organise the volume of information they have to revise, something that can otherwise seem overwhelming: learn the facts; apply them in context; connect to other ideas; practise exam questions. I’ll definitely be sharing this with our students ahead of their end of year exams.
NBS Teaching & Learning 