Newsletter #5: How to Help Students Make Connections

My students and I are working very hard to prepare for the AP US History Exam, which is this Friday. There is so much information students need to know to perform well on the test, and so many options for how to use the precious time we have before the exam.

A key insight of the science of learning is that humans learn best when they are asked to manipulate, apply and connect new knowledge in novel and varied ways. (The academic literature calls this "elaboration.") One form of elaboration is making connections among pieces of knowledge.

As readers of this newsletter know, my students use knowledge organizers that organize key information from each unit in a simple, accessible format. These tools are invaluable and foundational components of my curriculum. But students have been using them all year, so I wanted to introduce some novelty. Also, the days and weeks before the exam are a time when students spend relatively more time studying on their own. Therefore, I want to provide them with resources that provide easy-to-follow ways for students to go beyond retrieval practice and practice making connections.

To that end, I created a new tool called "Key People You Must Know". The first column includes the names of the most important figures in US History. The second column explains why the person is significant. And the third column includes other key terms (laws, events, etc.) associated with the person.

Here is a screenshot of the row for Benjamin Franklin.

To ensure that students use the tool to make connections, I provide them with very specific instructions and model the process. Here are the instructions I give them:

Step #1: Look at Column #1 and find the name of the person you will review next. (Avoid looking at Columns 2 & 3.)

Step #2: Ask yourself, "Why is this person significant?"

Step #3: Check your answer by reading Column 2. Self-assess by asking yourself the following question: "Did my answer demonstrate that I understand why this person is historically significant?" If yes, check the first box in Column #1. 

Step #4: Ask yourself, "What other key terms (laws, events, etc.) do I know that are related to this person? Why are these terms significant?" 

Step #5: Check your answer by referring to Column 3. If you correctly identified two terms, check the second box in Column #1. 

Step #6: Repeat this process until you have checked both boxes for each person.

It is critical to provide explicit instructions like these and to model the process for your students. Otherwise, students may choose to simply "read over" the information and mistake mere familiarity for knowledge. Self-quizzing is a much more effective retrieval practice strategy because it promotes storing information in long-term memory and yields more accurate self-assessment data, so students know what they need to study.

I hope you find this tool and the underlying pedagogy useful. If you would like to think about how to design materials that promote knowledge acquisition and making connections, please email me.

Sincerely,

Ben Katcher