Looking for a straightforward way to support student success in your course? Student awareness and self-assessment of their understanding are critical for content retention and making connections between your course and other areas of study.

While researchers define self-assessment in a variety of ways, the gist is evaluating and self-monitoring the quality of one’s own learning including abilities, processes, and products. Andrade (2019) argues that learners should utilize self-assessment as formative feedback to adjust their own processes and products in order to deepen understanding and connections and enhance performance. Instructors can encourage self-assessment in students and model the process themselves.

Students and instructors often forget to self-assess in the frantic rush to complete tasks. However, research on cognitive science has shown that both conceptual understanding and retention can be increased with simple strategies to become more productive learners. Our memory plays a key role in carrying out complex tasks, making connections across time and content, drawing inferences, and applying knowledge to new situations. Research on how memory is encoded has embraced the struggle to understand and retrieve information as an asset in learning, and self-assessment is a necessary part of the process. In fact, the Forgetting Curve in Figure 1, described by Ebbinghaus in the 1880’s and reproduced in 2015, shows retention decreases as time elapses. The mental struggle and repetition are key to remembering (Chun & Heo, 2018; Mind Tools, n.d.; Murre & Dros, 2015).

Make It Stick Principles of Effective Learning

Make It Stick, The Science of Successful Learning (Brown et al., 2014) draws upon recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines to offer concrete techniques for becoming a more productive learner. It turns out that typical study methods are often counterproductive and embracing more challenging habits leads to more complex and durable learning. The self-assessment process allows learners to critically evaluate their progress and understanding through developing key skills in information intake, testing themselves and analyzing the results of that testing, and finding gaps in understanding. The following are four principles of effective learning that students can utilize to create retention and understanding:

• Retrieval Practice – Bringing information to mind, assessing recall, and reducing the rate at which you forget
• Spaced Practice – Leaving enough time between retrieval that you have started to forget (or completely forgotten) everything you studied. This will force your brain to go through the consolidation process again, which will further strengthen your memory.
• Interleaved Practice – Mixing up your practice by rearranging the order of material, without changing the content. Interleaving also can help you see links, similarities, and differences between ideas.
• Embrace Difficulties – Accepting the frustration and discouragement you may feel as your memory deteriorates between review sessions. The struggle to remember means learning will be deeper, and you will be able to retrieve the information more easily in the future.

How might students build these critical skills during your course?

1. Self-check quizzing
2. Brain dumps
3. Flashcards
4. Study partners
5. Attending Office Hours

Building course elements that harness these strategies encourages students to engage in self-assessment and promotes good study habits. For example, non-graded self-check quizzes may be added to each module. If designed with the principle of interleaving in mind, self-check quizzes not only assess understanding of the week’s content but the previous weeks’ content, as well. You may also encourage and provide links to tools students may use to create digital flashcards. Flashcards provide a means for students to self-assess during study sessions. Take opportunities in course Office Hours to recommend these activities.

Student Study Skills Interactive Module

A new tool developed by Katie Feibelman and Christelle Jones, Course Support Specialists on the CLDT team, shares effective strategies in a student-centered interactive module that can be added to your online course. The Study Strategies for Effective Learning (SEL) interactive study tool has been created to aid students in retaining content from their courses, making meaningful connections to their learning, and developing autonomy in their coursework.
Many students currently approach courses by checking off the required tasks without understanding how simple changes to study strategies can promote long-term retention. This interactive tool empowers students to take a personal stake in their learning by emphasizing self-assessment as a learning strategy. By including this tool in your course, you can support students in learning how to approach studying and assessment with confidence and help deepen understanding within and between your course and other areas of study.

Interested in adding this tool to your course?

Email [email protected] to have this helpful study tool added to your Blackboard site.

Resources

For further Information on Cognitive Learning Strategies:

• Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning (kaltura.com)
• Mind, Brain, Teaching webinar
• Unleash the Science of Learning – Retrieval Practice
• The Forgetting Curve, Why We Forget and What We Can Do About It
• How to Use Retrieval Practice to Improve Learning – retrievalpractice.org/library
• Interleaved Learning video

References:

Andrade, H. L. (2019, August 27). A critical review of research on student self-assessment. Frontiers in Education. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2019.00087Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., III, & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of Successful Learning. Harvard University Press.
Chun, B. A., & Heo, H. J. (2018). The effect of flipped learning on academic performance as an innovative method for overcoming Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve. ICIET ’18: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information and Educational Technology, 56-60. https://doi.org/10.1145/3178158.3178206
Ebbinghaus, H. (1885) Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology. https://web.archive.org/web/20050504104838/http:/psy.ed.asu.edu/~classics/Ebbinghaus/index.htm
Mind Tools. (n.d.) The forgetting curve: Why we forget, and what we can do about it. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/forgetting-curve.htm
Murre, J. M. J., & Dros, J. (2015, July 6). Replication and analysis of Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0120644