Do your students often forget prior learning? Jemma Sherwood explains how to design your lessons with memory in mind...

It’s the perennial teacher problem: “You don’t remember this? But we did it last year (month or even week)!”

We get frustrated when it seems like something we know we have covered is met with a sea of blank faces, as if we are just making it up. Forgetfulness is a huge problem for our students as it creates such a block to real progress.

The thing is, forgetfulness is not (always) because our students are being dopey, it’s not (always) because they are not trying, but certainly it is always because they are human, and human memories do not last.

This is the reason why, try as I may, I cannot recall anything about the British Agricultural Revolution, whereas I have no problem whatsoever with the finer points of the mark scheme for an A level mathematics exam: one of these things is rehearsed in my mind frequently, the other I haven’t touched in 20 years.

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