How we learn and 21st century tools

Last year, the big ideas connected to 21^st century skills (collaboration! critical thinking! communication!) really resonated with me and the focus of my Action Plan centred around personalized learning and having students find their own path towards an end learning goal. This year I’m back in the Cohort to continue the exciting dialogue about those big ideas, but I’ve also made it a goal to focus on specific strategies that support learning along the way; a sort of shift in thinking from macro to micro.

As we approached the new school year in September, I was grateful for the article our Learning Centre coordinator shared with us during an August PD session. In a Scientific American Mind special report entitled “How we learn”, the authors reveal the most effective ways to study, and put into question a few popular techniques that may not accomplish learning goals.

At a time when I was hyper-focused on curating content for my course and thinking about the end-goal (i.e. what students would do with what they learned), I began to think about how these findings could translate into what my students were doing in class and at home to support their everyday learning in French, specifically, vocabulary acquisition. Building vocabulary is a crucial stepping-stone to improve spoken and written communication, and reading and listening comprehension in French.

The article states that self-testing and distributed practice are the most effective at retaining knowledge. Self-testing for vocabulary could include flashcards or short quizzes that the students take by themselves. Distributed practice means that students should return to material over several intervals, to avoid “cramming” then forgetting the material altogether. Not the most exciting and mind-blowing stuff, except that they’re scientifically backed as the most effective learning strategies.  How do I get my students on board?

Due to the personalized nature of our vocabulary lists (generated through daily discussions, self-selected reading and multi-media activities), students are learning vocabulary that is meaningful to them. I’ve put methods in place to support self-testing and distributed practice in some of my lessons; however, I feel I could go further to support students who need to build on a weaker vocabulary base and those who are looking to advance beyond what is expected of everyone in the class.

I’m looking for a good digital tool that students could use to store and study vocabulary. Has anyone been successful at teaching his or her students to take responsibility for their learning using self-testing or distributed study? Is there a way to shift the responsibility to them, or am I on the hook to develop the testing methods myself? My hesitation in doing this is that the online tools I used in the past were extremely time-consuming and resulted in a one-time quiz that took mere minutes for students to complete – then they had to wait for me to mark and get it back to them. What am I missing? Please share what has worked for you and your students!