10 strategies to involve parents in retrieval practice

In recent weeks I blogged about how as a teacher I have embedded retrieval practice into my everyday teaching and also how I have urged students to be independent in their own retrieval.

This led on to me think how I could encourage parents to further support students learning. See here for 10 strategies to encourage parents to become more involved.

Provide Question and Answer banks.

Similar to whatFollow @adamboxer1 calls retrieval roulette however this is not classroom based but home based. I have put a series of questions and answers on the school VLE and made the pages to parents so they are able to self quiz students at home.

A question a day

I have provided 5 months worth of worth of questions (however not the answers) which parents and students are able to use. These have been handed out to students and parents in lessons and at parents evening, they are also available on the school VLE and TES.

AQA Physics

AQA Chemistry

A guest blog written by Follow @rondelle10_b explains it well Hexagon and Monthly Revision Strategies

Knowledge organisers & checklists

I have given students knowledge organisers and topic checklists and have asked parents/carers to involve discussions and questions around these points.

How do you solve a problem like….checklists

Sign up to Seneca

I have written an article for the school newsletter encouraging all students to sign up to Seneca and for parents to join them. Many parents have said to me in the past “Physics!, I have not done that since school, how can I help him/her” – well now they can. Follow @senecalearn

Seneca Learning – classroom based Inquiry: The Questionnaire

Seneca Learning: The Start of the Journey…..

Accessible Past Papers

With the new 1-9 spec just started we are currently restricted with the amount of past papers however I have told students/parents where to find out papers such as here and here.

Log into Kerboodle

I have made sure parents/carers are aware of their child’s log on for kerboodle and have encouraged parents to look around the site and support their son/daughter in using it.

Learning scientists blogs

I have given parents a link to the Learning Scientists blogs so they can better understand how to revise and offer effective support.

Encourage parents to design a timetable for students

I have create a revision timetable for AQA Physics however if parents and students can create one together – even better. See my example here

Make and quiz each other using flashcards

It is becoming well known now that it isn’t the making of the flashcards that is important but the self quizzing using them. I have asked students to quiz parents as well as parents to quiz students.

See this Learning Scientists blog on how to use flashcards

Follow @acethattest

Self quiz from mindmaps

Once mindmaps are created parents and carers can help supports by quizzing them on them and allowing them recreate them from memory.

See this Retrieval Practice blog

Follow @retrievelearn

If you have any other ideas let me know via Follow @TJohns85