By Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D.

Arguably, the best habits are the ones we don’t think about. Start early and practice them often.

Here are 3 learning habits to establish in your classroom ASAP and more retrieval practice activities you should incorporate right now. Don’t wait until later in the semester — students already have a lot to remember and retrieve.

One thing I’m excited about: My college is finally switching to Canvas. Email me with your favorite Canvas tips and tricks, and good luck on the start of the school year!

Three classroom habits to start ASAP

Habit #1 (this isn’t related to retrieval practice; it’s just a personal favorite): Enable live captions or subtitles on Google Slides and Powerpoint! This is really easy, it supports universal design principles, and it improves accessibility for all students. There is some emerging research that captions and subtitles improve learning and motivation, too.

During presentation mode in Google Slides, the Mac keyboard shortcut is ⌘ + Shift + c (click for more info for Google Slides). During presentation mode in PowerPoint, simply press the letter J (click for more info for PowerPoint). I recommend positioning the subtitles at the top of the projection screen. Keep in mind that the captions are more accurate the closer you stand to your computer (I also use a bluetooth microphone in all my classes). The live captions might be distracting at first, but my students have given me very positive feedback!

Habit #2: Engage students in a brain dump or two things as an entry ticket or exit ticket. Spend one minute or less having students write down everything (or just two things) they remember from class. The key: Don’t grade it! Keep retrieval practice no-stakes to emphasize it’s a learning strategy, not an assessment strategy.

Habit #3: Always make time for the “think” step in think-pair-share. We often skip the think step, but that’s when the magic of retrieval practice takes place, before the pair and share.

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Whether you teach at an elementary school or a medical school, you've probably heard of the instructional strategy, think-pair-share. Don’t skip the “think” step! Read on for research-based tips on incorporating retrieval, spacing, and interleaving to make think-pair-share an even more powerful strategy in your classroom.

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Brain Dump: A small strategy with a big impact

With the end of the semester within sight, we feature a small strategy that makes a big impact on student learning – based on decades of cognitive science research. In scientific lingo, we call it "free recall."

Retrieval practice activities for the first day of class

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How to create mnemonics and finally remember students’ names

With these 4 steps to create mnemonics, 7 classroom activities to get students involved, and frequent retrieval practice, your classroom can be a community where everybody knows your name.

Use a trivia question to introduce students to retrieval practice

How can you get students and teachers on board with retrieval practice? Start and end your class or professional development with a trivia question. It’s a quick, fun, and memorable.

Don't ask students what they did over the break. Ask this instead!

How often do you start the semester or school year by asking students what they did over the break? Instead, ask a different question: What's one thing you learned during the break?

Jumpstart the school year with this simple retrieval practice

On the first day of class, start with retrieval practice. When students walk in the door, have a sheet of paper waiting for them on each desk – and ask these two important questions. On the last day of class, they'll thank you for jumpstarting the school year with powerful learning!

Here's how to incorporate retrieval practice on the first day of class

How can we boost learning, even on the first day of class? Here's how to fit just one minute of retrieval into the first day of class. No planning and no grading – just learning.