Teach Self-Testing

The steps

1. Give the methods one full lesson, a few weeks before the first real test. Tell the class that you are teaching them how to revise. Spend most of the lesson practising the methods below on current course content rather than talking about them.
   Most people revise by reading their notes again and highlighting the important bits. That feels productive, and the research is clear that it leaves very little behind. Today you'll learn the methods that do work, and we'll practise them on this topic.
2. Model look-cover-write-check with real content. Read a section of the organiser or your notes. Cover it. Write down what you can remember. Uncover the section, then correct the gaps in a second colour. Do this from the front first, gaps included, so that students see what honest checking looks like.
3. Teach flashcards with the answer-first rule. The question goes on the front and the answer on the back. Students say or write the answer before they turn the card. Keep the deck shuffled. A card leaves the deck only after correct answers on about three separate days, and it returns to the deck before the test.
   Say your answer out loud before you turn the card, every time. Recognising an answer when you see it is easy, and the exam asks you to pull it from memory. If you got it wrong, the card goes back into the middle of the deck.
4. Show blank-page recall. Books closed, one blank page. Students write down everything they can remember about the topic, in any order. They then open their notes and add what they missed in a second colour. Present it as the home version of the class brain dump.
5. Teach the feeling that goes with it. Tell students that self-testing feels worse than rereading even though it works better. Give them a sentence to say to themselves at home.
   If your revision feels smooth and comfortable, you're probably rereading. When you have to struggle to pull an answer out, that struggle is the memory getting stronger. Feeling harder means it's working.
6. Set homework that names a method, then check it with a quiz. Replace "revise for Friday" with a specific task, such as fifteen minutes of look-cover-write-check on section three. Quiz the class on that section within the week. Ask to see the gaps and second-colour corrections. Reteach a short version of the lesson each term and again before exam season.

How you’ll know it’s working

• Revision in books and folders starts to change shape: covered attempts, gaps, corrections in a second colour, and far fewer highlighted paragraphs.
• Flashcards are used answer-first. You see students say the answer before turning the card, and wrong cards go back into the deck rather than out of it.
• When asked how they will revise tonight, students name a method and a section rather than saying they will read through their notes.
• Scores improve after named homework: a section most of the class failed in week one is answered correctly by most of them on the follow-up quiz.

Weigh it up

Why it’s worth it

• It targets the hours you never see. Most revision happens at home, unsupervised, and teaching the methods turns that time into practice that changes what students remember.
• The gap it closes is well documented. Practice testing sits near the top of Dunlosky and colleagues' ratings, while rereading and highlighting sit near the bottom, and rereading is what most students say they do.
• Homework begins to work. Fifteen minutes of look-cover-write-check on a named section is a task you can set, check with a quiz, and see the results of within a week.
• The benefit crosses subjects. A student who learns to self-test in your room can take the method into every other course, this year and afterwards.
• It lowers exam-season panic. Students with a method they trust tend to start earlier and cram less, and the mock exam stops being their first experience of pulling knowledge from memory under pressure.

The costs

• The methods lesson costs a full lesson before any new content is covered, and the termly refreshers take more time on top.
• Belief comes slowly. Rereading feels productive while self-testing feels risky, so some students will need a term of quiz evidence before they switch.
• You cannot watch the homework happen. Checking runs through proxies (quiz scores, visible corrections, decks brought to class), and building those checks is routine work in its own right.