Barak Rosenshine’s principles of instruction have become the bedrock of teaching and learning policies up and down the country.

His early principles - providing models, breaking down instructions into small steps and guiding student practice - often garner the most attention, but his final, and perhaps most important principle is sometimes overlooked: “engage students in weekly and monthly review”.

But why? It may be down to the way we look at education.

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Karpicke and Grimaldi point out that learning was, for a long time, seen as something that occurred when activities were done, things were studied, and information was encoded.

This led to the language of learning being that of construction, with of terms like “scaffolding” and the mind’s “architecture”.

We would teach something, the students would build what they needed to know, and it would stand in their brains, ready to be used. 

But this isn’t the case. Reviewing what you know in light of new information can transform what you have learned.

Back to the burglary

A 1978 study asked participants to read an account of a burglary and recount all that they could remember. They were then asked to think about the story from a different perspective, that of the burglar, and to try again to recount all they could.

On the second occasion, they remembered things they hadn’t the first time around, despite not restudying the text.

Reviewing the information from a different perspective gave them a different understanding of what they knew and threw new things into significance.

We can see how this might apply in the classroom. My pupils might be studying plate tectonics, but what they learn here will be shaped by things they study later in the course: development studies, landform formation, other types of hazards, and so on.

If they go back and review what they know about tectonics, they will see it in a different light and have a new understanding of it. This is the joy of review.

It strengthens the web of knowledge that pupils build about a subject and helps them to organise the information better by finding connections between things.

This then allows them to “chunk” this information together, which makes it easier to use and apply in new situations as it taxes working memory less.

Glowing reviews

So how do we carry out these reviews? First, we need to think about timing. Rosenshine talks about weekly or monthly reviews, but this was largely looking at primary schools.

In some subjects, like mine, a weekly review would mean a review at the end of almost every lesson, where it is unlikely that enough would have been learned for connections to be made.

However, we don’t want to wait too long before reviewing what has been learned, as key information may have already been forgotten. I find it works well to have a review lesson a couple of times each half term at key stage 4 and 5 and once a half term in key stage 3.

In these review lessons, we don’t introduce any new information but instead look at what we already know. This could involve:

• A long quiz to see what students have learned and still need to focus on.

• Completing mind maps of topics using from memory so students can organise what they have looked at.

• Synoptic questions designed to link together different topics, such as “How have tectonic forces shaped the geography of East Africa?”

• Applying new theories to particular examples, especially if it also requires them to draw on different topics, for example: “How have tectonic forces affected the economic development of East Africa?”

While they are completing these review activities, I have the chance to sit and talk to individual pupils and review their work with them.

It gives me the opportunity to look through their books with them and discuss what I see there. Have there been any misconceptions that I didn’t pick up on at the time? Have they stopped making the careless errors that they made in the past?

Perhaps most importantly, have they understood the work they have been doing? Can they discuss the topic with me with a sense of confidence?

In our fast-paced classrooms, it’s easy to teach and move on. But there’s little point in doing something if pupils haven’t learned it. Racing to the finish line is a fool’s errand. Stop and smell the flowers on the way.

Mark Enser is head of geography and research lead at Heathfield Community College. His book, Making Every Geography Lesson Count, is out now