Daily Cumulative Review

MATH WARM UP

There are days when teaching and learning feel like two very unrelated activities. And, even on the days when the students seem to really get it, they don’t seem to have it the next day or the next week. We can fix this. We just need to make sure we are teaching in a way that makes math stick.

Dr. David Costello has created Daily Cumulative Review (DCR) questions to link teaching and learning so that students maintain what they have learned not only from day-to-day, but for the long haul. DCR is intended to be a quick activity at the start of each math class. It is 8-to-10 minutes – 4-to-5 minutes for students to individually complete questions and 4-to-5 minutes for teacher to model the solutions.  

Daily Cumulative Review targets key concepts.

Key concepts are curricular outcomes that allow other curricular outcomes to make sense. They form the basis for further learning, whether that learning takes place during the current school year or in later years. 

We will cycle through key concepts on a bi-weekly basis. This will promote spacing key concepts throughout the year so that students can revisit them. It also creates a daily mixed review session.

Daily Cumulative Review is a daily mathematical routine (often used as a warm-up activity) that provides students opportunities with recalling key concepts throughout the school year.

Two Parts:

  • Students work individually to solve three-to-four questions over a four-to-five minute period.
  • The teacher takes four-to-five minutes to model the solution for each question. The teacher will think aloud with students during this modelling.

What It Is:

  • A way to engage students in thinking mathematically
  • Questions that target multiple concepts
  • A fluency builder

What It Is Not:

  • A prelude to the day’s lesson focus
  • Questions that target a single concept
  • Time consuming, heavy-duty questions
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Broadening Our View Of Learning

When we consider learning through a broader perspective, we recognize three distinct stages (Costello, 2021): 

  • Encoding – the acquisition of knowledge (getting knowledge into our heads). 
  • Consolidation – connecting meaning with knowledge (assigning meaning to knowledge moves knowledge into our memory). It is through this process that connections are established between recently encountered knowledge and knowledge already stored in long-term memory. 
  • Retrieval – accessing knowledge from memory (getting knowledge out of our heads). Retrieval is the process of reaching back and bringing something we previously learned into mind. 

While the first two stages of learning (encoding and consolidation) have received the most attention, an increased focus on retrieval is needed to support students in maintaining their learning.  

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Research Informed Practice

Retrieval is like a muscle. The more that students recall previously learned information from long-term memory, the easier it will be to recall this information. 

Retrieval practice requires a student to bring a concept to mind. When recalling the concept, you must think about it again in terms of what you remember and what you have learned since the previous encounter with the concept. And, our brain recognizes the importance of the concept each time it is retrieved, thereby, strengthening the pathways to it.

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Retrieval Practice

Retrieval practice must: 

  • Be spaced – students need to have multiple opportunities to revisit a concept over time (retrieving information each time). 
  • Be mixed – review needs to encompass multiple concepts so that students can read the problem, understand it, and then decide which strategy would be appropriate (sorting and selecting through information to retrieve the appropriate knowledge needed). 
  • Be supported by accurate feedback on work – students need an accurate depiction of their learning so that they know areas of strength and what they need to work on further. 

Why Use Retrieval Practice?

  • Retrieval practice strengthens metacognition (the ability to understand one’s own learning).
  • Retrieval practice helps move information into long term memory, so it is not “forgotten”.
  • Retrieval practice helps students maintain the information they learn.

Let’s MAKE MATH STICK

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