drip-feed

A common teaching tactic to support learning by seeking opportunities for frequently revisiting key ideas to reinforce prior learning, so to encourage consolidation in long-term memory.

"There are clearly going to be myriad opportunities to reinforce key concepts we have taught where they are relevant to the material being presented:

  • 'Can anyone remind the class what a compound is?'
  • 'Can anyone remember how we can use the periodic table to suggest whether this unfamiliar element is likely to be a metal?'
  • 'So, if this compound has a carbon-carbon double bond, how might we describe the hybridisation of the atomic orbitals that we imagine are involved in forming the bonds around these carbon centres?'
  • 'Who can tell me what we call the class of compounds with this functional group?'

I could clearly give a great many more examples, and the principle applies just as much at different educational levels."

Taber, 2024, pp.281-2



Author: Keith

Former school and college science teacher, teacher educator, research supervisor, and research methods lecturer. Emeritus Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.