How to Make Sure Your Students Feel Like They’re Growing

One of the challenges that tutors face is that students can feel frustrated that they’re not making progress, or not growing quickly enough. The best way to address that challenge is through something that education experts call spaced repetition.

Spaced repetition is when you review material that you’ve previously covered with your student. You mix in material from the last lesson with material from several lessons ago. This helps your student practice material they may have forgotten, and it also helps them see how much they’ve grown.

The reason spaced repetition works is that it asks students to recall facts they know, but may not be regularly using. By asking them to recall a fact, you ask them to send a signal down a neural pathway in their brain. The more ‘traffic’ sent down that neural pathway, the bigger the ‘road’ becomes, and the easier it is for your student to recall that information.

Asking students to recall information from the last tutorial helps them build that initial road. However, if you only ask about a piece of knowledge for a couple weeks, eventually the road falls into disrepair. That’s why it’s important to mix in material from several tutorials ago–it reminds the student’s brain to keep up the whole road network, not just the newest highway.

I like to use the following ratio with my tutorial students. I’ll ask two questions about last week’s lesson to activate their neural pathways. Then, I’ll ask a question about material from two weeks ago, and then another question about material from a month ago.

This 2:1:1 ratio for spaced repetition helps my students accomplish three things. They review material, they connect the previous lesson to what they learned before, and they realize that each lesson builds on the previous lesson. This helps my students value their tutorial time, and helps them realize that they’re learning and growing. Try this with your own students at the start of their next lesson, and you’ll see them form connections in real time!