On this page, we offer tips to help students learn better. These tips are based on years of scientific research we’ve conducted, which have shown dramatic improvements in learning.
Self-Assessment Plus Remediation
Students often read a textbook, watch a video, listen to a classroom lecture, or complete an assignment and think, “I don’t understand this.” The purpose of this technique is to help students self-assess their knowledge, identify gaps, and re-learn the material to fill those gaps. Our research shows that students who self-assess using this technique and then re-learn the material with the goal of addressing identified knowledge gaps score, on average, 1.5 to 2.5 letter grades higher than those who re-learn the material without self-assessment.
The self-assessment focuses on identifying how much of four types of knowledge the student has and what concepts are missing. These four types of knowledge are:
- Facts
- Strategies
- Procedures
- Rationales (the “why” behind the concepts)
The self-assessment technique is simple to learn. A student reads a sample transcript of someone assessing their own knowledge and is then instructed to perform a similar self-assessment for the topic they are studying. It takes about 10 minutes to read the sample transcript and a few additional minutes to complete the self-assessment. The student then re-learns the material with a focus on addressing the identified gaps.
Below are links to two sample self-assessment templates: one using math as an example and another using reading. These templates can also serve as models for other subjects.
- Math Self-Assessment Template: View Here
- Reading Self-Assessment Template: View Here
- History Self-Assessment Template: View Here
Additionally, we’ve provided links to papers evaluating the effectiveness of this self-assessment technique: