Helping Students Avoid Cramming: Smarter Revision with EdTech

Sponsored article by Access GCSEPod.

There are certain points in each school year that all teachers will be familiar with: returning from the holidays, the start of term, mocks, and then, for some students, exam panic. From here on in, the temptation to start cramming rises.

So, how do you best guide students away from this course of action – or even better, avoid them getting to this point in the first place? 

Building Better Revision Habits

We know that cramming is one of the least effective ways for students to embed knowledge. It doesn’t lead to long-term retention and only focuses on being able to regurgitate facts and figures without the understanding or skills that students actually need for both exam success and life-long learning.

Though you may feel like you’re repeating yourself for the thousandth time, encouraging your students to start early is paramount. You can also support them in using methods such as spaced learning and retrieval practice to get the most from their revision. Employing a range of content types, such as short videos and quizzes, as well as active learning opportunities will prepare students well. Platforms like Access GCSEPod, which offer bite-sized video content and self-marking quizzes, can make these strategies easy to implement.

Saving Time While Delivering the Curriculum

While the findings of the curriculum and assessment review and how they are implemented through updated specifications may, eventually, support teachers by reducing the amount which needs to be taught in a limited timeframe, for now, there is still a substantial amount of learning to deliver each year. 

Online platforms and EdTech products, designed with saving time and simplifying routine tasks in mind, can support teachers with this mammoth task. Lesson planners can support teaching staff in quickly finding, collating, and assigning content and assessment to students, even targeting groups with different content at different levels if needed. 

Supporting Exam Preparation and Technique

One theme that frequently comes up when talking with teachers is exam technique: understanding where points can be gained can be key to a student’s success and moving them across that tricky 4/5 grade boundary. Getting students used to exam conditions, decoding the questions themselves, and identifying command words is a key part of Key Stage 4 preparation too.

Again, tackling these at last minute won’t help students, especially without feedback on their answers and identifying any misconceptions. Access GCSEPod includes exam-board aligned questions and instant feedback features to help students identify misconceptions early.

Many platforms offer exam-style questions or practice papers, in addition to past papers from exam boards, giving teachers an easy way to assign them to students and include them in regular homework. Allowing students to practice applying their skills and knowledge in different contexts not only sets them up for exam success but deeper long-term learning too. 

Small Changes, Long-Term Impact

Finally, where time can be spared, recent research points to pupils studying learning techniques as a method that can empower and enrich education. The Education Endowment Foundation has a useful blog on embedding metacognition into everyday lessons, which is recognised as having a low-cost but high impact outcome over time.

Combining this learning, with use of an EdTech platform, and practicing questions to develop skills over time can provide a solid foundation for students to progress and gain confidence. 

Turning Tools into Habits

Given the rapid change in products and technologies available to educators, what could be put in place to support students in realising the benefits of longer-term revision, and avoiding cramming?

Whichever learning platform your school has chosen to invest in, encourage students to get familiar with it and build usage into their routine. Once you’ve covered the essentials of them having (and knowing) their password and how to log in, you could introduce a class competition to get them engaging with quizzes or videos. These tools are great for complementing all of the hard work going on in the classroom and supporting independent learning, which can have real benefits for students. 

One final thing – EdTech companies are there to support teachers and students, and feedback is essential. What works well, what could be better, and what do you want to see on apps and platforms? Get in touch and make your voice heard, to get the most out of tech.