Keep What Works, Drop the Rest

The strategy, as published

Exactly as it appears on the card

Part of Strategy Knowledge & Use in 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation, where it sits alongside its neighbouring strategies, the infographic and the thinking for the whole area.

Why you might use it

The problem it may help with

Pupils keep study methods the way anyone keeps habits: because they are familiar and feel productive, not because they have checked. Re-reading survives on exactly this. Winne's finding is that learners refine an approach by checking whether it worked, which means the checking has to be arranged.

Trial a method, judge it against results, keep only what the evidence supports. It is the scientific method pointed at your own studying.

What it might look like

One version of it, in a classroom

For three weeks, pupils log one line before each weekly quiz: which method they used to prepare. Afterwards they add the score. At the end they read their own log: one pupil finds the evenings spent recopying notes tracked with their lowest scores, and the ten-minute self-quiz with their highest. The log makes the case; the teacher does not have to.

Try it

A way to begin

Attach a one-line method log to a quiz routine you already run. The infrastructure exists; only the logging is new.

What to notice

Reading what happens

• Comfort methods that the log shows underperforming. Watching a pupil meet that evidence is the strategy at work.
• Whether anyone actually drops a method. Keeping the winner is easy; dropping the familiar loser is the hard part, and the part worth praising.

Things to think about

Before and while you use it

• This needs a regular assessment rhythm to judge against; without one, there is no evidence for the log to collect.
• Single data points mislead, so judge across weeks, not after one quiz. A method is not condemned by one bad Friday.

Related strategies

Where this connects

• 🧪 Study Strategy Audit Dunlosky's review rated ten strategies: re-reading scored low; practice testing scored highest. Ask students how they revise, then show them the data. That conversation is the intervention. 01 Retrieval Practice · Metacognition & Calibration
• 📊 Compare Predicted to Actual Winne: calibration improves when students see the gap between expected and real scores. Have them predict a mark, then compare, so monitoring is corrected by evidence over time. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Self-Reflection & Evaluation
• 🧰 Know When to Use Each Winne: conditional knowledge, knowing which strategy suits which task, is what separates skilled learners. Teach not just the method but the cues that signal when it is the right one. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Strategy Knowledge & Use
• 🔄 Turn Reflection Into a Plan Butler: feedback only regulates learning if it changes the next action. Have students convert each reflection into one concrete adjustment they will make on the very next task. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Self-Reflection & Evaluation

The wider thinking

Where the evidence sits

Winne describes self-regulated learners as running a feedback loop over their own methods, evaluating each against outcomes and updating; this strategy builds that loop where pupils can see it. The card’s attribution stands as published: Winne.

The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Metacognition & Self-Regulation.