Retrieval Through Teaching
The learning happens during preparation, not delivery. Preparing to teach demands complete, organised retrieval. Organising knowledge to explain it is where consolidation occurs.
The strategy, as published
Exactly as it appears on the card
Part of Retrieval Formats in 01 Retrieval Practice, 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
Anyone who has prepared to teach a topic knows the experience of discovering, mid-preparation, what they do not actually know. Preparing to teach demands complete, organised retrieval: gaps a quiz might skirt around become impossible to ignore when the whole thing has to be explained in order.
The card's emphasis is worth holding on to: the learning happens during preparation, not delivery. The audience is almost incidental. Organising knowledge to explain it is where consolidation occurs.
What it might look like
One version of it, in a classroom
Pairs in a physics class each prepare a three-minute explanation of one circuit concept for another pair, from memory, with one diagram allowed. Most of the retrieval work is done before anyone speaks: deciding what comes first, what connects to what, and what they had to check.
Try it
A way to begin
Set preparation-to-teach as the task without necessarily running the teaching. Planning an explanation of last month's topic is a complete retrieval activity on its own.
What to notice
Reading what happens
- What pupils look up while preparing. Each check against the notes is a self-identified gap.
- The order pupils choose to explain things in. Sequencing choices show how their knowledge is organised.
Things to think about
Before and while you use it
- Delivery adds pressure that preparation does not, and whether a class is ready for peer teaching is the teacher's call, not the strategy's.
The wider thinking
Where the evidence sits
Nestojko and colleagues found that merely expecting to teach changes how people study; Fiorella and Mayer's work on learning by teaching locates the benefit in the organising and explaining itself. The card’s attribution stands as published: Nestojko et al.; Fiorella.
The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Retrieval Practice.
Keep exploring
Where next?
Back to this strategy in 01 Retrieval Practice, across to what you're trying to improve, or into all 144 at once.
Want to take this further?
Support is available
Pedagogy First gives you a starting point. If you want support exploring how approaches like this can work across your school, trust or professional learning programme, that work is available.