Repeat after me: repetition is a good thing

Everything has to move fast. This quality is highly valued in today's world. People want to get to work quickly, receive their parcels as quickly as possible and lose excess weight in as little as a month. Can you blame them? After all, with the Internet, many actions can be performed almost instantaneously. So, logically, learning should follow this trend... or not, according to some.

Indeed, France's Minister of Education, Higher Education and Research, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem , recently pleaded for French schools to return to more repetitive methods such as dictation and the like to consolidate learning. Without moving away from the idea of modernizing education through the use of various tools (including technology), the aim would be to return to basic methods. Reactionary and outdated?

Repetition is effective

And yet, no. It seems that repetition is still a more than relevant tool, even in this age of instantaneity and interactive technology. This article from Le Monde shows how the work of educational consultant Pascale Pocard has enabled classes to adopt an effective pedagogy that is proving its worth. Her approach is based on all the discoveries made by researchers on the child's brain. She deplores the fact that teachers are not more interested in neurology, which she believes would enable them to improve their work.

The " school of essential knowledge " method is based on the findings of researchers who have shown that it's not so much study time that's effective as repeatedly testing the concepts learned. In classes adopting Ms. Pocard's approach, learning periods last no more than twenty minutes. After that, the brain is saturated and teaching becomes ineffective. In this short period, the teacher addresses just one notion, emphasizing its usefulness to make the subject less abstract. This is followed by ten minutes of reading, drawing and short games to relax, and then it's back to the drawing board. On the other hand, students are quizzed on each piece of learning at least 3 times in two days. A cycle that is perceived more positively by the pupils and makes them calmer.

A brain improved by repetition

In fact, it's hardly surprising that an approach that seeks to repeat what has been learned is so successful. More and more researchers are noting the physiological effects of repetition on the brain. In London cab drivers, they had already noticed that the hippocampus, the brain structure used for memorization and spatial navigation, was larger than in the rest of the population, given the often-repeated routes and the job of knowing the English capital by heart.

Other researchers wanted to see whether this effect could be reproduced by video games. A group of researchers recruited 28 young adults and tested them on their spatial knowledge. Afterwards, they all played a racing game for around 45 minutes. However, the experience would vary in each group of 14 individuals. The first group would test 20 different circuits during this period. The second group would only run the same circuit 20 times. With analysis, the researchers concluded that after this period of play, the second group found it easier to increase speed when necessary, to classify landscape photos and to draw a map of the road. Thanks to repetition, they had understood the codes and functions of this 3D universe. The real surprise of this study lies in the unique fact that in this group, scientists noted notable changes in the size of the hippocampus and in the synchronicity between it and the rest of the brain involved in spatial knowledge.

A study from McGill University in Canada also showed that repetition changes the brain. 15 young adults with little or no musical knowledge, after 6 weeks of training to learn and repeat basic piano pieces, saw significant changes in brain structure. Even more interestingly, the researchers were able to note which brains would learn faster or not thanks to the scans. So, if repetition is the key to learning, it would be possible to detect less plastic brains more quickly and adapt teaching accordingly. A discovery that could have practical applications in the years to come.

It's tempting to want to learn quickly in today's fast-paced world. Yet this would be to deny all the benefits of repetition, which consolidates learning and modifies the brain more significantly. After all, as the saying goes, practice makes perfect.

Illustration: Rawpixel.com, shutterstock

References

Cerebral Cortex. "APPRENTISSAGE: Est-ce Vraiment En Forgeant Qu'on Devient Forgeron?" Health Blog. Last updated September 13, 2015. http://blog.santelog.com/2015/09/13/apprentissage-est-ce-vraiment-en-forgeant-quon-devient-forgeron-cerebral-cortex/.

Perrin, Dominique. "Grâce à La Répétition, Cette Instit Fait Des Miracles." Le Monde.fr. Last updated: October 11, 2015. http://www.lemonde.fr/m-actu/article/2015/10/08/grace-a-la-repetition-cette-instit-fait-des-miracles_4784653_4497186.html?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook.

Rea, Shilo. "Mental Maps: Route-Learning Changes Brain Tissue." Carnegie Mellon University. Last updated October 27, 2015. http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2015/october/mental-maps.html.

Trujillo, Elsa. "Understanding The Mechanisms Of Spatial Learning Through Video Games." RSLN. Last updated November 4, 2015. https://www.davduf.net/comprendre-les-mecanismes-de-l-apprentissage

Vallaud-Belkacem, Najat. "Najat Vallaud-Belkacem: "Oui Aux Dictées Quotidiennes à L'école"." Le Monde.fr. Last updated: September 18, 2015. http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2015/09/18/oui-aux-dictees-quotidiennes-a-l-ecole_4761931_3232.html.

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