President Obama started off this school year by talking about testing. While he highlighted the overuse of standardized testing, others have found that low-stakes testing can actually enhance learning and performance on high-stakes tests.
Cognitive psychologist Roddy Roediger is a prime mover in getting people to understand that testing can be a part of learning. Doing well on tests largely involves retrieving information from memory. Learning and memory are inextricably connected. According to the American Psychological Society
Learning is the acquisition of skill or knowledge, while memory is the expression of what you’ve acquired. Another difference is the speed with which the two things happen. If you acquire the new skill or knowledge slowly and laboriously, that’s learning. If acquisition occurs instantly, that’s making a memory. Adapted from the Encyclopedia of Psychology
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