3 Ways to Help Students Overcome the Forgetting Curve

You teach a lesson that lights up the room. Students are nodding and hands are flying up, and afterward you walk out thinking, “They got it. They really got it.”

And then, the next week, you ask a simple review question—and the room falls silent.

If that situation has ever made you question your ability to teach, take heart: You’re not failing, you’re simply facing the forgetting curve. Understanding why students forget—and how we can help them remember—can transform not just our lessons but our students’ futures.

The good news? You don’t have to overhaul your curriculum to beat the forgetting curve. You just need three small, powerful shifts in how you teach.

Meet the Real Challenge: The Forgetting Curve

More than a century ago, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus discovered a truth we’re still grappling with: Without reinforcement, we forget almost everything we learn. His studies—and decades of research since, including a 2022 meta-analysis published in The Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition—show that unless an effort is made to retain new information:

• 50 percent of new information disappears within an hour,
• 75 percent is gone by the next day, and
• Up to 90 percent fades away within a week.

Our students’ brains aren’t broken. They’re doing exactly what human brains are wired to do: prioritize survival over trivia. But if we weave retrieval and reinforcement directly into the learning process, their brains understand that new information is not trivial, and we can flatten the curve—and help students remember what matters. Here are three practical strategies for helping students beat the forgetting curve.

1. Immediate Recall

In my English 11 class, we use a technique called a “brain dump” after almost every new concept. For example, after a lesson on analyzing tone in nonfiction, I asked students to close their laptops, put away their notes, and spend two minutes writing down everything they remembered: definitions, examples, why tone matters. No looking back. No pressure for perfection.

Early in the year, students are hesitant to do this: They aren’t used to struggling for recall. As time goes on, they expect brain dumps and even ask for them. Brain dumps are part of how we learn.

This taps directly into research showing that reframing ideas in your own words immediately after exposure dramatically strengthens memory.

How to run a brain dump

• Teach the lesson or concept.
• At the end, tell students, “No notes, no books. Write everything you remember.”
• Encourage them to include anything that makes sense to them—bullet points, images, doodles, mind maps, examples, real-world connections, etc. The goal is to explain the knowledge in a way they personally understand and can remember.
• Set a timer for two to four minutes.
• After time is up, invite students to share a highlight from their brain dump with a partner or group.

A brain dump isn’t just a memory exercise—it’s a formative assessment tool that lets you see how students are organizing and understanding knowledge, giving you a chance to reinforce or redirect learning in real time. And here’s the best part: Students don’t just remember more—they own what they’ve learned.

2. Personal Reflection

Another great tool we use to boost memory is our “living wall,” a spot where students post their answers to questions like these: What surprised you today? Where might you use this skill outside of English class? How does this connect to something you already know? They can add answers anytime during independent practice.

When we studied rhetorical appeals, for example, one student wrote, “I realized my favorite commercials use pathos to make me feel something—especially those animal rescue ads.” Another posted, “I connect logos to how my dad convinces me about financial decisions.”

These reflections build what brain scientists call elaborative encoding—a powerful web of connections that solidify memory. When students see their learning linking to the real world, they’re not memorizing: They’re weaving new knowledge into their lives.

How to build a living wall of learning

• Set aside a visible wall space or bulletin board.
• Put sticky notes, markers, and pencils next to the space.
• Ask reflection questions during the lesson and post them on the wall. In addition to answering the questions, students can write tips, tricks, or advice on how they are understanding the content in real time. Ask them to fill up two or three notes during independent practice to get the wall started. Early in the year, they may benefit from sentence starters like “This reminds me of…” or “Now I understand more about…”
• Use different-colored sticky notes for different units or skills—this helps keep the feedback organized for students to see connections.
• Cluster similar ideas together (like a concept map that grows over time). You can occasionally assign roles—Connector, Pattern Finder, Questioner—to guide students to dive deeper.
• Every few weeks, revisit the wall and direct students to link older notes to newer learning. Early on, it will help if you walk around and confer, asking questions like “Can you find an older note that helps explain what we did this week?”

While the living wall is open for use at any time, I design an intentional opportunity every Friday for students to use it to reflect, connect, and grow. That structured routine gradually builds the independence I’m aiming for. They start off needing a push—early on I’ll walk around and ask questions like “Can you find an older note that helps explain what we did this week?”—but by midyear, they’re making connections on their own.

Here are some activities we use during Friday reviews:

• Revisit: Read three to five notes from earlier in the unit or quarter. Look for ideas that relate to what we learned this week.
• Reflect and Connect: Use a different-colored sticky note to write a “connection note” (like “This vocab word from Week 2 helps explain today’s article”). Or draw lines, group notes, or create a web of learning.
• Celebrate Growth: Pick one sticky note that shows how your thinking has deepened. (Optional: Share it in a whip-around or pair-share before dismissal.)

3. Immediate Use

If students learn something new but don’t use it right away, the forgetting curve wins. I work to ensure that applying ideas happens immediately after initial instruction. After a mini-lesson on irony, for example, students didn’t just take notes—they wrote two-sentence micro-stories packed with ironic twists.

And after reviewing characterization techniques, they created fake Instagram profiles for Lord of the Flies characters, using posts and captions to show indirect characterization.

Applying new ideas doesn’t have to be formal. It just has to be fast—and real.

As John Medina explains in Brain Rules, immediate application shifts learning from fragile short-term memory into durable long-term storage. The sooner students use new knowledge in meaningful, creative ways, the stronger it sticks.

How to have students apply knowledge immediately

• After teaching a concept, challenge students to use it in a mini-task that takes five to 10 minutes. Examples: sketch a quick cartoon, write a two-sentence story, create a metaphor, draft a fake text or tweet, list three real-life uses, or explain the concept to a younger student.
• Keep it authentic: Ask them to create, connect, or solve using the skill—the goal is not to summarize the concept but to use it.
• Celebrate speed and creativity—not perfection. Share a few examples publicly to validate the effort.

The Bottom Line: Memory Is Built, Not Borrowed

If students forget what we teach, it’s not a sign that they aren’t smart. It’s a sign that we need to build stronger connections to help them hold on to it. Memory isn’t built by covering content once—it comes through retrieving, connecting, using, and revisiting over and over, until it sticks.

With brain dumps, living walls, and immediate use, students move from passive memorization to being active owners of their knowledge. They aren’t just passing tests, they’re learning how to learn for life. And that’s the kind of memory that doesn’t fade.