From Book to Classroom: Using Powerful Classrooms

I’m not a creative nor free spirt person. If I go on a road trip, I know exactly which interstate I’ll take, while also noting every Buc-ees that is along the route. In other words, even in teaching, I need to know where I’m going before I get there. I still need direction, and I have never been one that could “wing it”. Before this jump into evidence-based practices and cognitive science, I knew what I did on a daily basis was good teaching, but student retention of information was not the greatest. It needed to improve. What I have realized is that my focus on getting grades from a plethora of worksheets or activities was ignorant. My mindset had to change. At the beginning of the year, my focal point was on daily retrieval, but Bain’s book has broadened that to three other important items that lead to greater learning such as spacing of retrieval, connecting previous learning to current learning, and giving students the ability to learn what they know and what they don’t. In other words, my roadmap to the destination is completely different. My focus has shifted, and that takes time and effort to reconfigure.

This journey of evidence-informed learning is not for the faint of heart. In the past six months, I’ve consumed blogs, podcasts, and other forms of media. I’ve been introduced to so many educational researchers and teachers that discuss cognitive science, retrieval, metacognition, long-term memory, etc. All of it has been so enlightening, helpful, informative, and….overwhelming. There is so much to learn and implement. I can see why some teachers just decide to stick with their own daily practice and routine and ignore the science, but Patrice M. Bain’s book, Powerful Classrooms, is here to the rescue.

This is a quick read. One that can be read in about a day and a half (I can confirm!). Chapters are short and to the point with easy practical examples and testimonials that make the implementation easier. I made five different examples for my own classroom without taking any time outside of contract hours.

Mrs. Bain starts with discussing her background, moves on to a chapter about research, continues with how learning works, and follows it up with guidance for teachers on using evidence-based strategies with many Science of Learning teachers own examples. The components noted as Power Tools in the book are the following: Retrieval, Spacing, Interleaving, and Feedback-Driven Metacognition. There are four tools. That’s a number that teachers can work with.

1. Retrieval: Daily Retrieval practice is what I’ve been focusing on for the past 6 months. It provides opportunities for students to recall information and material taught that day.

2. Spacing: Mrs. Bain states in her book, “Forgetting is good for memory1.” Students must retrieve information at times to strengthen memory. However, students can’t wait too long to retrieve information or it will be long gone. Currently, my spaced retrieval is found with my warm up each day. My students answer 3 questions a day. I ask students to recall one answer from the previous day, one from the previous week or unit, and one from several units ago. However, going forward I’m going to try to be more purposeful with spaced retrieval. My students will answer an essential question that covers key concepts from a range of different units. Which leads me to the next power tool.

3. Interleaving: This power tool is all about making connections, highlighting the similarities and differences between units of learning. Interleaving is a power tool that I need to lean into. Mrs. Bain records the differences from block learning (teaching one topic at a time then moving on) to interleaving (teaching the subject matter while interweaving facts to create critical thinking opportunities.) I’m an 8th grade history teacher in Texas and the state mandates a state assessment for my subject area and grade. In addition to finishing the last half of my scope and sequence for the year, I have to equip my students for a rigorous test this April. Preparing for deliberate interleaving with vocabulary retrieval, essential questions that cover a variety of material, and linking thinking will be a part of my lesson planning for the first quarter of 2026.

4. Feedback-Driven Metacognition: Student determine what they know from what they don’t. Students need chances to determine their knowledge about a subject area. Mrs. Bain states that by allowing students to utilize strategies that differentiate their understanding, it can make for a more efficient and effective study2. Moreover, teachers must give timely feedback. It provides clarity to any gray areas.

As of two weeks ago, after reading and applying Powerful Classrooms, my lesson planning now involves 4 steps for a unit:

Retrieval: turn & talk, whiteboard practices

Spacing: power ticket, vocabulary retrieval, think and link

Interleaving: analogies, odd man out, retrieval grids, vocabulary retrieval, think and link

Feedback-Driven Metacognition: power ticket, test review, retrieval cards

This is at least a start. Many of the strategies listed above are from Powerful Classrooms. Mrs. Bain and many others teachers share strategies for other teachers to easily consume and maintain. It’s the perfect flotational device to any teacher that is trying to keep his or her head above the cognitive science ocean of information.

For me personally, it is a constructive road map that I need to give purpose to my daily schedule and a valuable marker for my unit as a whole. Will it be perfect? No. As I stated before, this type of integration of evidence-based learning is new to me. At times, it will overwhelm, but by giving myself a foundation of strategies and processes, it relieves a copious amount of stress. Much like a Buc-ees brisket sandwich.