The Importance of Looking Away
You might have noticed that when you’re talking to someone, it’s often difficult to maintain eye contact. Teachers might have noticed that when children are addressing the class or attempting to answer a challenging question, they will avert their gaze away from their audience. Psychologists call this behaviour gaze aversion and it’s thought to serveContinue reading The Importance of Looking Away
Creating Good Habits
(Adapted from Becoming Buoyant, 2020, Chapter 5) Do you like popcorn? For the sake of argument let’s assume that you do. Not only do you like popcorn, you are also an avid cinema goer and like nothing more than a large tub of popcorn to enhance the experience. This is a routine that operates likeContinue reading Creating Good Habits
Collaborative learning and Cognitive load
Collaborative learning can be described as two or more learners actively pursuing and contributing to a shared goal, or trying to share the effort required to reach that goal. It has become a mainstay of educational practice. During my time as a teacher there was always an expectation that most lessons would involve some elementContinue reading Collaborative learning and Cognitive load
The problem with positive & negative emotions
(Adapted from Chapter 3 of The Emotional Learner, 2017) In The Emotional Learner I presented the hypothesis that some emotions help towards the achievement of academic goals by expanding our thought processes and allowing us to invest in psychological capital. Other emotions, on the other hand, restrict these options, leading us into either-or situations (theContinue reading The problem with positive & negative emotions
Cognitive load and cognitive offloading
I’ve stated elsewhere that working memory is limited and that these limitations can hamper our ability to learn new things and carry out complex tasks. I’m implying here that learning and remembering are either the same or very similar, so I’m referring to learning in a rather narrow way, but stay with me on this.Continue reading Cognitive load and cognitive offloading
Cognitive Load, emotion and buoyancy
In his 2019 review of twenty years of Cognitive Load Theory, John Sweller explores several avenues of further investigation. One such avenue relates to emotions, stress and uncertainty and how these factors influence cognitive load. Within the education community aspects of cognition in learning are often starkly separated from seemingly non-cognitive factors. Curiously, the formerContinue reading Cognitive Load, emotion and buoyancy
What do we really mean by cognitive Load?
The term cognitive load has been around for a long time but definitions have tended to shift and often depend on theoretical positions. Early researchers rarely attempted to define cognitive load at all. In a 1966 paper, Levine describes cognitive load as the amount of information that the observer is required to store in memoryContinue reading What do we really mean by cognitive Load?
Does information in short-term memory decay?
The very fact that I’ve posed this as a question rather than a statement probably gives some indication that the answer isn’t exactly straightforward. The notion of decay is a vital component of the short-term/long-term memory distinction, so even asking the question risks casting doubt on an assumption that is almost as old cognitive psychologyContinue reading Does information in short-term memory decay?
What is Latent learning?
According to Soderstrom and Bjork, latent learning refers to “learning that occurs in the absence of any obvious reinforcement or noticeable behavioural changes” (Soderstrom and Bjork, 2015 p177). Most often associated with the work of Edward Tolman in the 1930s, latent learning is viewed as hidden (or behaviourally silent) because it is only when reinforcementContinue reading What is Latent learning?
What is Working Memory?
The answer to this question is both very simple and incredibly complex. Simple because it’s very straightforward to demonstrate working memory in action; complex because to fully grasp the nature of working memory we really need to understand how it’s related to other types of memory. Let us then get the easy explanation out ofContinue reading What is Working Memory?
Learning: The importance of timing
I’ve written elsewhere about how British psychologists at the MRC Applied Psychology Unit, now the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, worked with the British Post Office to design the most memorable system of postcodes in the world. The Unit was also involved in other projects for the Post Office, primarily concerned with changes takingContinue reading Learning: The importance of timing
The Forgetting Curve: How useful is it?
In recent years, the phenomenon dubbed the forgetting curve has tweaked the interest of a growing number of teachers and other educationalists motivated by the application of cognitive psychology to learning. Put simply, the forgetting curve states that newly learned information will fade quickly unless returned to regularly. This makes intuitive sense; if I learnContinue reading The Forgetting Curve: How useful is it?
Attention in the classroom
What is it to pay attention? Why is it that sometimes I can be engaged in a conversation when suddenly my focus of attention is drawn away from it, only to return when I realise I’m expected to offer a response to a comment I didn’t catch? And what was it that disrupted by attentionContinue reading Attention in the classroom
Attribution Theory and Learning
Adapted from Chapter 10 (Control) of Becoming Buoyant, now available. Control, within an academic environment, refers to the belief that students are able to control their own academic outcomes. Control in this context doesn’t refer to students ability to dictate their own learning (such as choosing activities), but rather, to be the vehicles of theirContinue reading Attribution Theory and Learning
What’s that all about? Prog vs. Trad
You may have heard the terms progressive and traditional used within educational discourse. They represent two distinct schools of thought that encompass both the theory and practice of teaching, each with their own unique features and often polarising views based around the underlying purpose of education. On some level these distinctions create a rift thatContinue reading What’s that all about? Prog vs. Trad
Where does creativity come from?
Creativity is a tricky concept. Some would suggest its spontaneous nature sits outside traditional learning and that it can be nurtured through flexible forms of education. Others insist that in order to be creative we need to already have knowledge and facts stored in long-term memory. Both are legitimate proposals, yet as a predominately cognitiveContinue reading Where does creativity come from?
Video: The Friday five #2
Still not entirely sure what to call this series; Friday Five, Five on Friday? Anyway, here are five tips to help you overcome procrastination. Other videos are available on the channel, so please consider subscribing.
regular testing improves outcomes
The role of testing in education is always going to divide opinion. My position on the matter had always been clear, in that regular low stakes tests or quizzes not only aid learning but also reduce test anxiety by normalising something that, in essence, isn’t normal. Test anxiety is, in part, the result of theContinue reading regular testing improves outcomes
Video: The friday five #1
For the first of the Friday Fives, I look at 5 tips to help you learn better.
instructional design: Working memory & expertise reversal
Working memory limitations indicate that we should design learning in such a way as to reduce cognitive load. Working memory is a resource with limited capacity and duration – there is only so much we can attend to at any one time. This is not just a proposal of working memory theory – it’s alsoContinue reading instructional design: Working memory & expertise reversal
