The Emotional Learner

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    • 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 memory…

    • 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 psychology…

    • 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 reinforcement…

    • 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 of…

    • 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 taking…

    • 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 learn…

    • 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 attention…

    • 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 their…

    • 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 that…

    • 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 cognitive…