Understanding emotions, learners and achievement
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
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?
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
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
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
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?
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.
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
For the first of the Friday Fives, I look at 5 tips to help you learn better.
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
