Understanding emotions, learners and achievement
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
Exciting news! Becoming Buoyant: Helping Teachers and Students Cope with the Day to Day is due for publication next month (July 2020). It’s taken me about five years to write this, indeed, I began investigating resilience well before I began writing The Emotional Learner. If you’re a regular visitor to the this site or you’veContinue reading Becoming Buoyant
The term non-cognitive skills has become increasingly prevalent within education over the past few years. But what do we actually mean by non-cognitive, how do these skills differ from cognitive ones and is any aspect of learning truly non-cognitive anyway? The roots of non-cognitive skills lie in the writings of sociologists Samuel Bowles and HerbertContinue reading What are non-cognitive skills?
Failure is still seen as something to feel ashamed of rather than a vital component of eventual success. The need to succeed first time and our propensity towards perfection, however, can often lead to either the illusion of success or act as a barrier to it. Failure is ubiquitous, it’s experienced by everybody, from studentsContinue reading Re-evaluating Failure
I don’t listen to as many podcasts as I would like to, so I asked people on Twitter to recommend some. Here’s a list of some of my favourites and suggestions from the Twittersphere, in no particular order. PsychCrunch The podcast of the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest. This is the place to start ifContinue reading 10 Podcasts to Educate & Entertain
When we discuss memory, particularly in the context of learning, we usually refer to psychological models, such as the Working Memory Model of Baddeley and Hitch or the earlier Multi-store Model of Atkinson and Shiffrin. At a push we may refer to Cowan’s Embedded Process Theory or discuss working memory from within models of instructionalContinue reading Memory: A Curious Journey
I’ve added eBooks to the resources page. Resources are free but I’d really appreciate a mention if you use them – many of them take quite a long time to compile and it’s always great to know that people are finding them useful. All I really ask is that you don’t sell them. It’s REALLYContinue reading Resources & Ebooks
[Originally published in The Psychologist] Powering Up Children: The Learning Power Approach to Primary Teaching. Guy Claxton and Becky Carlzon, Crown House Publishing 2019 £16.99 Powering Up Children represents the latest addition to Claxton’s highly successful Learning Power Approach, a set of strategies and metacognitive skills that aim to empower learners to become more confidentContinue reading Book Review: Powering up Children
The production effect states that when we read aloud, our memory of the information is stronger than if we read silently to ourselves. Yet this behaviour is often viewed with disdain, especially in older students. When we first learn to read we read out loud, perhaps to a teacher or a parent. Once we becomeContinue reading Why reading aloud leads to better recall
Chunking describes the process by which individual pieces of information are broken down and grouped together. The process is said to make the recall of information easier because it helps to bypass the inherent limitations of working memory. However, chunking also relies heavily upon long-term memory. Chunking is, therefore, related to another aspect of memoryContinue reading When is a chunk not a chunk?
