One of us recently had the lucky opportunity to attend and present at a researchED conference – one of a series of conferences put on by a very engaged grassroots teacher organization. While Tom Bennett collects blogs and presentation slides to ...
All in For Researchers
A Student's Journey Through Learning: How Can Cognitive Psychologists Help?
Last week, I gave a talk at researchED Math & Science at Oxford University. I have never been to a conference where the attendees seemed so genuinely excited! The place was buzzing as we prepared for the opening speech. ...
What's Transfer, and Why is it so Hard to Achieve? (Part 2)
Last week, we talked about near transfer. This week, we’re going to talk about…slightly-further-away transfer. Obviously, no-one actually calls it that; in the study that we describe, it was referred to as “far” transfer. However, there is no consensus on what ...
GUEST POST: What Causes Test-score Inflation? Comparing Two Theories
Ask most anyone inside U.S. education—in the “education establishment”—about “teaching to the test”, and they will tell you that externally imposed high-stakes tests induce teaching to the test. Moreover, teaching to the test—replacing instruction on subject ...
What's Transfer, and Why is it so Hard to Achieve? (Part 1)
One of the critiques that we receive as cognitive psychologists is that testing encourages rote memorization, which is not the goal of most educators. We understand the critique; our goal is rarely to simply transmit raw facts to our students. Instead, ...
GUEST POST: Publish or Perish... or Reinvent The Square Wheel?
It’s hard to let ideas go - incredibly so. But one important goal of science, of philosophy, of academia, is to open up pathways to discover true knowledge. Conflicting ideas are useful because every idea that is falsified will lead society one step closer to ...