Learning Scientists Blog — The Learning Scientists

Dec 14

Dec 14 Do Lessons in Music, Chess, or “Brain Training" Cause Students to do Better in School?

Learning Scientists Posts, For Teachers, For Parents

There is a commonly held belief that engaging in certain activities might increase a student’s overall cognitive ability, which could subsequently improve that same student’s performance in school (1, 2). For example, according to this belief, a student who frequently ...

Dec 7

Dec 7 Lecture Attendance, Lecture Recordings, and Student Performance: A Complex, but Noteworthy Relationship

Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel

Learning Scientists Posts, For Teachers, For Students

At university there is an ongoing debate about whether lectures should be recorded and made available to students. In general, students are extremely in favor of this idea. They argue that they can use lecture recordings when revising the content of the lecture – allowing them to ...

Dec 3

Dec 3 Weekly Digest #88: Psychological Misconceptions in Movies and TV shows

Learning Scientists

Learning Scientists Posts, For Teachers, For Students, For Researchers, Digests

One of goals as teachers of psychology is to make sure that students come out of our classes more equipped to identify misapplications of psychological principles in their everyday lives. Movies and TV shows are a very rich source of these misconceptions,

Nov 30

Nov 30 Incentives for Course Evaluations

Cindy Nebel

For Teachers, Learning Scientists Posts

Over the years, I have heard a lot of different opinions about course evaluations. Here are a few of the (likely misquoted) gems: Student 1: I don’t fill out course evaluations because no one reads them anyway. Student 2: Yessssss, time to roast Professor Y!

Nov 23

Nov 23 THANK YOU to our guest bloggers from 2016!

Learning Scientists

Learning Scientists Posts, Guest Posts, For Parents, For Researchers, For Students, For Teachers

We're right in the middle of a season where a lot of us are giving thanks and reflecting on the year we have had. For some of us it is because of American or Canadian Thanksgiving, Japanese Labour Thanksgiving, or Turkish National Day of Thanks,

Nov 17

Nov 17 In Defense of Memory

Yana Weinstein

Learning Scientists Posts, For Teachers, For Students, For Researchers, For Parents

I’m very passionate about memory. I’ve dedicated most of my adult life so far to examining how our human memory works. But why? Well, think about your life. Think about how you define yourself, who you are. Maybe you see yourself as a hard worker.