All in Learning Scientists Posts
For over a century cognitive psychologists have been studying spaced practice and retrieval practice, resulting in a great deal of evidence that these two strategies work very well to improve student learning. However, no single experiment or paper is going to be able to answer, in full, the question “how does …
…one policy that we know has a substantial benefit for education is school lunch and breakfast programs. Decades of research have demonstrated that children do better in school when they aren’t hungry.
The six strategies for effective learning are, indeed, effective, but only to the degree that students actually use them. And in order to change behavior, we have to consider motivation. There are many different motivational theories, but today we’re going to zoom in on just one: self-efficacy.
The further along students advance in school, and for some onto training opportunities after school (e.g., medical school, law school, training at work), the more they need to take control of their own learning. For example, it is great when teachers implement effective learning strategies into their classes, and also …
According to the National Research Council, one of the drivers of inequity in STEM education is the lack of access to STEM learning experiences that provide the foundational background knowledge and skills necessary for students to engage successfully in college-level STEM coursework and to foster a sense of belonging in STEM (3). In other words, one of the reasons why some groups of students may seem more interested and motivated to pursue STEM coursework at the university level is simply because they have had more opportunities to engage meaningfully with STEM research and projects.
One way to engage students and foster their learning is through in-class quizzes. In-class quizzes have gained in popularity due to the open access to polling software that teachers can easily set up and students can engage with via their phones, tablets, or laptops (e.g., Kahoot, Slido, Poll Everywhere). Therefore, quick in-class quizzes are easy to administer…
