There is an ongoing debate on whether students should take notes on their laptops (typed) or by putting pen to paper (handwritten). We have blogged about this topic in the past and presented papers that found…
Digest #175: Authentic Assessments
The idea of authentic assessments has been around for over 30 years now. In 1990, Grant Wiggins coined the term ‘authentic assessment’ (1) and in recent years this assessment approach has received a considerable boost. The pandemic as well as the rise of AI in education have required educators…
Digest #174: Assessing Learning Strategies
Below we have included a list of many different learning strategy questionnaires for your consideration. We have tried to include information about the amount of research that has been conducted on each questionnaire and the costs associated with its use, so that you can make an informed decision…
Stress and Memory
When we are presented with a stressful event, a variety of hormones, neurotransmitters, and peptides are released in our brains. All of these things work to activate systems to help us cope with the stressor. This initial response is typically referred to as the “fight-or-flight” response. If you were walking in the woods and actually saw three bears your fight-or-flight response would put your system on high-alert. Your body diverts resources from less-pressing matters, like digestion, and focuses on giving you superhuman strength and speed…
Promoting Far Transfer in Medical Education: An Experiment
About 8 years ago (seriously, I can’t believe we’ve been doing this for so long…), we published a pair of blog posts on understanding both near and far transfer (Part 1; Part 2). Transfer is one of my favorite topics, in part because it is arguably the whole point of most formal education. The purpose…
Enhancing Learning Through Storytelling
Imagine you are enrolled in a life sciences course and learning about stochastic molecular motion in biological systems (i.e., how molecules move in random ways within cells and other parts of living things). You are given the option to study the topic using either a) expository instruction…