PTK decided to conduct a challenge where students were required to log two hour-long study sessions a week for the final three weeks of classes. We offered multiple incentives to encourage student participation...
Effective Learning Strategies depend on Prior Knowledge
If we can understand new information in the context of what we already know, we are more likely to to retrieve it later on. As students go from novice to expert they will learn most effectively if they go from direct instruction to independent, problem-based, or inquiry-based approaches.
Digest #176: For When You're Feeling the Pressure!
Right now it is mid September. At Rhode Island College we’re wrapping up week 4 of the Fall 2024 semester. Where is the time going?! It feels like everything is happening so quickly, and keeping up has been challenging for me. Talking with my colleagues this week, I learned I’m not the only one “feeling the pressure.” ...
Thinking is Hard
Thinking is hard. ... To better understand the relationship between mental effort and negative affect, David, Vassena, and Bijleveld conducted a meta-analysis of 170 studies of mental effort (1). They looked at a number of moderators to see what factors have an effect on this relationship.
How Do You Use Our Book “Ace That Test: A Student’s Guide to Learning Better”?
Last year, we published our book “Ace That Test: A Student’s Guide To Learning Better”. We recorded a podcast episode introducing the book, but I thought it would be useful to follow this up with a brief blog post and to share with you a brief survey we are currently conducting to find out how you are using our book...
Guest Post: Retrieval Practice: How to Encourage Long-Term Retention
You are at the end of the school year and your students just took the big, elusive, terrifying standardized test. As a teacher, you know you did all you could to prepare them, and you saw them experience small successes along the way. Students were doing great on the chapter tests, so they must have learned the material! Then, you get the results back from the standardized test, and it is not what you were expecting. You are left shocked and wondering what went wrong.