In this review the Trumble and colleagues sought to better understand how spacing and retrieval practice are used in health professions education and whether these strategies led to improvements in academic grades.
To Prompt or Not To Prompt: Effects of Prompt-Questions and Educational Videos on Learning
Educational videos are often used in the classroom setting to support instruction of content. On the positive side, these videos can help scaffolding a topic which can lead to better understanding of it. They can also increase situational interest in students because...
GUEST POST: Reflections on a “Spaced Practice Challenge” with Community College Students
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.