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ADHD adolescence attention bilingual education boundary conditions classroom advice conference speakers constructivism/direct instruction creativity critical thinking desirable difficulty development elementary school embodied cognition emotion evolution executive function exercise experts and novices gender high school homework intelligence long-term memory math metacognition methodology middle school mindfulness Mindset motivation neuromyths neuroscience online learning parents psychology reading retrieval practice self-control skepticism sleep STEM stress technology working memoryRecent Comments
- Andrew Watson on Have I Been Spectacularly Wrong for Years? Part 1
- Cher Chong on Have I Been Spectacularly Wrong for Years? Part 1
- Andrew Watson on Practical Advice for Students: How to Make Good Flashcards
- Beth Hawks on Practical Advice for Students: How to Make Good Flashcards
- Max on ChatGPT and Beyond: The Best Online Resources for Evaluating Research Claims
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Monthly Archives: March 2019
The Debate Continues: Being Bilingual Doesn’t Improve Executive Function
Adding to a complex research history, a new study finds that being bilingual did not increase executive function. Given the complexity of this question, perhaps we should focus on the obvious benefits of being bilingual: we can meet and talk with more people. Continue reading
Factual Knowledge Must (Not?) Precede Higher Order Thinking
Scholars who focus on learning have long debated the importance of factual knowledge. Some (like Daniel Willingham) argue students need facts to undertake higher order synthesis and creativity. Others (like Jo Boaler) disagree. Recent retrieval practice research suggests that the primacy of facts might be overstated. But: it’s the first study of its kind, and we’ll need more information before we make big decisions. Continue reading
Posted in L&B Blog
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The Better Choice: Open- or Closed-Book Quizzes
As predicted by research into “retrieval practice,” closed-book quizzes do in fact help students learn better than open-book quizzes do. Once again, the right kind of difficulties can be desirable in school. Continue reading
The Limitations of Neuroscience in Guiding Teachers
Neuroscience offers fascinating insights into brains; psychology provides specific teaching suggestions. However much we enjoy and learn from the former, we should keep our eye on the latter. (Helpful links provided.) Continue reading
The Best (Counter-intuitive) Sleep Advice You’ll Get This Year
How to fall asleep faster? According to this research, take 5 minutes a write a to-do list for the upcoming days. This technique offloads stress, and promotes faster sleep onset. Continue reading
Studying Wrong Answers Helps Learn the Right Ones
With teaching as with baking, sometimes you should follow steps in a very particular order. If you don’t do this, and then that, and then the other, you don’t get the best results. Two researchers in Germany wanted to know if, and when,
How Can We Encourage Girls to Pursue STEM Disciplines?
When we see alarming statistics about gender disparities in STEM disciplines, we quite naturally wonder how to fix this imbalance. (This hope – by the way – isn’t simply a do-goody desire to sing “It’s a Small World After All.”
PEERS® for Young Adults: Social Skills Training for Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Other Social Challenges by Elizabeth Laugeson
Young people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) typically want social relationships but have trouble building them. Extensive social skills training research has been conducted with young children with ASD, but research about social skills training for young adults with ASD is scant.
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Can We Boost Our Students’ Self-Control?
You have, no doubt, heard about this research before. Walter Mischel tested preschoolers on self-control. In the famous “marshmallow test,” they got either one marshmallow right now, or two if they waited for fifteen minutes. (I have to include an
A Handy Summary of Memory Definitions, for Teachers and Students
Here‘s a quick summary of information about memory: sensory memory, working memory, long-term memory, and (crucially!) forgetting. Author Steven Turner presents this brisk overview to combat “buzzword wasteland.” He fears the education-world habit of coming up with fancy new terms