Monthly Archives: April 2020

“Seductive Details”: When Do Cool Stories and Videos Interfere with Learning?

When teachers include cool stories and funny videos in our lessons, does that ultimately help our students learn? A recent meta-analysis crunches the numbers. Continue reading →



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How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine… for Now by Stanislas Dehaene

What is learning and how do we accomplish it? Stanislas Dehaene, a cognitive neuropsychologist and professor at the Collège de France, addresses these questions in How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine… for Now. He defines learning



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Beyond Retrieval Practice: The Benefits of Student-Generated Questions

Is it better to have students ANSWER questions or to ASK question? Recent research from Germany provides a helpfully specific way to think about study strategies. Continue reading →



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An Exciting Event In Mindfulness Research [Repost]

I’ve been reviewing old posts, looking for information that might be particularly helpful in today’s strange times. This post — from September — gives us greater confidence that mindfulness helps reduce stress. It’s particularly persuasive research because it studies both



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Dr. Kurt Fischer: A Tribute

Professor Kurt Fischer changed my professional life. If you’re reading this blog, odds are good he helped change yours as well. Throughout most of the 20th century, teachers, psychologists, and neuroscientists had little to say to one another. Even psychology



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