Monthly Archives: March 2021

To Grade or Not to Grade: Should Retrieval Practice Quizzes Be Scored?

We’ve seen enough research on retrieval practice to know: it rocks. When students simply review material (review their notes; reread the chapter), that mental work doesn’t help them learn. However, when they try to remember (quiz themselves, use flashcards), this kind



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What (and Why) Should Students Memorize? Confidence and Fluency for the Win

In our profession, memorization has gotten a bad name. The word conjures up alarming images: Dickensian brutes wielding rulers, insisting on “facts, facts, facts!” In a world when students “can look up anything on the interwebs,” why do we ask students



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Prior Knowledge: Building the Right Floor [Updated]

Researchers can demonstrate that some core knowledge is essential for students to start learning about a topic. Teachers can use that guidance to improve learning for all students. Continue reading



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Game on? Brain On!: The Surprising Relationship between Play and Gray (Matter) by Lindsay Portnoy

Game on? Brain On!: The Surprising Relationship between Play and Gray (Matter)  is an affectionate, evidence-based, tribute to the importance of play for learning and preparing young people for their future. Author Lindsay Portnoy, who currently serves as an Associate



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Assembling the Big Classroom Picture

The last 20 years have brought about powerful new ways to think about teaching and learning. When teachers combine our experience, professional traditions, and instincts with the scientific insights of psychology and neuroscience research, we find new ways to understand



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Retrieval Practice and Metacognition: What and How Do Students Think about This Powerful Learning Strategy?

Ask almost anyone in Learning and the Brain world, they’ll tell you: retrieval practice benefits students. More than most any other technique we have, this one both has lots of research support and can easily be integrated into our classrooms. (For a handy review



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“Kids These Days!”: A (Partial) Defense of Ignorance and Distractibility

You’ve seen the videos. An earnest reporter wielding a microphone accosts a college student and asks extremely basic questions: “What are the three branches of government?” “What is the capital of France?” “Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?” When students



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