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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Watson
Andrew began his classroom life as a high-school English teacher in 1988, and has been working in or near schools ever since. In 2008, Andrew began exploring the practical application of psychology and neuroscience in his classroom. In 2011, he earned his M. Ed. from the “Mind, Brain, Education” program at Harvard University. As President of “Translate the Brain,” Andrew now works with teachers, students, administrators, and parents to make learning easier and teaching more effective. He has presented at schools and workshops across the country; he also serves as an adviser to several organizations, including “The People’s Science.” Andrew is the author of "Learning Begins: The Science of Working Memory and Attention for the Classroom Teacher."
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The Downsides of Desirable Difficulties
For several years now, we’ve been talking about the benefits of “desirable difficulties.” For instance, we know that spreading practice out over time helps students learn more than does doing all the practice at once. Why? Because that schedule creates
Too Good to be True: When Research and Values Collide
Let’s start with some quick opinions: Flipped classrooms… … can transform education and foster students’ independence, or … are often a waste of time, and at best just rename stuff we already do. A growth mindset… … allows students to
New Research: Unrestricted Movement Promotes (Some Kinds of) Creativity
Teachers like creativity. We want our students to learn what has come before, certainly. And, we want them to do and think and imagine new things with that prior knowledge. We want them, in ways big and small, to create.
The First Three Steps
Early in January, The Times (of London) quoted author Kate Silverton (on Twitter: @KateSilverton) saying: It’s the schools that have the strictest discipline that have the highest mental health problems. Helpfully, they include a video recording of her saying it.
A “Noisy” Problem: What If Research Contradicts Students’ Beliefs?
The invaluable Peps Mccrea recently wrote about a vexing problem in education: the “noisy relationship between teaching and learning.” In other words: I can’t really discern EXACTLY what parts of my teaching helped my students learn. Was it my content
Teaching with Images: Worth the Effort?
According to Richard Mayer’s “multimedia principle,” People learn better from words and pictures than from words alone. If that’s true, then we should — obviously — be sure to include pictures in our teaching. However… Whenever we see a broad
Let’s Get Practical: How Fast Should Videos Be?
Research often operates at a highly abstract level. Psychologists and neuroscientists study cognitive “tasks” that stand in for school work. If we’re being honest, however, we often struggle to see the connection between the research task and actual classroom learning. HOWEVER…
The Benefits of Direct Instruction: Balancing Theory with Practice
When teachers hear that “research shows we should do X,” we have at least two broad questions: First Question: what’s the research? Second Question: what EXACTLY does X look like in the classroom? People who have the expertise to answer
The Best Kind of Practice for Students Depends on the Learning Goal
In some ways, teaching ought to be straightforward. Teachers introduce new material (by some method or another), and we have our students practice (by some method or another). Result: THEY (should) LEARN. Alas, both classroom experience and psychology/neuroscience research suggest
When Does Technology Distract Students? The Benefits of Research that Contradicts My Beliefs
I spoke with several hundred students last week about research-based study strategies. As always, students were fascinating to hear about psychology and neuroscience research: for instance, the benefits of retrieval practice. And, as always, they did not love my alarming
