{"id":7311,"date":"2023-10-29T08:00:57","date_gmt":"2023-10-29T13:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=7311"},"modified":"2023-10-28T11:45:35","modified_gmt":"2023-10-28T16:45:35","slug":"the-whole-toolbox-in-one-free-download","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/the-whole-toolbox-in-one-free-download\/","title":{"rendered":"The Whole Toolbox in One (Free) Download"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you want to learn more about improving teaching with psychology research, I’ve got good news:<\/p>\n

There are SO MANY excellent books to read.<\/p>\n

I’ve also got bad news:<\/p>\n

There are SO MANY excellent books to read, we can struggle to manage them all.<\/p>\n

In fact, as I’ve written elsewhere<\/a>, I think the “best book to read” depends on the\u00a0category<\/em> of book you’re looking for.<\/p>\n

At the beginning<\/em> of your research+education journey, you probably want a book devoted to one topic<\/strong>: say, working memory, or motivation, or attention.<\/p>\n

As you get more familiar<\/em> with different categories of research, you might instead want a book that brings many topics together<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today I’d like to recommend a book from the second category: the Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review<\/em> from Evidence Based Education. (You can read about it and download it here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Step One: How to Begin?<\/h2>\n

Anyone striving to write a book that “brings many topics together” starts with an enormous challenge: how to organize such a behemoth?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We have SO MUCH pertinent research on SO MANY topics: how can we possibly tidy this muddle?<\/p>\n

The Toolkit’s authors devise a sensible sorting strategy. They believe research gives teachers strong guidance in four areas:<\/p>\n

What sorts of knowledge do teachers need?<\/p>\n

How can we make classrooms emotionally safe?<\/p>\n

How can we structure classroom work and routines efficiently?<\/p>\n

What teaching strategies require students to\u00a0think hard<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Now, other authors organize their thinking in other ways. (For instance: Dan Willingham’s\u00a0Why Don’t Students Like School<\/em> focuses on nine key principles from cognitive science that should guide instruction.)<\/p>\n

But I think you can see right away why the Toolkit’s organizational structure sounds so helpful and sensible.<\/p>\n

Step Two: Break It Down<\/h2>\n

Within each of these categories, the authors offer between 3 and 6 specific principles: everything from “teachers should know common misconceptions in their discipline” to “strategies for asking questions effectively.”<\/p>\n

This structure, in turn, allows for\u00a0a straightfoward teacher-development plan.<\/p>\n

If I were using this Toolkit with a faculty, I would have teachers select one of these sixteen topics: prefereably one where they feel the least confident and successful<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Each teacher would then dig into the research-base suggestions\u00a0provided right there in the Toolkit<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Even better: the Toolkit reviews the research it summarizes.\u00a0Teachers and school leaders who want to know exactly\u00a0why<\/em> this strategy or topic has been prioritized get all the info they need to dig deeper and discover more.<\/p>\n

Examples, Please<\/h2>\n

You have, no doubt, heard that\u00a0feedback<\/strong> is essential for student learning.<\/p>\n

Imagine that a teacher reviews the Toolkit’s list and determines that s\/he really needs to work on this specific part of her craft.<\/p>\n

Turning to section 4.4, this teacher quickly gathers several useful insights about the role of feedback in our work.<\/p>\n

In the first<\/strong> place, the Toolkit draws a helpful distinction between feedback that helps the teacher<\/em> — by giving us information about how much our students know and understand — and feedback that helps the student<\/em> — by giving them structured ways to improve.<\/p>\n

That simple distinction sounds almost too obvious to state out loud…but in my experince isn’t emphasized nearly often enough.<\/p>\n

In the\u00a0second\u00a0<\/strong>place, the teacher will find several thoughtful prompts for further thought.<\/p>\n

As the authors wisely say:\u00a0“there is no simple recipe for giving powerful feedback.”<\/p>\n

Should the teacher remind the student of the success criteria, or point out gaps between the current work and those criteria?<\/p>\n

The Toolkit doesn’t offer prescriptive answers\u00a0because research can’t do that<\/em>. Research can provide us with options, and let teachers sort out the best ways to put all those options together.<\/p>\n

And, if you’re a research nerd (as I am), you’ll be delighted to find almost 20 pages of discussion on their sources for these ideas, and their methods for sorting them all together.<\/p>\n

TL;DR<\/h2>\n

You already know several specific cognitive-science informed teaching strategies? You to want a bigger picture?<\/p>\n

The Great Teaching Toolkit will be a feast<\/strong> for you. (And yes: you can download it free<\/a>!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you want to learn more about improving teaching with psychology research, I’ve got good news: There are SO MANY excellent books to read. I’ve also got bad news: There are SO MANY excellent books to read, we can struggle to manage them all. In fact, as I’ve written elsewhere, I think the “best book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":7316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-lb-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7311"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7319,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311\/revisions\/7319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}