Engagement and Interest
Another aspect of engagement seems to be interest and attention. If we focus on this aspect of engagement the definition is closer to ‘participating in activities that capture interest and attention in a subject matter’. In this view interest and attention are, in and of themselves, effective processes that promote understanding and learning, or they…
Digest #139: What Comes After School? Career Tips and Advise
All of the Learning Scientists are researchers in Cognitive Psychology who work with students in psychology, and often advise them on what to do after graduation. Psychology is a very diverse field with lots of options to explore. This guide from the APA provides resources for students starting to think about a career in psychology.…
Explain It To Me: The Beneficial Effects of Explaining for Memory
Outcomes of the Experiment Lachner and colleagues (1) created an experiment (Experiment 2) in which they tested these different hypotheses against each other. They had students study two related texts and asked them to either a) explain the main ideas to a fictitious person or b) write down everything they remember (written retrieval practice). In…
Digest #138: Fostering Self-Regulated Learning in Students
5) Ace Your Self-Study App by University of Leiden, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and Delft University of Technology At EARLI I was introduced to this promising app, Ace Your Self-Study. This app lets students schedule and log their study sessions. Students can track how and for how long they have been studying. In addition, it provides…
GUEST POST: To Nap or Not to Nap, IS That a Question?
A common sleep recommendation is to limit naps! Wait, what? Anyone who has struggled to get children to nap should be laughing so hard now they might be crying. As a parent of two young boys, I cherish times when they both settle down for an afternoon nap. Certainly, children should be getting more sleep…
How Should Students Take Notes?
References (1) Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 25, 1159-1168. (2) Bui, D. C., Myerson, J., & Hale, S. (2013). Note-taking with computers: Exploring alternative strategies for improved recall. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105, 299-309. (3) Fiorella,…
To Nap or Not to Nap, IS That a Question?
A common sleep recommendation is to limit naps! Wait, what? Anyone who has struggled to get children to nap should be laughing so hard now they might be crying. As a parent of two young boys, I cherish times when they both settle down for an afternoon nap. Certainly, children should be getting more sleep…
Learning in a Museum
By Althea Need Kaminske This past week I had the opportunity, along with Megan Sumeracki, to talk with docents about how they can use the science of learning in their work. As educators, docents face an interesting set of challenges when teaching visitors about their collections. Namely that they have a limited amount of time…
A Brief Overview of Working Memory
Working memory refers to your ability to manipulate and remember information over a short period of time (about two minutes). It’s very similar to short term memory, but when we use the term working memory we are emphasizing the manipulation of information. For example, if someone gave you a telephone number to write down, you…
GUEST POST: Self-Referencing as a Tool to Improve Learning
References: (1) Symons, C. S., & Johnson, B. T. (1997). The self-reference effect in memory: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 371-394 (2) Humphreys, G. W., & Siu, J. (2016). Attentional control and the self: The self-attention network (SAN). Cognitive Neuroscience, 7, 5-17.. (3) Turk, D. J., Gillespie-Smith, K., Krigolson, O. E., Havard, C., Conway, M.…
