Pitting Learning Styles Against Dual Coding
By Megan SumerackiWhen creating content and materials for the Learning Scientists website, we try to include many different types of forms (NOT because of Learning Styles, but because of preferences, and diversity in the type of media an individual can consume!). To that end, I’ve created blog versions of some bite-size research podcast episodes in…
Mary Whiton Calkins
by Althea Need KaminskeIn the past month I’ve been thinking a lot about history. I was tasked with writing a brief overview of cognitive psychology for a book I’m writing with Megan, and someone wrote into the Learning Scientists interested in the history of learning and asking for some places to start. I was not…
Digest #170: Fun Activities to Reduce Forgetting (and Boredom) over the School Break
The time between the end of a school year and the start of a new one can feel long and from a memory perspective considerable forgetting occurs. Engaging children and young people with different activities can help to counteract forgetting and boredom. In today’s digest, we highlight different activities and free resources. 1. Primary games &…
Announcing Our New “Ace That Test” Book!! And Other Books We Enjoy (Digest #169)
We have a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! Our newest book, Ace That Test: A Student’s Guide To Better Learning is coming out this summer—July 19 to be exact. You can preorder through Amazon now! Starting June 28, you can preorder through the Routledge link on our website. You can read Chapter 1 for free here!We are SUPER…
The Effect of Supervision and Instruction on Students’ Use of Retrieval Practice
By Carolina Kuepper-TetzelWhile there is clear evidence for the benefits of using retrieval practice as a learning strategy (1), we also know that students may not necessarily chose to use retrieval practice when studying on their own (2). A very recent experiment (3) investigated study choices in university students who were tasked with learning English-Swahili…
The Benefits of Retrieval with Medical Residents
With the constant advances in the medicine, medical training is continual and unabating. To start with, after spending typically four years earning a bachelor’s degree, medical professionals then typically spend four years in medical school, three to seven years in residency, and possibly a few years in fellowship. Then, relatively less formal education continues as…
Digest #168: Introduction to ChatGPT
Everyone is talking about it, but we may not yet fully grasp what it is and what it means for education: ChatGPT. ChatGPT stands for “Generative Pre-Trained Transformer” and is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot. This means that you can have a dialogue with an AI bot. It will provide you with answers to questions,…
Learning With Flashcards
How did they investigate these questions?They conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, participants were asked to study one of two text passages (biological anthropology versus geology) and then instructed participants to study in one of four conditions:1. Provided-Flashcards: Participants were given premade flashcards from the textbooks to study with. These flashcards were heavily detail-level…
GUEST POST: Smartphone Learning: When Students Should Use it, and When to Avoid it!
By Karla LassondeKarla Lassonde is a Cognitive Psychologist and has been teaching Psychology at Minnesota State University, Mankato, for 14 years. One of her research and teaching passions is student learning and attention. Some of this work focuses on how misconceptions in psychological science can be revised. She works on various outreach projects to promote…
Digest #166: Perfectionism in Education
By Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel“Perfection is the opposite of done!” I came across this statement recently and it made me think about how perfectionism really affects one’s work and studying. Growing up, I always thought of perfectionism as a good thing, as something to aspire to. However, more recently I am questioning this thought. It adds unnecessary…
