Digest #140: There’s an App for That
These days we are all extremely busy! So, we’ll keep it brief. Check out these resources to help you manage your workflow and stay productive. Since we know you’re busy, we’ll keep the descriptions to a minimum today and let the descriptive titles speak do most of the talking!
Elaboration as Self-explanation
Self-explanation has been shown to be related to better understanding of concepts (2). In a correlational study, where the researchers identified which students used self-explanation naturally and compared this to performance on a concept test, Chi and colleagues showed that those who self-explained performed better. Chi and his research team wanted to know whether engaging…
The Impact of Guided Discovery vs. Didactic Instruction on Learning
Elham Arabi is a lead instructional designer and learning consultant at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She advocates using evidence-based approaches in learning design and in her collaborations with subject-matter experts. Elham also works as a consultant with students who have learning challenges. She incorporates science of learning how to learn in her course designs. She…
Teaching Effectiveness vs. Teaching Evaluations
Header note, this quote appears at the top of the cited article by Kornell and Hausman (1)By Megan SumerackiFor most of us who teach in higher education, the end of the semester means administering teaching evaluations and can be a bit stressful for some. However, the beginning of each semester means reading those evaluations. In…
GUEST POST: From Knowledge To Skill: Do Learning Strategies Improve Critical Thinking?
A number of studies with university students have examined whether retrieved knowledge can be applied to novel contexts. Butler (2010) was one of the first studies to explore this. The study showed that testing participants on new knowledge domain questions (wing structure for military aircrafts) after quizzing them on different knowledge domain questions (wing structure…
GUEST POST: Learning Strategies for Academic Writing
As an undergraduate at Stonehill College, Jessica Costello researched student and faculty knowledge of effective study techniques and sought a way to integrate empirically-supported learning techniques with the needs of the students she encountered as a writing tutor. She is currently working on her master’s in clinical counseling psychology at Assumption College and conducting research…
GUEST POST: Learning Styles and Differentiated Instruction
References: (1) Kirschner, P. (2017). Stop propagating the learning styles myth. Computers and Education, 106, 166-171.(2) Macdonald, K., Germine, L., Anderson, A., Christodoulou, J., and McGrath, L. (2017). Dispelling the myth: Training in education or neuroscience decreases but does not eliminate beliefs in neuromyths. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. (3) Willingham, D., Hughes, E., and Dobolyi, D. (2015).…
Six Strategies for Effective Learning: A Summary for Teachers
By Megan Sumeracki If you read our blog often, you are familiar with the six strategies for effective learning. We have a number of resources already, but this guide provides a brief explanation of each strategy and compiles a set of links on the website all in one place. So, if you’re wanting a single…
Weekly Digest #140: There’s an App for That
These days we are all extremely busy! So, we’ll keep it brief. Check out these resources to help you manage your workflow and stay productive. Since we know you’re busy, we’ll keep the descriptions to a minimum today and let the descriptive titles speak do most of the talking!
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…
