For Teachers

By Megan SumerackiWelcome to May! In many parts of the world, the pools have been open for a while, and in New England where I live, many neighbors will start opening their pools over Memorial Day Weekend at the end of the month. Water safety is not just about summer months (lakes even when frozen…

By Megan SumerackiThis week, March 21-27, 2022, is Neurodiversity Celebration Week. Siena Castellon founded Neurodiversity Celebration in 2018. In Siena’s words, the week was founded because “I wanted to change the way learning differences are perceived. As a teenager who is autistic and has ADHD, dyslexia, and dyspraxia, my experience has been that people often…

References:(1) Roediger III, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological science, 17(3), 249-255.(2) Karpicke, J. D., & Bauernschmidt, A. (2011). Spaced retrieval: absolute spacing enhances learning regardless of relative spacing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37(5), 1250.(3) McDaniel, M. A., Agarwal, P. K.,…

References(1) Kruger, J., Wirtz, D., & Miller, D. T. (2005). Counterfactual thinking and the first instinct fallacy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(5), 725.(2) Merry, J. W., Elenchin, M. K., & Surma, R. N. (2021). Should students change their answers on multiple choice questions?. Advances in Physiology Education, 45(1), 182-190.(3) Couchman, J. J., Miller,…

Dr. James Culhane earned his B.A. in Chemistry from Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. Following the completion of his doctoral degree, he accepted a faculty appointment in the Department of Pharmaceutical…

By Megan SumerackiToday’s post features a set of experiments conducted by Catherine Fritz and colleagues (1) with preschool children. We have actually cited this paper a few times on our blog, when we covered why the spacing effect has failed to make it into mainstream practice (Part 1, Part 2), and when I wrote about…

By Carolina Kuepper-TetzelIn education many students and staff report experiencing mental health and wellbeing challenges at some point in their studies or their work - often for prolonged periods. The pandemic has contributed to the burden on mental health many students and teachers were already facing – and they often must wait for a long…

The methods used by the researchers were reasonably straightforward. Over a series of nine experiments, they introduced participants to affect stimuli (pictures and videos chosen to elicit emotions that were either negative, neutral, or positive). Each set of experiments randomly put participants into one of two groups. The first experienced cognitive tasks referred to as…

Researchers had all participants watch a video lecture on Zoom and then take a quiz. The participants were split into three conditions. Group 1 had all screens off (no one in the class could see themselves or anyone else). Group 2 had only their own screen off (they could see the rest of the class).…

Mike Bell taught science in a state secondary school and then ran the Evidence-Based Teachers Network (EBTN). He has run successful training courses on evidence-based methods in dozens of UK schools and Further Education colleges. [Bio taken from the book]. You can follow Mike on Twitter: @EvidenceTeach What is your teaching background?I was teaching science in…