For Teachers

Medical education is divided into Undergraduate Medical Education (UME), which includes coursework, supervised clinical rotations, and specialty electives, and Graduate Medical Education (GME) which is residency and like their entry level job. So, UME is graduate-level education (post-bachelors), but called Undergraduate, for reasons I’ve yet to discover. For the purposes of this blog, I’m focused…

The researchers found that when there were low levels of cold calling in a class, men tended to participate voluntarily more than women. When cold calling was frequently used within a class, students, both men and women, volunteered to participate more often. Further, the increase was larger for the women students than the men students.…

By Carolina Kuepper-TetzelA recent guest post on “The Benefits and Risks of ChatGPT for Education” provided a balanced view on the use of AI in education by highlighting some of the pitfalls and opportunities to support various aspects of teaching and learning. Generative AI is not going anywhere and so it is vital for educators…

Cover image by Dharmendra Rai from PixabayBy Althea Need KaminskeWhile we talk about the benefits of retrieval practice a lot here at the Learning Scientists, we usually talk about the benefits of retrieval practice for already learned information. However, retrieval practice has also been shown to be beneficial for learning new information. That is, retrieving…

References:(1)    Yerkes, R.M., and Dodson, J.D. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology of Psychology, 18(5), 459-482.(2)    Diamond D.M., et al. (2007). The Temporal Dynamics Model of Emotional Memory Processing: A Synthesis on the Neurobiological Basis of Stress-Induced Amnesia, Flashbulb and Traumatic Memories, and the Yerkes-Dodson…

By Megan SumerackiCover image by 정수 이 from PixabayIn a previous blog post about retrieval practice, Cindy asked, is asking questions in class enough? She covered an experiment by Magdalena Abel and Henry Roediger (1) in which students studied Swahili vocabulary in a few different conditions. In one of those conditions, students graded another student’s…

References:(1) Council of the European Union, Analysis and Research Team. ChatGPT in the Public Sector – overhyped or overlooked? (2023). In Council of the European Union. Retrieved October 5, 2023, from https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/63818/art-paper-chatgpt-in-the-public-sector-overhyped-or-overlooked-24-april-2023_ext.pdf (2) Deng, J., & Lin, Y. (2023). The Benefits and Challenges of ChatGPT: An Overview. Frontiers in Computing and Intelligent Systems, 2(2), 81–83. https://doi.org/10.54097/fcis.v2i2.4465 (3) Tate, T., Doroudi,…

By Althea Need Kaminskecover image by StockSnap by PixabaySelf-regulated learning describes a cyclical process of forethought, performance, and self-reflection that enables a learner to regulate, and thereby improve, their learning (1). Previously, I’ve reviewed research on the relationship between self-regulated learning and personality, Carolina provided a digest on fostering self-regulated learning in students, and she…

References:(1) Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58.(2) Paas, F., van Gog, T., & Sweller, J. (2010). Cognitive load theory: New conceptualizations, specifications, and integrated…

Participants spent less time doing their practice tests when they were multiple choice than when they were short answer, and because performance was about the same, multiple choice self-testing was shown to be the better choice when participant-controlled. But again, participants didn’t score as high when they dropped items after getting them right. On average,…