Learning Scientists Posts

Note, APA now has two separate title page formats: one for students and one for professionals. These templates reflect the format for students. For professional papers, a running head needs to be added (though the first page does not need to say “Running head” anymore… thank goodness!) as well as an author note.When creating the…

The other interesting thing they did was changing up the conditions of retrieval practice. Some students took an open-book test, where they literally had the text sitting in front of them while they answered the questions. Some took a closed-book test (no text available), but some were in a closed/open switch task. Essentially, students could…

By Carolina Kuepper-TetzelWith online teaching becoming a reality for many educational institutions in the coming semester/year due to COVID-19, the questions are what the key challenges in education will be and how to overcome them. An obvious challenge is the transformation of teaching material and delivery to accommodate the online format. However, in today’s post…

by Althea Need KaminskeWhen I got married, I had no idea that my husband would become my office mate. COVID19 has affected our lives in a number of ways, one of them being that we now both work from home in the same home office. For most of my career I’ve been lucky enough to…

by Althea Need KaminskeAs school is starting this fall, teachers and students are participating in a time honored first day of class ritual: the awkward icebreaker. While students might think they’re a bit cheesy, icebreakers serve several very important roles in class and are an excellent way to start a class. An obvious reason to use…

By Althea Need KaminskeLearning online presents different challenges for students than learning face-to-face in a classroom. Whether you are an older student learning online in your spare time, a university student taking online courses in combination with face-to-face classes, or even a younger (or much younger) student learning online as a safety precaution during quarantine…

Carolina: “Let’s dive into concrete teaching activities that can support teachers in their work. How can schools identify and close any ‘learning gaps’ in September? Can setting assessment and feedback strategically support this?”Flávia: “Identifying learning gaps can be a huge task, so we should make data work for us! If we combine all the data…

School can be stressful, and 2020 has been a particularly stressful year for many of us. So, for this week’s blog, I thought I would write about retrieval practice and stress. Fortunately, I get to share some good news! Prior research has shown that acute stress can hinder our ability to retrieve information. Acute stress is…

If your institution has trouble hiring and retaining black academics there is no time like the present to ask yourself why. What are the barriers in your field or institution for black academics? As every publication in higher education keeps reminding us, we currently have more Ph.D.s than jobs for Ph.D.s in academia (though there…

Recording authentic student study behavior A recently published study by Carvalho, Sana, and Yan (1) contributes to the evidence base supporting spaced practice by approaching the question about the benefits of spaced practice differently: They recorded the authentic study behavior of students enrolled in an online course. The online course consisted of 12 units and…