At the same time, we are also transitioning to putting out a variety of resources on the blog and podcast once per week. So, I’d like to take this opportunity to invite everyone to listen to our podcast, as it will soon be a part of our weekly rotation on Thursdays! You can listen to this week’s episode, Episode 35 – Implementing Effective Strategies, on the web. You can also subscribe to The Learning Scientists Podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
This week’s blog is a bit of a crossover, covering the same topic as the podcast episode from this week: tips for implementing evidence-based learning strategies in your classes. While in England, a number of consistent themes popped up as we were presenting research and applications for the classroom. Here’s a summary of what we noticed when talking about implementing the six strategies for effective learning:
Don’t try to implement all of the strategies all at once all of the time. We don’t like to recommend complete overhauls of teaching. First, this is a TON of work, and we know time and balance is important. Also, all of this work may not bring as much benefit as we might like. It also can lead to confusion and difficulty for the teacher. (Remember, difficulty is good, but too much can have the opposite effect!) This also means if something is not working very well, it is really hard to tell what that something is. Instead, we recommend making small changes a little bit at a time. Pick one or two things that you want to try to do more intentionally in your classes, and start there. You can work your way up to utilizing the strategies more as you gain more feedback about what works well in your classroom and what doesn’t work as well.
