As a cognitive psychologist, I think it’s important for students to understand how their attention works. But, unlike aspects principles of cognition that are easy to demonstrate, attention can be somewhat elusive. Perception can be demonstrated...
All in Learning Scientists Posts
On the Potential Limitations of Spacing and Retrieval Practice in the Classroom (and the Need for More Applied Research)
We have been writing a lot about the top two learning strategies that cognitive psychology has brought out: Spacing and retrieval practice. Both learning strategies have accumulated a vast amount of scientific evidence, making us confident to recommend these strategies to teachers and students. However, it is important to keep in mind...
The Key to Interleaving: Jumble It Up!
Interleaving can be a confusing topic and is often confused with spaced practice. In laboratory studies, we can disentangle the effects of interleaving and spacing to show that they are both helpful on their own to produce learning (1). However, in classroom ...
Retrieval and Spaced Practice Sound Great, but Are They Just for Memorization?
We recently received this question at a workshop we ran for K-12 teacher and leaders. After hearing the research on spaced practice and retrieval, one might wonder: What do these strategies do to students’ abilities to make inferences, apply what they know, and think creatively?
Does Prompting Students During Retrieval Practice Improve Performance?
When we practice retrieval, or bring information to mind from our memories, we typically improve our memory for the information. Retrieval practice can be implemented in a lot of different ways, and we’ve talked about a number of them, for example short-answer ...
How Social is Social Media?
Better technology, faster and omnipresent internet connection, and the existence of social networking sites have changed the way we communicate with each other and what we share about ourselves. If you – like me – have a Facebook account you may have shared information with people that you haven’t seen in years and that you probably will not ever encounter face-to-face for...