Over the past two weekends, I’ve had the opportunity to attend my first two education conferences: the Annual Conference on Teaching (ACT) by the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP; @TeachPsych) and the ResearchED conference ...
GUEST POST: Two Myths about Feedback (and Why the Myths are Wrong)
Myth 1: People don’t want to receive negative feedback
Whenever I discuss my research on feedback with strangers, I ask for their beliefs about feedback. For the most part, these beliefs converge on one core...
Weekly Digest #33: Teaching Kids about Safety
Many of us enjoy dressing up for Halloween, trick-or-treating with your kids, Halloween-themed crafts, or just curling up on the couch to watch scary movies (or not so scary movies, like Hocus Pocus). Unfortunately, with Halloween comes dangers for our children, and it can be hard to distinguish between those dressing up to pretend to be monsters, and the actual monsters around us. But, how do we talk to our kids about "stranger danger", ...
How Can Cognitive Psychologists Help Educators?
When I get asked "what do you do?" by well-meaning strangers, my answer often flummoxes them: "I apply cognitive psychology to education." Do what? The blank expression I'm often faced with is my cue to break it down into something that actually makes ...
GUEST POST: The Elusive Effect of Font Disfluency on Problem Solving
Below are several problems that vary in difficulty. Try to answer as many as you can.
(1) A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? _____ cents
Weekly Digest #32: Evidence-based Learning Strategies for Learning Disabilities
This week we were asked on Twitter about learning strategies for teens with learning disabilities. Similarly to when we were asked about procrastination a few weeks ago, this was not within our areas of expertise, so we decided to do some research and ...