From retrievalpractice.org regarding the “Make it Stick” book, this link includes:
- Discussion questions for each chapter
- Sketchnotes for each chapter
- Additional readings and research articles
On 06/21/2019,
in biology, chemistry, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, design, education, education technology, engineering, faculty/staff, graphics, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, journalism, mathematics, productivity / tips and tricks, research, science, society, universities, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
Research Posters Are a Staple of Academic Conferences. Could a New Design Speed Discovery? — from edsurge.com by Jeff Young
Excerpts:
Scholars around the world share their latest research findings with a decidedly low-tech ritual: printing a 48-inch by 36-inch poster densely packed with charts, graphs and blocks of text describing their research hypothesis, methods and findings. Then they stand with the poster in an exhibit hall for an hour, surrounded by rows of other researchers presenting similar posters, while hundreds of colleagues from around the world walk by trying to skim the displays.
…
Not only does the exercise deflate the morale of the scholars sharing posters, the ritual is incredibly inefficient at communicating science, Morrison argues.
…
Morrison says he has a solution: A better design for those posters, plus a dash of tech.
To make up for all the nuance and detail lost in this approach, the template includes a QR code that viewers can scan to get to the full research paper.
From DSC:
Wouldn’t this be great if more journal articles would do the same thing? That is, give us the key findings, conclusions (with some backbone to them), and recommendations right away! Abstracts don’t go far enough, and often scholars/specialists are talking amongst themselves…not to the world. They could have a far greater reach/impact with this kind of approach.
(The QR code doesn’t make as much sense if one is already reading the full journal article…but the other items make a great deal of sense!)
On 06/05/2019,
in active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, colleges, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, faculty/staff, higher education, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, learning theories, research, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, trends, United States, universities,
by Daniel Christian
4 Essentials for Learning Space Redesign — from CampusTechnology.com by David Raths
There’s a lot more to creating active learning spaces than bringing in new furniture and moving seats around.
On 05/28/2019,
in adjunct faculty, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, education, face-to-face, faculty/staff, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning theories, memory, metacognition / metacognitive skills, participation, pedagogy, psychology, research, science, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, universities,
by Daniel Christian
Recommended books from RetrievalPractice.org
Check out our recommended books and reports that describe research on the science of learning and provide practical tips for classroom teaching.
.
…plus several others
On 03/13/2019,
in attention, Daniel S. Christian, education, Google, learning, learning theories, memory, metacognition / metacognitive skills, multimedia, research,
by Daniel Christian
Tiny microbots fold like origami to travel through the human body — from digitaltrends.com by Georgina Torbet
Excerpt:
Tiny robots modeled after bacteria could be used to deliver drugs to hard to reach areas of the human body. Scientists at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) have developed what they call elastic microbots that can change shape depending on their environment.
On 01/22/2019,
in adjunct faculty, assessment, colleges, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, education, education reform, face-to-face, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning theories, lifelong learning, memory, metacognition / metacognitive skills, online learning, parents/guardians, productivity / tips and tricks, research, STEAM-related, strategy, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, training / L&D, universities, youth,
by Daniel Christian
The Lesson You Never Got Taught in School: How to Learn! — from bigthink.com by Simon Oxenham (from 2/15/13)
Psychological Science in the Public Interest evaluated ten techniques for improving learning, ranging from mnemonics to highlighting and came to some surprising conclusions.
Excerpts:
Practice Testing (Rating = High)
This is where things get interesting; testing is often seen as a necessary evil of education. Traditionally, testing consists of rare but massively important ‘high stakes’ assessments. There is however, an extensive literature demonstrating the benefits of testing for learning – but importantly, it does not seem necessary that testing is in the format of ‘high stakes’ assessments. All testing including ‘low stakes’ practice testing seems to result in benefits. Unlike many of the other techniques mentioned, the benefits of practice testing are not modest – studies have found that a practice test can double free recall!
Distributed Practice (Rating = High)
Have you ever wondered whether it is best to do your studying in large chunks or divide your studying over a period of time? Research has found that the optimal level of distribution of sessions for learning is 10-20% of the length of time that something needs to be remembered. So if you want to remember something for a year you should study at least every month, if you want to remember something for five years you should space your learning every six to twelve months. If you want to remember something for a week you should space your learning 12-24 hours apart. It does seem however that the distributed-practice effect may work best when processing information deeply – so for best results you might want to try a distributed practice and self-testing combo.
Also see:
- Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology
John Dunlosky, Katherine A. Rawson, Elizabeth J. Marsh, Mitchell J. Nathan, Daniel T. Willingham
First Published January 8, 2013 | Research Article
https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266
- Study smart — from apa.org by Lea Winerman; as recommended by Daniel Willingham here
Make the most of your study time with these drawn-from-the-research tips.
Per Willingham (emphasis DSC):
- Rereading is a terribly ineffective strategy. The best strategy–by far — is to self-test — which is the 9th most popular strategy out of 11 in this study. Self-testing leads to better memory even compared to concept mapping (Karpicke & Blunt, 2011).
Three Takeaways from Becoming An Effective Learner:
- Boser says that the idea that people have different learning styles, such as visual learning or verbal learning, has little scientific evidence to support it.
- According to Boser, teachers and parents should praise their kids’ ability and effort, instead of telling them they’re smart. “When we tell people they are smart, we give them… a ‘fixed mindset,’” says Boser.
- If you are learning piano – or anything, really – the best way to learn is to practice different composers’ work. “Mixing up your practices is far more effective,” says Boser.
Cumulative exams aren’t the same as spacing and interleaving. Here’s why. — from retrievalpractice.org
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
Our recommendations to make cumulative exams more powerful with small tweaks for you and your students:
- Cumulative exams are good, but encourage even more spacing and discourage cramming with cumulative mini-quizzes throughout the semester, not just as an end-of-semester exam.
- Be sure that cumulative mini-quizzes, activities, and exams include similar concepts that require careful discrimination from students, not simply related topics.
- Make sure you are using spacing and interleaving as learning strategies and instructional strategies throughout the semester, not simply as part of assessments and cumulative exams.
Bottom line: Just because an exam is cumulative does not mean it automatically involves spacing or interleaving. Be mindful of relationships across exam content, as well as whether students are spacing their study throughout the semester or simply cramming before an exam – cumulative or otherwise.
From DSC:
We, like The Learning Scientists encourages us to do and even provides their own posters, should have posters with these tips on them throughout every single school and library in the country. The posters each have a different practice such as:
- Spaced practice
- Retrieval practice
- Elaboration
- Interleaving
- Concrete examples
- Dual coding
That said, I could see how all of that information could/would be overwhelming to some students and/or the more technical terms could bore them or fly over their heads. So perhaps we could boil down the information to feature excerpts from the top sections only that put the concepts into easier to digest words such as:
- Practice bringing information to mind
- Switch between ideas while you study
- Combine words and visuals
- Etc.
On 12/27/2018,
in adjunct faculty, adult learning, assessment, colleges, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, drama/theater, education, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, innovation, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, love of learning, media/film, psychology, real-world assignments, research, society, sociology, student-related, television, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, youth,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
Not too long ago, I really enjoyed watching a program on PBS regarding America’s 100 most-loved books, entitled, “The Great American Read.”
While that’s not the show I’m talking about, it got me to thinking of one similar to it — something educational, yet entertaining. But also, something more.
The program that came to my mind would be a program that’s focused on significant topics and issues within American society — offered up in a debate/presentation style format.
For example, you could have different individuals, groups, or organizations discuss the pros and cons of an issue or topic. The show would provide contact information for helpful resources, groups, organizations, legislators, etc. These contacts would be for learning more about a subject or getting involved with finding a solution for that problem.
For example, how about this for a potential topic: Grades or no grades?
- What are the pros and cons of using an A-F grading system?
- What are the benefits and issues/drawbacks with using grades?
- How are we truly using grades Do we use them to rank and compare individuals, schools, school systems, communities? Do we use them to “weed people out” of a program?
- With our current systems, what “product” do we get? Do we produce game-players or people who enjoy learning? (Apologies for some of my bias showing up here! But my son has become a major game-player and, likely, so did I at his age.)
- How do grades jibe with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs)? On one hand…how do you keep someone moving forward, staying positive, and trying to keep learning/school enjoyable yet on the other hand, how do you have those grades mean something to those who obtain data to rank school systems, communities, colleges, programs, etc.?
- How do grades impact one’s desire to learn throughout one’s lifetime?
…
Such debates could be watched by students and then they could have their own debates on subjects that they propose.
Or the show could have journalists debate college or high school teams. The format could sometimes involve professors and deans debating against researchers. Or practitioners/teachers debating against researchers/cognitive psychologists.
Such a show could be entertaining, yet highly applicable and educational. We would probably all learn something. And perhaps have our eyes opened up to a new perspective on an issue.
Or better yet, we might actually resolve some more issues and then move on to address other ones!
On 12/08/2018,
in active learning, adjunct faculty, architecture, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, education technology, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, faculty/staff, formal learning, higher education, ideas, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, pedagogy, research, smart classrooms, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), tools, United States, universities, user experience (UX),
by Daniel Christian
Can space activate learning? UC Irvine seeks to find out with $67M teaching facility — from edsurge.com by Sydney Johnson
Excerpt:
When class isn’t in session, UC Irvine’s shiny new Anteater Learning Pavillion looks like any modern campus building. There are large lecture halls, hard-wired lecture capture technology, smaller classrooms, casual study spaces and brightly colored swivel chairs.
But there’s more going on in this three-level, $67-million facility, which opened its doors in September. For starters, the space is dedicated to “active learning,” a term that often refers to teaching styles that go beyond a one-way lecture format. That could range from simply giving students a chance to pause and discuss with peers, to role playing, to polling students during class, and more.
To find out what that really looks like—and more importantly, if it works—the campus is also conducting a major study over the next year to assess active learning in the new building.
