When I was in college, I couldn’t study in the library. The silence-that-wasn’t-really silence amplified sibilant whispers, scratching pens and rustling papers. So distracting. I found that continuous sounds that blended together were far better for studying. Not too long ago, after noticing that it was easier to be creative in a coffee shop than… Continue Reading
By Richard E. Mayer For this short book (134 pages), Dr. Richard Mayer reviewed and synthesized research findings for the best evidence about learning. He organized the book into three areas: learning, instruction, and assessment. He starts with the most basic explanations, like “What is learning?” and “Why is it important to apply the science… Continue Reading
Guy Wallace, one of my ISPI friends, has been interviewing some of our leaders in human performance technology (HPT). Last year, he sat down with Dick Clark, who is an outstanding researcher in our field. They talked about HPT, cognitive task analysis, constructivism, instructional games, simulations, and ways to view evidence. Highlights. I’m sharing my… Continue Reading
To show/hide additional content, click here. You may have heard that people can process seven (plus or minus two) chunks of new information at a time in working memory. Many of us wish we had even more room than that. Cowan defines short-term, or working memory, as “the collection of mental processes that permit information… Continue Reading
49 Techniques That Put Students on the Path to College If you teach or train children or adults, you can find techniques in this book that are well worth everyone’s time. They come from David Lemov’s careful observation of the intersection of two things: Uncommonly high achievement data from unlikely schools Extraordinary teachers who get… Continue Reading
From Columbus, Georgia. I just changed the time zone on my computer clock: 6:09 a.m. seems like such a better time to be up & writing than 3:09, which is the time it is at home. For some reason I was awake most of the night. Jet lag, probably. So I made sure, when I… Continue Reading
Why We Do Things, Why We Don’t, and How to Make Any Change Stick Jeremy Dean wrote this book after looking into the question, “How long does it take to form a new habit?” The common wisdom says that habit-forming takes 21 days, but it turns out that this is rarely enough (despite many published… Continue Reading
If you’re anything like me, some days you have trouble getting started. Sadly, humans are wired for distractions. It’s way too easy to waste time. What to do? image courtesy microsoft.office.com Back in the ‘80’s, an Italian student named Francesco Cirillo used his kitchen timer to structure periods of study with breaks. He found that… Continue Reading
Maybe. But then again, maybe not. And, isn’t it a necessary evil? Compliance means we have to put people through this whether they need it or not, right? Why talk about it? Just offer it and be done. Allison Rossett wrote a lovely post about looking into what can be done to improve this whole… Continue Reading
I was asked recently, “Should we train our students to learn this ‘from memory’?” This is a good question because of two facts that are at odds with each other: It takes a lot longer to learn to do something from memory. Training time is almost always scarce. Image courtesy office.miscrosoft.com In organizations where learners… Continue Reading
