The Learning Scientists Podcast: Recent Episodes
Learning Scientists
Episode 99: How Should Students Use (And Not Use) Flashcards? Learning Scientists This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 99, Megan talks about flashcards. Flashcards are a tool like anything else; they can be used to promote effective learning strategies, and also used in ways that are not so effective. This brief episode is designed to help students understand the best ways to use flashcards, and ways to avoid using flashcards.
Want to read more about flashcards and retrieval practice? Check out the posts below. * Be Your Own Teacher: How to Study with Flashcards: https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/2/20-1 * Learning with Flashcards: https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2023/2/3-1 * How to use Retrieval Practice: https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/6/23-1 * The 5-Sided Flashcard: https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2019/4/4-1 * A Student's Perspective on the Use and Helpfulness of Retrieval Practice: https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/7/19-1 * Leveraging AI in a Research-Driven Way: Augmenting Feedback During Spaced Retrieval Practice Using ChatGPT: https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2023/10/19-1
- Expand to read the full episode transcript Hi I'm Dr. Megan Sumeracki, and I want to talk a little bit about flashcards. I know flashcards can be a really popular way for students to study and they really can be a great tool as long as they're used to promote effective learning strategies.
It's not that flashcards are inherently good or bad, it's that they can be used in lots of different ways and some of those ways promote effective learning strategies while some of those ways don't.
It's a tool like anything else and the tool can be used well and not so well.
So, with flashcards one thing to keep in mind is that making the flashcards might not be the most effective way to study. Sometimes students will tell me that making the flashcards is the part that's really important for them. That they like taking their index cards and copying content onto the flashcards. Copying our notes or copying content isn't necessarily a great way to, to learn the information in the long run. If a student is having to think about what to include and what not to include and how the different concepts are related to one another; as they're thinking about what to put on those cards, that might be an effective an effective exercise. But just copying the content isn't really beneficial in and of itself.
And so if you have access to somebody else’s cards you don’t need to worry about it. Making the flashcards themselves isn’t particularly helpful unless it forces you to think about what’s important and what’s not important and forces you to kind of organize the information.
So however you end up with your flashcards, once you actually have them, you want to use them to practice retrieval. Retrieval practice is all about bringing information to mind from your memory. And so if you take an index card, and let’s say you have a term on one side and a definition on the other side, if what you’re doing is looking at the term and thinking, hmmm, that seems familiar and then flipping it over and reading the other side of the card, that’s not retrieval practice. That’s just repeated reading, but with a flashcard.
What you really want to do is force yourself to bring the information to mind from memory. So if you’ve got index cards, flashcards with terms and definitions, you wanna look at the term and see if you can put the definition into your own words. Say it out loud. To a friend, or a pet, or just the wall. Or even take a blank sheet of paper and write out what you can remember about the term based on, on the term that you have on the index card. You’re basically using the index card as a cue. That’s practicing retrieval. And then, you can flip the card and take a look and see what you got right and what you might need to work on more. But in this way you’re forcing yourself to try to bring the information to mind from memory before giving yourself feedback.
And it’s okay if you don’t remember everything, or even if you don’t remember anything right away. Trying to practice retrieval before taking a look will make that that extra study opportunity, that looking, the feedback, more beneficial. And you can work your way up to being able to explain the information from your own memory.
Now, in addition, it’s not a great idea to use flashcards just to memorize terms and definitions. If that’s all you need to know, if you really do just need to be able to recite the definition of a term then this way of using flashcards with terms and definitions can be great. But a lot of times what we’re trying to do is learn what a term or what a concept is and then also understand. Understand how it can be used in a lot of different situations. Understand how it’s similar to other concepts. Understand how it’s different from other concepts. And you can use flashcards for this higher order more meaningful learning as well. You just have to be really intentional about it. And so one thing you might do is forget about the definitions on the other side. Just grab two flashcards at random with two different concepts on those cards. And from your memory, do the best you can to explain what each one is, in your own words. So not reciting the definition but just explaining what it is on your own. And then, think of all the ways those concepts are similar, and think of all the ways those concepts are different.
Sometimes you might randomly grab two concepts that are really, really similar to one another but they have one key difference. And knowing what that key difference is helps you discriminate between those two concepts. Sometimes you might grab two concepts that seem completely unrelated to one another, and the differences are huge. But there might be one way that they’re similar. Or at least you can identify what way they both fit into some organizational structure.
So, for example, I teach research methods. And if I’m teaching the students about independent and dependent variables. They’re not the same thing, but they are similar. They’re both variables within an experiment. One of them is manipulated within an experiment; the other one is measured. And knowing what the key difference is, is really important.
There might be two concepts that are really different from one another. Like … knowing what the institutional review board is and, gosh, and then it’s going to be hard in research methods to even come up with something that’s totally different… But knowing what the institutional review board is and maybe also knowing what a dependent variable is. And those things are pretty different. They’re both research methods, but the institutional review board is all about examining ethics of an experiment or studies and looking over what a researcher is planning to do to make sure that we are protecting the participants in the study. Whereas a dependent variable is, within an experiment, the variable that is being measured. But of course there is a relationship between them. So, I might describe what those two things are, and say they’re really different. One is a variable and one is an ethical body. But the similarity, what makes them, what makes them linked up is that an institutional review board is going to look at a researchers' proposed dependent variables to make sure that the types of questions that the participants are being asked or the types of things that the researcher is asking them to do feels, feels safe. And so in that way they’re somewhat similar.
And so it’s okay if you grab two concepts that seem completely unrelated because you’re learning them together for a reason. And if you can figure out what the key the key similarity is, the reason they’re both in the same organizational structure, that’s going to help you.
And so, in this way, you can use retrieval practice not just for memorizing but also for this sort of higher order more meaningful learning. And learning and being able to apply the information in the long run, which often is the goal in education or the classes that we’re taking. We want to pass our classes but we also want to know the information and be able to use it in future classes and in life or our careers in the future.
So, I'm going to go ahead and link to a couple of blog posts that describe effective ways of using flashcards so that if you want to read about this more or learn more about retrieval practice you can.
Episode 98: Executive Functioning in the Classroom with Sarah Oberle and Mitch Weathers Learning Scientists This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 98, Cindy interviews Sarah Oberle and Mitch Weathers, experts in executive functioning. They are authors of a new book: Executive Functions for Every K-3 Classroom: Promoting Self-Regulation for a Strong Start.
In this episode, Sarah and Mitch define executive functioning and how it differs from related topics like motivation and working memory. The conversation touches on executive functioning across different grade levels and populations and how to distinguish between more and less evidence-based executive functioning work. During the conversation, Cindy refers to a model of working memory which is described here.
To learn more about executive functioning, you can visit any of the links below:
1) https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2018/1/9-1
2) https://www.learningscientists.org/learning-scientists-podcast/2018/6/20/episode-21-executive-function-development-with-emma-blakey
3) https://www.learningscientists.org/learning-scientists-podcast/2025/7/3/episode-91-executive-functioning-in-special-education-with-sean-mccormick
Episode 97: Thinking Is Hard Learning Scientists This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 97, Althea reads her blog post Thinking is Hard.
In Episode 95, Cindy talks with Myriam Da Silva about believing in yourself to support learning.
Episode 95: Supporting Neurodivergent Kids and Adults with Emily Kircher-Morris Learning Scientists This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 95, Cindy talks with Emily Kircher-Morris, M.A., M.Ed., LPC, a licensed professional counselor specializing in supporting neurodivergent kids and adults (and their families). Emily hosts the popular Neurodiversity Podcast and had authored multiple books, including Neurodiversity-Affirming Schools: Transforming Practices So All Students Feel Accepted and Supported.
Cindy and Emily discuss the definition of neurodiversity, the complex legal process of getting accommodations for students, and tips and tricks for educators to recognize and meet the needs of neurodivergent students. In the episode, Emily references several research articles and resources, listed below.
Rinn, A. (2021). Social, emotional, and psychosocial development of gifted and talented individuals. Routledge.
Butera, C., Ring, P., Sideris, J., Jayashankar, A., Kilroy, E., Harrison, L., ... & Aziz‐Zadeh, L. (2020). Impact of sensory processing on school performance outcomes in high functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Mind, Brain, and Education, 14(3), 243-254.
SPACE Training Podcast Episode
Episode 94: Retrieval Practice in the Health Professions Learning Scientists This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 94, Althea reads her blog post Retrieval Practice in the Health Professions.
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 93, Carolina chats with Dr Chiara Horlin, a Senior Lecturer in Psychology in the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Glasgow, about wellbeing in educators and specifically about a phenomenon called ‘compassion fatigue’. Compassion fatigue is the psychological, emotional, and physical strain of consistently emphasizing with people in distress when supporting them. A usual scenario could be educators providing pastoral care to their students and engaging in constant empathic engagement. In this episode, we discuss how compassion fatigue manifests in different educational sectors, explore the risk factors, the personal and professional impact, and highlight ways to manage compassion fatigue. Chiara has conducted studies on this topic and you can read them here.
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 92, Althea talks with Leonardo Feletto. Leo has a PhD in Molecular Biology and is now a science teacher. But most important for this particular episode, Leo is a science communicator.
Below is a link to the peer-reviewed paper about engaging students in science communication (and, the full PDF is freely accessible!):
- Kiessling, T., Christina, C., Katrin, K., Enzingmüller, C., Kremer, K., Katrin, K., Dittmann, S., Schulenburg, H., & Parchmann, I (2025). How can we enable school students to learn and participate in science engagement initiatives? Roles and tasks of enablers. Journal of Science Communication, 24(4), N02. https://doi.org/10.22323/148020250716165543
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 91, Cindy talks with Sean McCormick, founder and Executive Director at EF Specialists. They discuss the research on executive functioning training, especially for neurodiverse students, and the degree to which it transfers to everyday life. In the episode, they mention several research studies, including:
- Diamond, A. (2013). Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64(1), 135-168. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143750
- Blair, C., & Razza, R. P. (2007). Relating effortful control, executive function, and false belief understanding to emerging math and literacy ability in kindergarten. Child Development, 78(2), 647-663. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01019.x
- Melby-Lervåg, M., & Hulme, C. (2013). Is working memory training effective? A meta-analytic review. Developmental Psychology, 49(2), 270. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028228
For free resources, please visit efspecialists.com.
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 90, Megan reads her blog post Dual Coding: Can There be too Much of a Good Thing?
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:For some of our podcast episodes, we are going to read blog posts, audiobook style. This allows listeners to access the written material from the blog in audio form, which we imagine may help some who don’t have much time for reading (but DO have time to listen in the car). It also allows us to bring some of our most interesting, important, and/or popular posts back into the spotlight.
Today’s episode is our first of this type! In Episode 89, Carolina reads her blog post Who should Create Study Plans?
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 88, Megan, Cindy, Carolina, and Althea talk about the new direction of the Learning Scientists Podcast, and about multitasking!
We started this podcast a number of years ago, and over time the podcast has morphed and changed. We want to be really intentional about the podcast. To that end, we got together and talked about what we love about the podcast, things we want to do better, and some new ways to spread the science of learning to move people.
We’re going to have three types of podcast episodes:
- Conversations with students and/or educators about their experiences with the science of learning. With these episodes, we’re really making space for our listeners to hear from others about their experiences while teaching and learning. Of course, in our conversations, we’ll still be talking about the science behind the concepts we’re talking about. These episodes can allow listeners to gain new perspectives, and can even serve as concrete examples of how the science of learning can be applied in various settings.
- Bite-size research episodes. In these episodes, we’ll focus on peer-reviewed research. One or a few of us will talk through a research paper to bring the science to you, wherever you listen. These episodes may also include guests to talk about their peer-reviewed research on learning, or the research surrounding their area of expertise.
- Audio-book versions of our blog posts. We know that some people prefer (or must, because of time constraints) listen rather than read. We have hundreds of great blog posts, and we want to bring that content to even more people. So, for some episodes, we will read our blog to create another format for that information to be shared.
If you’re interested in being a guest on our podcast, you can send us a pitch! Please fill out this form. If you’re an educator or student wanting to talk about your personal experiences with the science of learning, we especially want to encourage you to fill it out. Let us know that you’re a student/educator, and how you use the science of learning in your own teaching/learning.
We also talked about multitasking on the podcast, because we know that so many people multitask while listening (in the car, in the shower, while doing dishes, etc.).
We mentioned the Whodunnit video on the episode. You can watch the Whodunnit video here.
Below are some additional resources about mutlitasking from our blog:
- Multitasking and Selective Attention by Althea Need Kaminske
- Engagement and Interest by Althea Need Kaminske
- New Findings Inform the Laptop versus Longhand Note-Taking Debate by Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel
- Focus Tips for Students: How to Effectively Ignore Irrelevant Information, a guest post by Erin Miller
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 87, Cindy chats with Mitch Weathers, a veteran teacher and Founder and CEO of Organized Binder. Mitch discusses what exactly is meant by executive functioning, his own learning struggles as a student, and his many projects aimed at improving students’ executive functioning skills including his recently released book, Executive Functions for Every Classroom: Creating Safe and Equitable Learning Environments.
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In episode 86, Cindy talks with Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, neuroscientist, educator, and author of Stop Talking, Start Influencing: 12 Insights from Brain Science to Make Your Message Stick. In this episode, Jared reviews some of the history of technological advancements, how technology has impacted learning, and shares some of his ideas for how artificial intelligence may impact both learning and society moving forward. Jared is open to hearing your thoughts about the episode, which you can share by clicking here.
This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at a researchED event in Wilmington, DE (October, 2024).
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 85, Megan talks with Natalia Kucirkova, PhD, a Professor of Early Childhood and Development at the University of Stavanger in Norway and Professor of Reading and Children’s Development at The Open University, UK. Natalia leads a network of learning scientists, WiKIT, who support diverse EdTech organizations to be more evidence-based and aligned with the science of learning. She is author of the open-access book, How and Why to Read and Create Children’s Digital Books: A Guide for Primary Practitioners and The Future of the Self: understanding Personalization in Childhood and Beyond.
Read more about Natalia and the impact of EdTech here.
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 84, Carolina talks to Dominic Wyse and Charlotte Hacking; the authors of the brand-new book “The Balancing Act: An Evidence-Based Approach to Teaching Phonics, Reading and Writing”. Together they explore the chapters of the book that takes a research-informed approach to teaching pupils how to read and write. The book also features scaffolding for teaching practice including complete lesson plans that can be used in the classroom right away! They also discuss what parents can do to support reading and writing skills in their children. The episode concludes with a range of practical tips.
Further resources for this episode:
- Get the book: “The Balancing Act: An Evidence-Based Approach to Teaching Phonics, Reading and Writing” by Dominic Wyse and Charlotte Hacking.
- Book press release: “Rigid Approach to Teaching Phonics is ‘Joyless’ and is Failing Children, Experts Warn”
- Open access paper: “Decoding, reading and writing: the double helix theory of teaching” by Dominic Wyse and Charlotte Hacking
- The Conversation: “Isolated phonics lessons aren’t working: Here’s a better way to teach young children to read and write” by Dominic Wyse
- The Guardian view on English lessons: Make classrooms more creative again (Editorial)
- Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE): The books section on this website comes with concrete book suggestions to use in primary classrooms.
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 83, Althea interviews Jamila Sams, CEO and founder of We Do It For the Culture (TM), a culturally responsive social emotional learning curriculum rooted in Hip-Hop culture for middle and high school students. Jamila discusses the five components of social-emotional learning, hip-hop, and shares examples of how the curriculum has connected with students. To learn more go to https://wedoit4theculture.com/
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 81, Megan, Cindy, Carolina, and Althea walk through their Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP) Annual Conference on Teaching (ACT) talk! The episode was recorded in October 2023 when all four Learning Scientists were together in Portland, Oregon for the conference. After they gave their formal talk, they recorded their talk in one of their hotel rooms to reach more people.
Related to this talk, they recently published a paper in Educational Psychology Review paper on science communication about retrieval practice. The paper is geared toward researchers, calling for research on effective science communication efforts.
Sumeracki, M. A., Nebel, C. L., Kaminske, A. N., & Kuepper-Tetzel, C. E. (2024). Turning roadblocks into speed bumps: A call for implementation reform in science communication about retrieval practice. Educational Psychology Review, 36, 22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09854-5
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 80, Cindy interviews Kareem Farah, CEO and co-founder of the Modern Classrooms Project.
To access their free course go to: http://learn.modernclassrooms.org/.
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 79, Althea interviews Spencer Russell, an award-winning teacher and educator about early childhood literacy. You can learn more about Spencer's approach to early childhood literacy at https://www.toddlersread.com/. Follow him on Instagram (@toddlerscanread) for tips and videos!
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 78, Megan, Cindy, Carolina, and Althea talk through the resources available on learningscientists.org.
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 77, Megan interviews Maxim Vickerie and Adam Smith from EF+Math, a program supported by the nonprofit AERDF.
Megan recently learned about a report that came from this group called Strengthening Executive function Skills to improve Mathematics learning: Evidence of Promise from EF+Math’s inclusive R&D approach.
EF+ Math aims to double the number of black and Latinx students and students experiencing poverty in grades 3-8 who are proficient in math by building innovative math learning systems that strengthen executive function skills. To meet this aim, they fund and support teams of educators, researchers, and product developers. The teams collaborate through an Inclusive Research and Development approach (R&D), and work to co-create ways to improve math learning through increasing executive functioning skills.
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 76, Cindy interviews Sarah Oberle (@S_Oberle) about the intersection between research and education. As both a researcher and educator, Sarah has a unique perspective on both the benefits and challenges of classroom research and science communication. Sarah also discussed the ResearchED organization and plans for upcoming conferences in the US.
In Episode 75, Megan, Cindy, Carolina, and Althea talk about their new book, Ace That Test: A Student’s Guide to Learning Better. They provide an overview of the book, provide some examples, and discuss the writing process. Ace That Test: A Student’s Guide to Learning Better is out July 19th! Preorders are available now with a 20% off code if you access through our website.
Content warning: Please be advised that in this episode we discuss the topic of suicide in depth with a lived experience story. Matt reads a part of his book where a mother describes her personal experience with this topic.This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 74, Carolina interviews Matt Pinkett – the author of Boys Don’t Try? – to talk about his new book Boys Do Cry: Improving Boys’ Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools which comes out this month. Matt explains his motivation for writing the book and why it is important to learn about mental health in boys specifically. He reads a moving excerpt from his book and details some of the research behind the topics he selected to dive into. The interview concludes with practical recommendations from the book for teachers and for parents. Prepare for a thought-provoking and eye-opening episode.
Further resources for this episode:* Boys Do Cry: Improving Boys’ Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools on Amazon. * Boys Don’t Try Rethinking Masculinity in Schools on Amazon. * Boys will be boys? How schools can be guilty of gender bias by Joanna Moorhead for The Guardian.
Suicide and self-harm helplines around the world:* Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 73 Althea interview Mark Schneider, Director of the Institute of Educational Sciences (IES). Mark discusses some of the challenges facing educators today and how IES can facilitate education research. In the episode, he talked about a new grant project aimed at using artificial intelligence to assist speech language pathologists working in schools. You can read more about the research here.
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 72, Althea interviews Jerry Apps and Natasha Kassulke, authors of Planting an Idea: A Guidebook to Critical and Creative Thinking about Environmental Problems. Coming out just in time for Earth Day, Planting an Idea is designed to help readers young and old examine and develop opinions on a variety of environmental issues. You can purchase it at Fulcrum Publishing and bookshop.org. You can also visit jerryapps.com to learn more about Jerry’s other works.
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 71, Althea interviews John Hattie, author of Visible Learning. They talk about his newest book, Visible Learning: The Sequel.
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 70, Cindy interviews John Dunlosky from Kent State University and Regan Gurung from Oregon State University. John and Regan recently published a book entitled Study Like A Champ: The Psychology-Based Guide to Grade A Study Habits. In this episode John and Regan discuss a little bit about their research and how they practice what they preach in the classroom.
In the episode, Cindy mentions the following:
GUEST BLOG: The 5-sided flashcard
Podcast Episode 38: A (pseudo) Randomized Control Experiment about Teaching Effective Learning Strategies
In addition, this blog, Learning With Flashcards, was written while this episode was in production but is highly relevant to the flashcard discussion!
This episode was funded by listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
Show Notes:In Episode 69, Cindy interviews Garth Neufeld from Cascadia College and Eric Landrum from Boise State University. Eric and Garth co-host the Psych Sessions Podcast. On their podcast, they interview psychology teachers from all levels of education and have conversations about teaching.
In Episode 68, Carolina interviews Dr Zayba Ghazali-Mohammed (@Zayba_G) and Dr Arun Verma (@drarunverma) to learn more about the concept of intersectionality.
In Episode 67, Megan interviews Eva Dundas from Branching Minds (@BranchingMinds). Visit Branching Minds www.branchingminds.com, for free resources for teachers and leaders.
In Episode 66, Cindy interviews Rebecca Rolland, a speech pathologist, Harvard Lecturer, author of The Art of Talking with Children, and mom of two! Listen to learn about talking with your own children, as well as the children in your classroom.
In Episode 65, Althea interviews Lyndsey-Lee Dunwoody (@LyndseyDunwoody) of 1851 Trust (@1851Trust) about their new platform Protect Our Future.
In Episode 64, Carolina interviews Emma Noble who is a final year Psychology student at the University of Glasgow. Emma gives an overview of her final year dissertation project where she explored the lived experience of Higher Education students with a formal dyslexia diagnosis.
In Episode 63, Megan chats with the hosts of the Lab Out Loud Podcast, Brian Bartel and Dale Basler. Last month (February 2022) we talked on the Lab Out Loud Podcast, and in this episode, we continue our conversation.
In Episode 62, Cindy interviews Dr. Laura Nevins and Dr. Frank Patranella on making professional development workshops effective.
In Episode 61, Althea interviews Amber Birsen,. Amber recently made a contribution to a report by Oxford University Press called, ‘Addressing the Deepening Digital Divide’. Much of what she discusses she learned and has taken from the report as well as her experiences as a teacher over the last two years.
In Episode 60, Cindy interviews Mary Chappell (@LiteracyMary), A Department of Education Special Education Curriculum Specialist.
In this bite-size research episode, Megan discusses research on delayed vs. immediate feedback in the classroom.
In Episode 57, Cindy interviews Kathryn Desmarais, a Senior Director of Global Education Solutions at Johnson & Johnson.
In Episode 56, Cindy interviews Andrew Watson (@AndrewWatsonTTB), author of The Goldilocks Map and founder of Translate the Brain.
In episode 55, Carolina interviews two students who have been heavily involved in inclusivity in education, Ally Lloyd and Anna Gallagher. Together, they co-lead The Luna Project. Their goal is to increase awareness and support of young people with chronic illnesses disabilities and long-term health conditions.
In Episode 54, Megan interviews Josh Ling and Jesse Mao, the co-founders of Podsie. Podsie is a nonprofit organization, and its mission is to empower teachers and improve student learning by providing free access to evidence-based learning techniques.
In Episode 53, Althea interviews applied linguist and author of Learning a Foreign Language: Understanding the Fundamentals of Linguistics, Alex Poole.
In Episode 52, Carolina interviews two of her students, Ellie Brownlie and Alicja Turek, about their experiences with online learning.
In today’s episode, Althea covers a paper about metacognitive monitoring and differences between adolescents (ages 11-12) and traditional university-aged adults (ages 18-25) when using different learning strategies.
In today’s episode, Megan and Althea cover a paper that tests learning styles and dual coding theories within one experiment.
In today’s episode, Cindy talks about prevalence-induced concept change and implications for society and the classroom!
In this episode, Megan shares her current thoughts about the pivot to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this bite-size research episode, Carolina discusses research on seductive details—the details we include in our teaching that are not necessarily relevant for understanding the topic but make the lesson more interesting.
In this episode, Cindy Nebel interviews Kristen McQuillan, her student in the Vanderbilt EdD program in Leadership and Learning in Organization. Kristen is a director at TNTP, a non-profit organization that helps schools reach goals for students. Cindy and Kristen talk about learning mistakes in literacy.
In this episode, Megan and Althea discuss a listener question about the focus on evidence-based strategies and other important aspects of the whole learning process.
In this bite-size research episode, Althea describes a study about how attention affects learning with retrieval practice when students are studying on their own by Neil Mulligan and Milton Picklesimer (2016).
In this episode, Carolina Keupper-Tetzel interviews Dr. Naomi Winstone (@DocWinstone) an expert in assessment and feedback.
In this episode, Cindy Nebel interviews Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath (@JCHorvath), neuroscientist and educator affiliated with University of Melbourne and author of Stop Talking Start Influencing: 12 Insights From Brain Science to Make Your Message Stick. During the interview, they discuss how we take information in, and how do we use it, or transfer it to new situations.
In this Bite-Size Research Episode, Megan describes a paper by Kayla Morehead and colleagues (2016) about student and instructor knowledge about evidence-based study strategies.
In this episode, Megan and Cindy talk about their massive research project at Washburn University investigating the effectiveness of an intervention to teach first-year college students effective study strategies.
In this episode, Megan describes a paper by Dr. Jennifer McCabe investigating whether students understand what learning strategies are most effective, and whether we can teach this to students.
In this episode, Megan and Carolina chat about Carolina's CPD research, her Service Learning projects, and the TILE network.
This episode was funded by the Chartered College of Teaching, and listeners like you. For more details on how to help support our podcast and gain access to exclusive content, please see our Patreon page.
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RSS feed: http://www.learningscientists.org/learning-scientists-podcast/?format=rss
Show Notes:In this episode, Megan and Althea discuss things to keep in mind when trying to implement evidence-based learning strategies into your classroom.
We start out with a brief description of the six strategies for effective learning. If you haven’t listened to previous episodes yet, we recommend going back to the first set of episodes, 1 through 13, to hear more about each strategy in depth. The purpose of the review is to provide a bit of spaced practice!
Some tips to keep in mind:
- Don’t try to implement all of the strategies all at once or all of the time.
- Don’t try to overhaul your entire course! Start with small changes and see how it goes. You can keep making little changes with each iteration of the course.
- Remember, each strategy works because it encourages processing that promotes learning. So, implementing these strategies are all about encouraging useful processing. When looking from the outside, two groups of students can look like they’re doing the exact same thing, but in reality one group may be doing something useful and the other not. Using the strategies in the classroom also won’t always look the same.
Listen as Megan, Cindy, Althea, and Carolina discuss our workshops during our England 2019 tour, and the excitement around talking with teachers about the science of learning.
In this bite-size research episode, Megan covers a research article that finds taking notes by hand to lead to more learning than taking notes on laptops.
In this episode, Megan interviews Dr. Althea Kaminske, the newest member of the Learning Scientists and Assistant Professor at St. Bonaventure University in New York.
This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Yana talks research findings about the benefits of retrieval practice when learning complex materials.
In this episode, Yana interviews Alexander Chamessian, an MD PhD student who has been consistently utilizing evidence-based learning strategies.
In this episode, we interview Julien Mercier at the EARLI conference in London about his work with brain imaging and Education.
In this episode, we interview Miriam Reiner at the EARLI conference in London about her work with technology and the brain. Miriam is the head of the Virtual-Reality & NeuroCognition at the Israel institute of Technology.
In this episode, we interview Jane Emerson at the EARLI conference in London about her work with those who suffer from dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dyspraxia. Jane is the founder of Emerson House, a teaching center helping children who need extra help with literacy and numbers.
In this episode, we interview Jessica Massonnié at the EARLI conference in London about her research on noise in the classroom, and how noise affects student learning and creativity.
In this episode, we interview two teachers at the EARLI conference in London about their teacher learning and student learning communities.
In this episode, we interview Ignatius Gous at the EARLI conference in London about his framework to assist in lifelong learning.
This episode was funded by The Wellcome Trust, and supporters like you. For more details, please see our Patreon page. In today's episode, we feature one of our patrons, Bob Reuter.
Listening on the web? You can subscribe to our podcast to get new episodes each month! Go to our show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
RSS feed: http://www.learningscientists.org/learning-scientists-podcast/?format=rss
Show Notes:This is the second episode in a series recorded in London! In June 2018 we attended the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction conference (or, more simply, EARLI) for the special interest group on Neuroscience and Education (@EarliSIG22). While there, we recorded live interviews with teachers and researchers. This episode features Michael Hobbiss. (Check out Episode 21 for our first interview with Dr. Emma Blakey!)
Please excuse any issues with sound quality. We were quite literally recording on the fly!
Michael Hobbiss started his career as a teacher for 8 years, teaching psychology and biology in the UK and abroad. He is now back in the UK, pursuing his PhD with Dr. Nilli Lavie at University College London. His focus is on attention, distraction, and cognitive control in adolescents. Mike tweets at @mikehobbiss and blogs at The Hobbolog.
In the beginning of the episode, Mike describes the two main ways attention is captured:
Bottom-up: the object or stimulus itself
Top-down: your prior knowledge, interest, motivation
Both of these processes are prone to distraction. But surprisingly, Mike says, we don't know all that much about how students get distracted during learning. We do know that attention is related to important educational outcomes: for example, teacher ratings of children's attention at age 5 correlate with the children's later academic success (although, teacher ratings are not always reliable and tend to vary between cultures). We also know that inattention can be related to being unhappy. For his PhD, Michael has set out to investigate attention processes in adolescents.
The irrelevant distractor taskMike uses the "irrelevant distractor" task in his research. In this task, participants have to pick a particular object out of a visual display. For example, they might have to pick out the letter O from an array of Xs. This would be an easy task - one with low "perceptual load", because the other letters (Xs) do not look similar to the target letter (O). In a high perceptual load version of this task, participants would need to pick out the letter X from, say, letters like K or M, which are more similar. At the same time, during this task, random irrelevant distractors such as Sponge Bob will pop up on the screen.
Image from a presentation by Dr. Sophie Forster
Typically, when the task has higher perceptual load, people are less likely to notice and be distracted (in other words, slowed down) by the irrelevant distractor (1). However, Mike didn't find this pattern in his research with adolescents - in the episode he describes a very different pattern of results that involved adolescents' accuracy as well as speed. Interestingly, Mike found a relationship between students' self-reported level of distraction during class and their performance on this task.
While these results are exciting, Mike warns against acting on these findings immediately in the classroom - we need to understand a lot more about how distraction varies within and between children before we build interventions to address it.
The big takeawayWe tend to think of attention as a resource that we either have or don't have; this may not be a useful way to think about it. Many factors in the environment influence attention, so there is enormous potential to improve attention - for example, putting your phone away when you're trying to work, choosing what type of music you are listening to, and using pictures effectively.
References:
(1) Forster, S., & Lavie, N. (2009). Harnessing the wandering mind: The role of perceptual load. Cognition, 111, 345-355.
Previous Episodes from this series:
- Episode 21 with Dr. Emma Blakey
In this episode, we interview Emma Blakey at the EARLI conference in London about executive function development in young children.
In this Episode, we discuss the importance of sleep for learning and self care, and talk about tips for bed time.
This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Megan talks research findings showing that medical residents benefit from retrieval practice after didactic conferences.
Alyssa Smith, a 3rd year medical student at Chicago Medical School, talks about using evidence-based learning strategies.
In this episode for parents, we first briefly review spaced practice, interleaving, and retrieval practice. We then talk about elaboration, concrete examples, and dual coding. We talk about what parents might see their children doing if their teachers or schools are encouraging these effective learning strategies. We also talk about ways parents can help their kids use these effective learning strategies.
In this episode for parents, we cover spaced practice, a little bit about interleaving, and retrieval practice. We talk about what parents might see their children doing if their teachers or schools are encouraging these effective learning strategies. We also talk about ways parents can help their kids use these effective learning strategies.
In this episode for students, we briefly recap how students can use spacing and retrieval practice. Then, we shift into explaining how students might use other effective study strategies, interleaving, elaboration, dual coding, and concrete examples, to make study sessions more effective and efficient.
In this episode for students, we explain how to use spacing and retrieval practice to make study sessions more effective and efficient.
This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Yana Weinstein talks about dual coding vs. learning styles. You don't have to be a "visual learner" to benefit from the combination of visuals and words! (In fact, there's no such thing as a "visual learner".)
In this episode, we talk about the last strategy, dual coding. We talk about ways teachers and students can utilize dual coding, and distinguish this from learning styles.
This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Megan Sumeracki talks about the need for providing multiple concrete examples to facilitate students' ability to transfer the underlying idea to new problems.
In this episode, we introduce Concrete Examples. Most teachers probably use concrete examples, but in this episode we talk about why it is important to use more than one!
This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Yana Weinstein talks about interleaving while trying to learn to categorize, such as paintings by different painters or chemical categories such as alcohol.
In this episode, we introduce the concept of interleaving. We explain when it works, why it works, and open questions.
In this bite-size research episode, Megan Sumeracki talks about a research study where 6th and 7th grade students used elaborative interrogation independently and with a partner. Elaborative interrogation improved learning compared to reading and students picking their own learning strategy. The effects were durable, and students who used elaborative interrogation still knew more than other groups 60 days later.
In this podcast, we discuss elaboration, specifically elaborative interrogation. We also talk about how teachers might implement elaborative interrogation in the classroom, and some things to watch out for when students are using this strategy.
In this bite-size research episode, Yana Weinstein talks about the learning benefits of combining spaced practice and retrieval practice. Assessment of both fact learning and application of knowledge is discussed.
In this podcast, we discuss what spaced practice is and how to utilize it to promote learning. We share some ways teachers can help students use spaced practice on their own, and ways for teachers to integrate spacing into their own teaching. Finally, we share some personal stories about spacing out learning or cramming before important events.
In this bite-size research episode, Megan Sumeracki discusses research comparing short-answer, multiple-choice, and hybrid quiz formats. She addresses the question, do some formats produce more learning than others?
In this podcast, we discuss what retrieval practice is and how it benefits learning. We also talk about ways to implement retrieval-based learning activities in the classroom and for independent studying.
In this episode, the two of us – Dr. Yana Weinstein (UMass Lowell) and Dr. Megan Sumeracki (formerly Megan Smith; Rhode Island College) – introduce ourselves and tell you a bit about our backgrounds, how we came to start the Learning Scientists project, and what we’ll be talking about on this podcast.