pupils today can change the way they study to exploit the brain’s quirky learning processes, using the strategies revealed by memory and learning research
Students need to understand that learning happens not only during reading and studying, but in all sorts of ways, so that they can examine their own habits to know which ones may be helping or not, and make adjustments
when the brain has to work hard to retrieve a half-forgotten memory (such as when reviewing new vocabulary words you learned the day before), it re-doubles the strength of that memory.
The brain is a foraging learner.
The human brain evolved to pick up valuable pieces of information here and there, on the fly, all the time, and put it all together
and it’s not only during study or practice
By foraging in this way, the brain is “building knowledge continually
We can be tactical in our schooling.
Breaking up and spacing out study time over days or weeks can substantially boost how much of the material students retain, and for longer, compared to lumping everything into a single, nose-to-the-grindstone session.
Varying the studying environment
can help reinforce and sharpen the memory of what you learn.
A 15-minute break to go for a walk or trawl on social media isn’t necessarily wasteful procrastination. Distractions and interruptions can allow for mental “incubation” and flashes of insight — but only if you’ve been working at a problem for a while and get stuck, according to a 2009 research meta-analysis.
Quizzing oneself on new material, such as by reciting it aloud from memory or trying to tell a friend about it, is a far more powerful way to master information than just re-reading it
Experimenting With Learning Tactics
benefits of sleep (which improves retention and comprehension of what you learn), perceptual learning modules and mixing up different kinds of related problems or skills in practice sessions instead of repetitively rehearsing just one skill at a time.
teachers see all sorts of reforms come and go, and they’re skeptical
Chen sums up an interview about Benedict Carey's book, How We Learn: The Surprising Truth about When, Where, and Why It Happens, highlighting and exemplifying take-away messages for self-directed learners as well as teachers.
Gamification has
been shown to relieve stress and clear the brain of distractions.
“If you play Angry
Birds or some other game on your mobile or laptop, you are not thinking
about what you are making tonight for dinner. You are thinking about what is
going on in the game,” she says.
incorporate learning in that
experience, it causes a hyper focus on the key learning point.”
Some in the field of brain science are finding that multitasking is actually detrimental to task-quality. In other words, each additional task you undertake decreases the quality of your focus on all tasks exponentially and therefore decreases each resultant product. Hyperfocus for limited periods may be much more inline with the way the brain wants to work.
on a psychological level, losses can be
twice as powerful as gains
Individuals will keep playing
relieves cognitive overload
forges an emotional connection
individuals would rather avoid losses than acquire
equivalent gains.
an individual would prefer to not lose $5, as opposed to finding $5.
Users who earn or receive awards as a result of gamification do
not want to lose them and, thus, will continue playing in order to retain them.
Like sonic the hedgehog losing rings? I like it. On the other hand, what about the evil of our day: microtransactions? Where does that come into play and what are the risks of abuse by designers of gamification in education?
allowing students to pursue their interests in the context of the curriculum
Teachers must be colearners with kids, expert at asking great, open-ended
questions and modeling the learning process required to answer those questions.
Teachers should be master learners in the classroom
developing the skills and dispositions necessary for them to learn whatever they
need to learn whenever they need to learn it? That means rethinking classrooms
to focus on individual passions, inquiry, creation, sharing, patient problem
solving, and innovation
start with the questions that focus on our students
Instead of helping our students become "college ready," we might be better off
making them "learning ready," prepared for any opportunity that might present
itself down the road
With access, and with a full set of skills and literacies to use this access
well, we now have the power to create our own education in any number of ways
manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
Some, like Stanford professor Howard Rheingold, believe that technology now
requires an attention literacy—the ability to exert some degree of mental
control over our use of technology rather than simply being distracted by it—for
users to be productive. Professor Henry Jenkins at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) advocates for transmedia literacy, which
includes networking and performance skills that take advantage of this
connected, audience-rich moment.
it's about addressing the new needs of modern learners in entirely new ways. And
once we understand that it's about learning, our questions reframe
themselves in terms of the ecological shifts we need to make: What do we mean by
learning? What does it mean to be literate in a networked, connected world? What
does it mean to be educated? What do students need to know and be able to do to
be successful in their futures? Educators must lead inclusive conversations in
their communities around such questions to better inform decisions about
technology and change
Right now, we should be asking ourselves not just how to do school better, but
how to do it decidedly differently
Learning is now truly participatory in real-world contexts. The transformation
occurs in that participation, that connection with other learners outside school
walls with whom we can converse, create, and publish authentic, meaningful,
beautiful work
what do we do as schools become just one of many places in both the real and
virtual world where our students can get an education?
Welcome to what portends to be the messiest, most upheaval-filled 10 years in
education that any of us has ever seen. Resistance, as they say, is futile
"Putting technology first-simply adding a layer of expensive tools on top of the traditional curriculum-does nothing to address the new needs of modern learners."