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As we strive to make classrooms helpful for all our students, we often hear advice about adapting instruction for our introverts and extraverts. Odds are good you’ve gotten suggestions like these: You might even hear suggestions that go beyond the classroom’s social dynamics: This kind of advice feels intuitive. We don’t want to make our […]
Should our students teach their peers? The obvious answer to this question is: “yes, of course.” Experience shows that teaching leads to greater understanding for the person who did the teaching. After all, when I figure out how to explain “tragedy” to my sophomores, I end up knowing more about tragedy than I did before. […]
As AI changes the education landscape moment by moment, we can expect a steady flow of studies offering us guidance about its use. We’re happy to have all that research, but it does come with a probable danger. Every month or so, we will likely hear that a study has DEFINITIVELY concluded Like Celine Dion’s […]
“Some people are just naturally good teachers.” I’ve heard some version of that sentence more times than I can count—in hallways, workshops, and conversations about colleagues everyone admires. It’s so familiar that it usually passes without question. And I understand the impulse: we’ve all known instructors who seem to command a classroom effortlessly, who make […]
Two studies have stirred up lots of controversy in recent weeks. Although these studies focus on different topics, they follow a roughly similar pattern: I will start by summarizing the studies, then shift focus to the right way to respond to them. My ultimate argument: “when you start to feel defensive, get curious.” Do Cell […]
If you’ve got a headache, you might find yourself reaching for some ibuprofen. If you just sprained your ankle, or your arthritis is acting up, ibuprofen can make your day much better. But: these truths do NOT mean that ibuprofen fixes pain. After all, nerve pain — such as sciatica, neuropathy, or neuralgia — doesn’t […]
Given the time constraints that all teachers face, what are the most effective strategies to help our students with reading comprehension? Should we focus on particular reading strategies: say — finding the main idea of a passage, predicting what will come next, visualizing the scene? Or do we serve students better by building overall historical, […]
Almost any teacher will say: “in our school, we want students to become critical thinkers.” Once we embrace that praiseworthy goal, we’ve got some questions to ask. How, exactly, do we help students think critically? Or, here’s a bigger question: Can we do that? Is critical thinking a skill that can be taught? This debate […]
If you’ve been to a Learning and the Brain conference in the last 26 years, you’ve heard at least one speaker talk about the importance of working memory. Your working memory – typically abbreviated WM – allows your mind to hold a few bits of information and then reorganize and combine them into something new. […]
Motivation is one of the holy grails of education, fitness, work, and productivity. Students of education know that nearly everything depends on this essential driving force of learning. Teachers constantly struggle to cultivate motivation in their students, while many of us notice perceived shortcomings in ourselves and others whenever willpower seems to falter, often to […]