Teachers focus on developing students’ conscious learning and understanding of concepts, but there is a whole other dimension of mental life that teachers also influence: implicit thought and memory. Psychologists distinguish between explicit and implicit mental processes.[1] We are consciously aware of explicit processes, as
I’ve taught a course in statistics for psychological research for almost 40 years. No student becomes a psych major because they get to take statistics, but it is a commonly required course for the major because it is fundamental to understanding and conducting research. Taking
I teach a lot of 100-level courses—the kind all students need to take from multiple disciplines to satisfy general education requirements. Often these courses are full of college first-years, but I’ve discovered that, whatever year they are, students harbor deep misconceptions about how learning works.
What is the best way for teachers to develop student expertise in a subject area? Currently, there are two competing schools of thought. One school, which I will refer to as inquiry-based instruction, believes that pedagogy should prioritize teaching conceptual understanding using complex problems so
In a world of deepfakes, it’s not uncommon to see videos of famous celebrities saying or doing things that the real celebrity did not say or do. Stories also abound of individuals turning to AI companions for support, company, and even raunchy love affairs (Hill,
What percentage of numbers contain the digit 3? You might guess 10 percent, but in reality, almost all numbers contain the it. If you want to know why, you’ll need to watch this excellent Numberphile video for an explanation.
Active learning is a mostly meaningless educational buzzword. It’s a feel-good, intuitively popular term that indicates concern for student learning and success, but at some point we must admit that it lacks any useful definition and is holding back progress on teaching.
Exit tickets are simple diagnostic assessments given to students at the end of a class. The “ticket” in the name refers to the fact that students originally needed to pass the assessment to get permission to leave, but now they are generally for instructors to
In one of the most memorable courtroom scenes in cinematic history, Tom Cruise is Lieutenant Junior Grade Kaffee questioning Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessup. Jessup asks, “You want answers?” to which Kaffee responds, “ I want the truth!” Jessup prefaces an impressive, passionately delivered monologue with
Physical training involves two fundamental phases: a stress phase, where muscles are exercised to fatigue, and a rest phase, where the body repairs the damage of the stress to become stronger. A common mistake among athletes is to forgo the rest phase by working out
