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Self explanation
Self-explanation is the technique of explaining to another person (or yourself) what you are doing whilst you work and why e.g. precisely detailing why you are times the numerator by 7 and the denominator by 2 or what happens in a synapse when it fires to transfer a signal from one neuron to the next. This can…
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Rereading
Rereading is another student favourite. This involves simply repeatedly reading a text in order to remember the information. It is the most reported learning technique employed by students (Carrier, 2003; Kornell & Bjork, 2007), but is it actually useful for learning and comprehension? Rereading is hypothesised to be effective because it improves the reader’s understanding…
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Highlighting
Highlighting is one of the most popular learning techniques practiced by students (just look at a second-hand textbook and chances are it will be filled with highlighted or underlined text). It’s easy to see why; it requires almost no effort (beyond reading the text itself) and it makes one feel like you are actively learning…
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A series on… Learning techniques
I’m going to write a series on various learning techniques where I will present the evidence for their efficacy and judge how useful they are for students. The first post will be on active retrieval. (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i[‘GoogleAnalyticsObject’]=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,’script’,’//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js’,’ga’); ga(‘create’, ‘UA-63654510-1’, ‘auto’); ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’);
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Overcoming stereotype threat
Stereotype threat is the experience of anxiety when you could potentially confirm a negative stereotype about your social group e.g. women are inferior to men at maths, black people are less intelligent than white people. Steele (1997) found that negative stereotypes can negatively impact a person’s ability on specific tests (if they belong to the…
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Learning styles
The idea of learning styles is that people have a preference for which mode information is presented in and that they learn better when the information is presented in this modality. There have been a huge number of different types but I’m going to focus on VAK (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic) as it’s the most…
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The seductive allure of neuroscience scans
An article by Farah & Hook (2013) examined the much discussed idea that attaching fMRI scans to an article (even if they are unrelated or totally meaningless) makes said article appear more “scientific” and that they “overwhelm critical consideration” (Uttal, 2011). This is obviously not a good thing, as it could lend undue credibility to “bad science”. The…
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Myths about the brain no. 7: You can train your brain via games to increase overall intelligence
This is another huge money-making industry based on dubious science. You will probably have seen them advertised (“Luminosity” on various YouTube videos is the one that springs to mind for me) or have at least heard about them. They are generally based on the principle that improving your ability to complete various tasks (usually basic…
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Myths about the brain no. 6: Listening to Mozart will make you smarter.
The idea of increasing your IQ by doing the simple act of listening to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has been around since the 1950’s and has grown into a full blow industry, with endless books, CD’s and DVD’s. Despite it being highly lucrative and popular, there’s absolutely no evidence to suggest it is…
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Myths about the brain no. 5: Drug use creates holes in the brain
This article isn’t looking at what effects different drugs have on the brain (though I’ll discuss that in another article as it’s a controversial topic) but about the myth that any form of drug use will create physical holes in your brain. Different drugs have different effects (obviously…) and abusing them can cause serious damage…
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