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Lecturing
As methods of teaching go, lectures are the most widely used (89%) method of teaching in higher education today. The reaction of most teachers who read this is one of extreme defensiveness. The evidence is overwhelming about the effectiveness of lecturing and the visceral reaction of most people who lecture causes me…
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Downfall of Science
One of the real challenges I face in trying to convince people that there are better ways to approach education is an attitude towards evidence that I don’t understand. I was talking to one educator about the evidence from psychology about how to motivate students to engage in their academic studies. Her…
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Reading and Learning
The importance of reading in education can’t be overstated, and yet we know that reading is in decline for all levels of education across most subjects. Reading, like most activities, is influenced largely by peers. The social acceptability of any activity is defined by others within a peer group. Among adolescents, females…
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Learning
Learning is at the heart of education, or should be. Over the years, as someone who has engaged in The Science of Learning and how that can be applied to formal learning settings, I have spoken at conferences, given numerous workshops and seminars, and worked to support teachers who were in need of help.…
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Alternatives to Conformity
Is there an alternative to conformity in a system of mass education? This is a big question. Certainly not under the current mindset. Before something can be done about conformity, it needs to be recognized as a problem. First, we have to believe that there is a solution and that we can…
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The Immense Cost of Conformity
This article is the most difficult Science of Learning article that I will write. Considering the cost of conformity at an individual and societal level. The cost of conformity at a societal level is high, but the cost borne by an individual is even higher. I informally surveyed some clinical psychologists to…
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Conformity in the Classroom
How has conformity become the norm in education, and what methods are used to foster absolute conformity? Where do we start? As I have mentioned previously, it is generally well accepted that education today owes its roots, at least in part, to Prussian military developments in the C17/C18 and the efficiency gains…
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Conformity
Creativity and conformity are polar opposites in learning. If you are conforming, you are not creating, and if you are being creative, you are not conforming. Education is all about conformity. Even the parts that are about creativity (visual arts, performing arts etc) are constrained and learners are taught to conform to…
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Subjective Judgments of Learning
Subjective judgments about learning are somewhat problematic. One of the aspects of metacognition (a future article) is the ability to assess your own learning. Metacognitive abilities are difficult to develop, and it is unusual to find students with highly developed metacognitive skills. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that people consistently overestimate what…
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Organization Effect – Desirable Difficulties
The organization effect is the desirable difficulty that asks about who does the organization of the material. Teaching today usually has the teacher doing the reading for the students, organizing the material into nice little bullet-points, reading the bullet-points to the students, and finally, handing the bullet-points out to the students in…
