Season 5

The routines, rewards, and incentives we use in the classroom can help students build productive habits they use throughout their lives. We read about a series of studies that found how rewarding cognitive effort can lead to greater intrinsic motivation for participants… even after the rewards. We think about how this could apply in classrooms…. Read More »

Retrieval practice has a ton of research support, but we’re still figuring out the when and how of its effective use in instruction. We read a series of studies comparing the impacts of post-testing and pre-testing on measures of learning, with the results showing tremendous power in pre-tests. Later, we read a study showing how… Read More »

Technology has taken a prominent position in many schools as we have taught these past few years, yet we need to look at who is using what technological tools… and why? We read how technology manifests and reproduces categorical inequalities in education, with some lessons on how to disrupt those means of sorting students. Later,… Read More »

Universal Design for Learning is an exciting framework to improve accessibility of instruction. However, Dr. Guy Boysen joins us to discuss his critiques of the existing research to support UDL and how future work could improve confidence among scholars. Later, Lali DeRosier returns to the show to share a paper on science discourse in urban… Read More »

All learning is brain-based, which means taking care of our brain is part of a good education. We read a scoping review to look at some examples of how healthy habits can impact learning, motivation, and mental wellness. Later, we read a study that compared the efficacy of student argumentation when approached collaboratively or adversarially…. Read More »

Students need feedback on their work in order to improve, but what is the impact of different approaches to giving that feedback? We read a study of how students perceive the feedback they get, and how it impacts their motivation and vitality. We see the applications for helping students boost their sense of competency. Later,… Read More »

State standards set the expectations for what teachers teach in the classroom, but we should continue to examine who is represented in those standards… and who is erased? We read a study of state civics standards to analyze where Indigenous nations are represented. We learned from these examples to see how to explicitly include Indigenous… Read More »

Starting another school year with pandemic concerns rising again, it’s important to address student mental wellness as a classroom goal. We read a national survey that asked students how they feel about school, both at the moment and as they remember it. The results give us concrete opportunities to support student wellness this fall. Later,… Read More »