{"id":5518,"date":"2020-03-08T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2020-03-08T13:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=5518"},"modified":"2020-03-08T10:09:18","modified_gmt":"2020-03-08T15:09:18","slug":"the-big-six-a-grand-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/the-big-six-a-grand-summary\/","title":{"rendered":"The Big Six: A Grand Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much of the time, this blog digs into a specific<\/em> example of a specific teaching practice<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Within the last two weeks, I’ve written about spacing and interleaving<\/a> in math instruction, a “big challenging book” strategy for struggling readers<\/a>, and the potential benefits of cold calling<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At times, however, it’s helpful to zoom the camera back and look at THE BIG PICTURE.<\/p>\n

What does cognitive science tell us about learning?<\/p>\n

Today’s Grand Summary<\/h2>\n

Regular readers know that The Learning Scientists<\/a> do a GREAT job explaining…well…the science of learning.<\/p>\n

In particular, they focus on “six strategies of effective learning”:<\/p>\n

Spacing<\/p>\n

Interleaving<\/p>\n

Retrieval Practice<\/p>\n

Concrete Examples<\/p>\n

Elaboration<\/p>\n

Dual Coding<\/p>\n

In a recent post<\/a>, Dr. Megan Sumeracki does a typically helpful job giving a thoughtful overview of those strategies. Rather than summarize her summary, I’m encouraging you to give her post a quick read. It will help put the pieces together for you.<\/p>\n

Wise Caveats<\/h2>\n

Sumeracki introduces her summary with this helpful note:<\/p>\n

Before digging into the specifics of each strategy, it is important to note that they are very flexible. This is a good thing, in that it means they can be used in a lot of different situations.<\/p>\n

However, this also means that there really isn\u2019t a specific prescription we can provide that will \u201calways work.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead, understanding the strategies<\/strong> and how they work can help instructors and students. [Emphasis added.]<\/blockquote>\n

In other words — as you often read on this blog — “don’t just do this thing<\/em>; instead, think this way<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Cognitive science really cannot provide a script for teachers to read verbatim. Instead, it offers principles that we must adapt to our own specific classrooms and students.<\/p>\n

So, if you increase spacing and retrieval practice, your students will — almost certainly — remember more over the long term. But:\u00a0exactly how to do that<\/em> will differ from classroom to classroom, grade to grade, culture to culture.<\/p>\n

In other words: teachers should draw on scientific understanding of minds and brains to shape our work. But: teaching itself isn’t a science. It’s a craft, a passion, a profession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You’d like a handy summary of cognitive science principles relevant to teaching? Read on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,120],"class_list":["post-5518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-classroom-advice","tag-cognitive-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5518"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5523,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5518\/revisions\/5523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}