by Laura Maniglia | Dec 16, 2021 | academic standing, active learning, attention & focus, cognitive skills, instruction, learning, public schools, reading, student engagement, study skills
Practice tests enhance learning. “Pretesting involves taking tests before to-be-learned information is studied, whereas post-testing involves taking tests after information is studied.” What are the benefits of each? Should instructors test students before they are...
by Laura Maniglia | Nov 29, 2021 | academic standing, active learning, attention & focus, cognitive skills, homework, instruction, learning, reading, student engagement, students, study skills, teacher effectiveness
Homework has been the subject of debate since the nineteenth century. Attitudes about homework undergo changes every few decades, depending on the current trends in society. Perspectives range from homework causing undue stress (1930’s, ‘60’s, 2000’s) to...
by Laura Maniglia | Nov 18, 2021 | academic standing, attention & focus, classroom management, cognitive skills, instruction, learning, public schools, student engagement, students, study skills, teacher effectiveness, teacher training, teachers
Ability grouping/selection is generally well accepted in our society. Imagine the rigorous selection process for professional athletes. Or consider admission to an elite University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example has an acceptance rate of only...
by Laura Maniglia | Oct 19, 2021 | academic standing, instruction, learning, math, NAEP, PISA, reading, teacher effectiveness, teachers
The nation’s report card, NAEP, recently released a study showing the performance of students over the last 50 years, and the results are disheartening. The test was designed “to improve the effectiveness of our Nation’s schools by making objective information about...
by Laura Maniglia | Oct 2, 2021 | academic standing, attention & focus, cognitive skills, instruction, metacognition, mindset, non-cognitive skills, reading, student engagement, study skills
Metacognition is thinking about thinking, but it also encompasses the “regulation of these thoughts – the ability to change them.” It includes the processes to plan, monitor, and assess understanding and performance. Flavell first identified the term in 1979, and...
by Laura Maniglia | Sep 17, 2021 | active learning, attention & focus, cognitive skills, instruction, learning
In addition to interleaving and retrieval, an effective learning strategy is spaced practice. The opposite of cramming, spaced practice requires revisiting material over time. As early as the 1890’s a German psychologist described the “forgetting curve” and...
by Laura Maniglia | Sep 10, 2021 | active learning, attention & focus, cognitive skills, learning, reading, student engagement, study skills
Cognitive scientists have been researching what works best to assist long term memory. They have identified several strategies: retrieval, spaced practice, and interleaving. The active reading strategy known as SQ3R provides a strategy for reading and learning. This...
by Laura Maniglia | Aug 26, 2021 | classroom management, enrollment, instruction, learning, public schools, student engagement, students, teacher effectiveness
American schools typically organize students by age, However, with the pandemic, more students were learning from home. So emphasis shifted by necessity to more personalized learning. Under normal conditions, pupils generally travel from grade to grade with the same...
by Laura Maniglia | Aug 16, 2021 | attention & focus, goal setting, non-cognitive skills, student engagement, study skills
Research shows that procrastination causes stress, and the longer someone avoids work, the higher the stress level. While most people procrastinate occasionally, about 25% of adults identify themselves as habitual procrastinators and more than 80% of college students...
by Laura Maniglia | Aug 11, 2021 | academic standing, attention & focus, cognitive skills, enrollment, instruction, learning, parents, public schools, student engagement, students, study skills, teachers
Learning loss is not a new phenomenon; it refers to gaps that occur after an extended absence from school like months’-long summer vacations, typically known as the “summer slide.” However, the pandemic has exacerbated the problem due to significant school closures...
