We all use it in our classrooms at some point. Group work. Sometimes, because it is expected, sometimes because it is practical, and sometimes because collaboration itself can be an important learning goal in education. And it can help with critical thinking, too. Yet it remains an approach where you never seem completely sure of… Read More Group work does not work by itself. Who you put together matters
Warning: this is a blog post featuring Epstein and quite a few well-known scientists and universities. I’m not writing this as a trigger warning as such, but you might come across names, past and present, that are uncomfortable to read. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. In recent years, there have been multiple scandals in… Read More Not just bad apples: what the Epstein case reveals about academia
During the COVID pandemic, the advice was strikingly consistent: keep moving. Go for a walk, go for a run, stay active for your mental health. That advice did not come out of nowhere. It was already grounded in research at the time. And we know physical exercise has many benefits. But now we know more… Read More Meta-meta-analysis: Exercise helps mental health. But not always in the same way
You have probably heard it before: sleep on it, and suddenly everything will fall into place. It is the idea that dreams can be a source of insight and help you solve problems. Or at least that a good night’s sleep can. A recent study by Konkoly and colleagues tries to capture that idea experimentally.… Read More Dreaming of solutions? What a clever study actually shows (and what it does not)
It is an idea that keeps returning in how we think about education. Something that has been around for centuries. I tend to associate it strongly with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. If we just shift far enough from explanation to discovery, from directing to guiding, things will fall into place. More active learning is better learning. It… Read More Who Benefits from Which Instruction? What a New Study Says About SES and Teaching Approaches
Besides the well-being of pupils and students, we also, fortunately, sometimes talk about the well-being of teachers. Often, implicitly, we link this to a promise. If teachers feel better, better learning outcomes and more well-being among pupils will follow automatically. But this blog is almost always about this question: what do we actually know about… Read More Teacher and student wellbeing. A logical story, complex evidence
This is a true little gem. For people who know, they will see the joke inside the joke. Found this cartoon here. Check here for more Funny on Sunday.
Ah, the replication crisis. One of my favourite topics. And yes, here is another example. This one involves beer. In 1995, a study appeared that was almost too good not to cite. It looked at waiters and bartenders at Oktoberfest, who were said to perform worse on a simple physics task than people without experience… Read More Even Oktoberfest is not immune to the replication crisis
The digital divide – and its effect on reading – is often framed as a question of access. Those with fewer resources have fewer devices and less bandwidth. Those with more resources have more technology. It sounds simple. Too simple. And it ignores a common mistake in how we think about inequality called Gap Thinking.… Read More The digital divide is often not where we think it is
Recently, an unusually large systematic review of language learning and communication strategies was published, written by Javad Belali and Reza Khany. The authors analysed more than 400 studies, spanning roughly 50 years of research on second and foreign language acquisition. Their central question was straightforward: which strategies genuinely help learners improve their proficiency, and under… Read More Metacognition works in language learning, but what does that say about education research?