Tag Archives: cognitive psychology

TMM 4: Retrieval Practice (the Testing Effect)

March 22, 2021

You prepare a great lesson and class goes well, but the following week the students seem to have forgotten all that they learned. What’s happening? Perhaps they’re missing the opportunity to practice retrieving information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj0XReikuvY

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj0XReikuvY 

Please add your own ideas for retrieval practice to the Open Space doc.

Items Referenced in This Video: 

  • Song: “Sonnymoon for Two” by Sonny Rollins
  • Book: Small Teaching by James Lang
    • The Brian Rogerson study mentioned in the video is found in Ch. 1 of this book
    • There is a follow-up book called Small Teaching Online co-authored with Flower Darby. Also worth reading. 
  • Ideas: 
    • If you use Blackboard learning modules, add ungraded questions at the beginning, middle, or end of a module. 
    • Your “training” should match the end goal – if your course ends with a short answer-based exam, multiple choice questions will not be effective conditioning for the end goal. 
    • Prioritize time for review at the end of each class meeting and again at the beginning of the next session (if you teach asynchronously, work this into lesson content posted online). 
    • If you hide Easter eggs in your course, consider using Google forms to create a retrieval practice exercise for students to “find” an egg. 
    • Online quiz games: Kahoot! (better for synchronous, real-time quiz games) or Quizizz (good for asynchronous quiz games). 

Questions to reflect on:

Which story in the video resonated with you? 

With that story in mind, how can you incorporate retrieval practice into your teaching? 

TMM 5: Chunking/Video Presentation

April 5, 2021

“Chunking” is a term coined by psychologist George Miller to describe our short-term memory’s ability to hold and process information. This video provides an introduction.

Video: https://youtu.be/jQQVTBVgO6s

Please add your own ideas for chunking and/or video presentation to the Open Space doc.

Referenced in This Video: 

  • Miller, G. A. (1994). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 101(2), 343–352. 
  • Studies suggest our short-term memory can hold an average of four chunks of information at once. 
    • Rouder, J. N., Morey, R. D., Cowan, N., Zwilling, C. E., Morey, C. C., & Pratte, M. S. (2008). An assessment of fixed-capacity models of visual working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(16), 5975-5979.

Ideas for video presentations: 

  • Include a rundown of topics at the start of the video
    • Add timestamps in the video description if possible
  • In addition to chunking your topics, consider chunking the video itself: 
    • Add digital transitions if you know how (if you have a Mac, iMovie makes this easy)
    • Break up the lecture-nature of the video with:
      • Stretch breaks
      • Hidden information
      • Scene changes
      • Moments where your face is not on screen
      • Audio/visual surprises/disruptions (change volume level or appearance, add a dramatic pause, emphasize words, task challenges, Easter eggs, etc.) 
  • Use hand gestures and facial expressions to make the visual aspect of your video more engaging
  • Shorter is better – if you have to make a long video, add disruptions.
  • Remember, you don’t need to fill all your class time with a video. Consider Open Educational Resources (pre-existing videos, podcasts, etc.), reflection questions, task challenges, discussion, etc.