Using the Spacing Effect to Boost Retention and Understanding — Procrastination, it seems, is human nature. We tell ourselves there’s always tomorrow. That is, until the day before an exam. Then, typically, there’s a frantic attempt to cram as much information as possible into a single study session. …

I don’t remember much from my early childhood, but I’ll never forget the night my mom, with tears in her eyes, woke me up to tell me my dad was gone. He was 29. My mom was widowed with three children the day before her 29th birthday. I was eight. …

You’re teaching a concept in class, working through examples and explaining the steps. You have your students do some practice problems and they seem to be getting it! After a while, the bell rings, you dismiss your class, and you leave for home feeling satisfied with your students’ progress and…

The Science of Learning Can Help — Consider these statistics: 40%-60% — that’s the percentage range of first-year college students who require remedial classes in English, math, or both;¹ 57% percent — that’s the percentage of students who graduate after starting college;² 38th and 24th — those are the rankings held by our high-schoolers in math and…

After doing poorly on one of my exams, a student of mine met with me and proclaimed, “I’m a kinesthetic learner, so it’s hard for me to do well in classes that are lecture-based. I learn best when things are hands-on.” This illustrates an idea that we’ve all heard before…

Testing has become a bad word in our society, largely because our educational system places a strong emphasis on high-stakes assessments and standardized evaluations. For many students — perhaps even for most students — getting high test scores is their primary goal in school. And who could blame them? Getting…

Knowing how to facilitate durable and flexible learning has never been more important than it is today. Our complex, hyper-competitive, and rapidly changing world requires that we obtain or transmit new skills and knowledge as efficiently and effectively as possible, not only during our years of formal education, but across…

Let’s face it: We want things to be easy. Like rivers that flow around mountains instead of going through them, we usually seek the path of least resistance in our lives. We choose the escalator over the stairs and the movie over the book. But it’s clear that easier isn’t…