Centre for Educational Neuroscience | University College London Birkbeck University of London

Time 2020-09-10 13:04:49

Web Name: Centre for Educational Neuroscience | University College London Birkbeck University of London

WebSite: http://www.educationalneuroscience.org.uk

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Our colleagues at BrainCanDo have published an excellent new edited volume that provides teachers and school leaders with a concise summary of how some of the latest research in educational neuroscience and psychology can improve learning outcomes in secondary schools.Here s an excerpt from the Foreword, written by CEN Director, Michael Thomas, giving an overview of the book: What most sets this volume apart from others in the field is its focus on adolescence. It is noticeable how the educational neuroscience and psychological research taken to be of translational interest to education differs with the age of the child. For early years education, the interest is in basic sensori-motor skills, oral language development, behavioural regulation, and socio-emotional development – skills that contribute to school readiness. For primary school age, the focus shifts to core cognitive skills underlying academic abilities, such as numeracy, literacy and reasoning, the limits imposed by the development of skills of cognitive control, and more sophisticated socio-emotional skills involved in peer group formation and dynamics. Consider then, the topics considered in a volume aimed at secondary school: character development, gratitude, motivation, mindset, metacognition, regulation of sleep, extended musical training (Chapters 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11). The focus has shifted again, beyond core skills to children’s understanding of their own learning and their motivations to learn. The individual must learn where he or she needs to put in effort to achieve their goals, and indeed to decide what those goals are – who they are as individuals. (p.3) EARLI SIG 15 s August conference (10-12th) on “Intellectual difficulties and inclusion: Challenges (and solutions) for the future” has now moved online. You can find the exciting programme below.Special Interest Group (SIG) 15 is an international scientific research interest group within EARLI (European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction). SIG 15 brings together early career and established researchers and other stakeholders (e.g., practitioners, associations, charities), from across the globe, with an interest in the education and inclusion of individuals with special educational needs (SEN) of all ages.The main conference runs on Monday 10th and Tuesday 11th of August 2020. Confirmed keynotes include: Professor Maria Chiara Passolunghi and Professor Brahm Norwich.On Wednesday 12th of August, the conference hosts a workshop and discussion on Research and SEN: challenges and solutions for the future Registration is still open! To register please click here:https://onlinestore.ucl.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/ucl-institute-of-education-b14/ioe-dept-of-psychology-human-developement-j79/j79-earli-sig15-conference On the advice of the UK government, more and more people are wearing face coverings in order to reduce COVID-19 transmission. However, face coverings muffle the sounds of speech, and – if they are opaque, as the vast majority are – they make it impossible to read the wearer’s lips. They also make emotional expressions on the face harder to identify. Face coverings therefore reduce the auditory and visual cues that are necessary for successful spoken language communication.The likely impact on communication in noisy environments, for people who are not proficient English speakers, and for people who are deaf and hard of hearing is obvious. A further group likely to be impacted are children, whose language system is not yet fully developed and who are still on their way to gaining the sophisticated language knowledge that can be used to ‘fill in the blanks’ when something is not heard or understood.CEN member Prof. Chloë Marshall and her colleagues at UCL and the University of Cologne have a particular interest in the multimodality of communication, and they are studying how multimodal cues support young children’s spoken language learning*. When we speak we don’t just produce speech sounds, we communicate in other ways, too. We use our hands to point, to gesture the forms of the things we are talking about, and to add emphasis to something important. We use eye gaze to direct the attention of the person or people we are communicating with and to regulate conversational turn-taking. We modulate the pitch, tone and speed of our voice to emphasise certain meanings, and we use sound effects and onomatopeia.Chloë and her colleagues’ research is demonstrating that these cues play an important role in supporting children’s language development and that they contribute to making communication with children successful. And yet, many parents, caregivers and teachers are unaware that they have this rich set of multimodal resources at their disposal.In order to help adults who communicate regularly with children to think about how to make their communication clearer while wearing a face covering, Chloë and her colleagues have produced a poster. The poster outlines some of the communicative challenges of wearing a face covering and some of the ways in which those challenges can be overcome using multimodal communication. It is free to download here and can be distributed electronically or printed out. Please do use it if you think it will be helpful!*Their project, titled The role of iconicity in word learning, is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. You can watch a short video presentation of this project here. The first volume to bring together the latest knowledge on educational neuroscience from a life-span perspective, this important text offers state of the art, authoritative research findings before providing evidence-based recommendations for classroom practice.Here s a sneak preview of the introduction  Educational Neuroscience: Why Is Neuroscience Relevant to Education? Receive a 20% discount when ordering from the Routledge.com website by using the code FLR40 at the checkout page! In making decisions around the timing of children’s return to school following the COVID-19 crisis, it is quite right that policymakers, educators, and parents prioritise evidence around health risks. However, balanced decision-making also requires considering the evidence regarding the impact of delaying children’s return to school on educational and psychosocial outcomes.Here we summarise some educational, psychological, and neuroscientific evidence regarding:risks that continued homeschooling will exaggerate the attainment gap between children from different socioeconomic groupslimits in the effectiveness of online learning when used on its ownthe greater social impact of a delayed return to school on adolescents, for whom contact with their peer group is particularly importantCOVID-19 and social inequalitiesSince the end of March, schools have been closed to all but the children of key workers and specific groups of vulnerable children. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting disproportionately more children from low socioeconomic backgrounds and children in difficultly more generally. The Sutton Trust has released several reports examining the impact of school closure on children, with an eye on its ultimate impact on their social mobility. We summarise the results of one of their key reports[i] focussing on school closures.The authors find that 23% of pupils are reported to be taking part in live and recorded lessons online every day. However, pupils from middle class homes are much more likely to do so (30%), compared to working class pupils (16%). The home learning environment is linked with academic outcomes[ii], but it is likely to play an even more critical role now. More than three quarters of parents with a postgraduate degree, and just over 60% of those with an undergraduate degree felt confident directing their child’s learning, compared to less than half of parents with A level or GCSE level qualifications. In the most deprived schools, 15% of teachers report that over a third of their students would not have adequate access to an electronic device for learning from home, compared to only 2% in the most affluent state schools. Inequalities in support are being reflected in the amount and quality of work received by teachers. Fifty percent of teachers in private schools report they are receiving more than three quarters of work back, compared with 27% in the most advantaged state schools, and just 8% in the least advantaged state schools. Teachers were asked for their preferred strategies to prevent some pupils from falling behind during the period of shutdown. Over half of secondary teachers cited the provision of tech devices. Another popular option was providing less well-off families with stationery and curriculum resource packs, which could help to alleviate the divide in digital access. Half of teachers also supported some form of staggered return to school, or summer ‘catch up classes’ for disadvantaged pupils, to give them a chance of restarting school on an equal footing.The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has also raised concerns. While the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their classmates at the end of primary school has narrowed over the past 10 years, the EEF suggest that  based on what we know about the impact of summer learning loss on disadvantaged pupils[iii], this gain will be reversed by the combination of economic hardship and school closures caused by Covid-19.The EEF is developing a response to this crisis based around the following two key principles: (1) Mitigation to limit the negative impact on disadvantaged pupils while schools are closed, and (2) Compensation to support disadvantaged pupils to bounce back when schools re-open.As part of the mitigation strategy, they have reviewed evidence on how to best support remote learning in pupils, and they have released a set of evidence-based resources to help parents with home schooling. When implementing strategies to support pupils’ remote learning, or supporting parents to do this, key things to consider include:Teaching quality is more important than how lessons are deliveredEnsuring access to technology is key, especially for disadvantaged pupilsPeer interactions can provide motivation and improve learning outcomesSupporting pupils to work independently can improve learning outcomesDifferent approaches to remote learning suit different types of content and pupilsHow effective is homeschooling?Parents have been pitched into a position where they are required to homeschool their children, with variable support from schools. Once more, this variation itself is likely to contribute to differences on what children gain from homeschooling. While the research is reasonably positive on the academic attainment produced by homeschooling in itself[iv] (despite some difficulties in evaluation given the self-selecting nature of the parents[v]), such research stems from families where the parents have chosen and are committed to homeschooling. It may not give an insight into the involuntary homeschool situation that parents find themselves in. For example, there will be variation in the opportunities and resources that parents can bring to homeschooling their children, depending on factors such as work commitments and caring responsibilities. Again, these risk exaggerating disparities between children’s educational outcomes.Online education for primary school children: How much online learning can children really do?Will technology be the saviour of children required to learn at home? The evidence from primary-age children at least is that online learning is limited in its effectiveness.Primary school children learn best when they remain in what is called their zone of proximal development – that is, when they complete tasks that are just within the boundaries of what they can achieve with the help from a more knowledgeable other. This more “knowledgeable other” can be a person (usually a parent or teacher) or can be a tool such as an app or computer technologies that can keep children motivated by adjusting the difficulty of the task at hand and providing feedback.During the past few years there has been an explosion of educational apps that have claimed to support preschool and primary school children’s learning, especially in relation to reading and mathematics. However, there is dearth of evidence what children age 6 to 12 can learn from apps[vi]. For example, a recent systematic review[vii] identified only 11 studies that have evaluated the use of computerised instructional programmes for children aged 4-11 years and found mixed results in terms of how much these programmes improved children’s mathematical outcomes. Similarly, for reading apps, the evidence demonstrates only small effects on children’s reading abilities[viii].There are many factors that impact on whether or not children learn from computerised programmes. It is not just the design features of the app[ix] that matter, but also parents’ engagement and involvement with their children while they play[x]. The evidence suggests that educational apps are not very successful in replacing teachers without parental support.Another tool that has been suggested to aid children’s homeschooling during Covid-19 is intelligent tutoring systems. This term covers a variety of computerised technologies that provide immediate and customised instruction and feedback, to provide high quality education without the need of a teacher or parent. Once more, evidence on how successful these are in improving children’s learning is mixed. A meta-analysis on K–12 mathematics learning[xi] concluded that intelligent tutoring systems have small or no effect on learning in these grades; and that these tools may even cause negative effects to students who were classified as lower achievers. Although a more recent meta-analysis in 2016[xii] showed more positive outcomes, the effects for younger primary-school children were small compared to older secondary school children, suggesting technology may be more effective for older children.The potential impact on teenagersThe social distancing measures implemented by the UK and other countries in response to Covid-19 have reduced the opportunity for social interactions for individual of all ages.However, social deprivation will likely affect children, adolescents, young adults and older adults in different ways. A recent preprint[xiii] argues that adolescents may be particularly susceptible to social deprivation and that this should be taken into account when considering which social distancing measures, such as school closures, to maintain or modify.The start of adolescence marks a shift in the relative importance of parents and peers. Developmental changes in specific neural circuits lead to increased motivation towards social integration[xiv]. While there is little research on the effect of social deprivation during adolescence in humans, animal models give some insight into the neural mechanisms.For example, studies in rodents, which are social animals, indicate that social deprivation during a phase equivalent to adolescence has specific significant short-term and long-term consequences on behaviour and neural functioning, in particular affecting the dopamine system[xv]. Notably, a study has shown that rats deprived of social interactions with peers by being reared just with an adult animal – which approximates the situation for many adolescents staying home with their parents during school closure – also showed neural changes[xvi].However, teenagers are not completely isolated and continue to interact with each other through social media. The extent to which social media use can compensate for the lack of face-to-face interactions is unknown, and is likely to be dependent on individual differences, access to digital resources, and the strength of peer groups before social distancing measures were put in place.Overall, the research suggests that beyond preparation for school exams and entry to university, governments deciding on the timings of school closures should consider the unique social developmental needs of adolescents.New research in unprecedented circumstancesIn some respects, previous research on educational impacts of school closures and homeschooling is limited because the current circumstances are unprecedented.Researchers are already carrying out new work to investigate the current situation. For example, research underway at UCL Institute of Education is specifically exploring how secondary school students are coping with pandemic since lockdown in March.Preliminary data show that schools across the country have been able to provide online resources promptly, but students are also reporting a lack of interaction with teachers and classmates that turns into a lack of motivation to study. Although there are individual differences, with some students who are actually enthusiastic about remote learning they can sleep more in the morning and avoid commuting – there is general consensus that college life and interaction with teachers and friends is irreplaceable.New work is also underway to better understand the impact of distance learning through technology, and parent-supported homeschooling, on mathematics learning for children aged 5-14 years. It investigates the home-learning in which parents and pupils are able to engage and supports the development of best practice initiatives for educators. (If you are interested in participating in a survey related to this work, please click here).Balanced decision-makingPerhaps longer term the Covid-19 crisis will provide pointers towards a future with a more flexible education provision, which combines the best of remote learning and face-to-face lessons in a more balanced and harmonious manner.But in the short term, we believe the potential risks of negative educational impacts should be weighed along with health risks in determining the immediate decisions about children’s return to school.CEN Management Committee1 June 2020[i] Cullinane, C. Montacute, R. (2020). Covid-19 and Social Mobility Impact Brief #1: School Shutdown. Report for the Sutton Trust (https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/covid-19-and-social-mobility-impact-brief/)[ii] National Children’s Bureau (2018) Home matters: making the most of the home learning environment https://www.ncb.org.uk/resources-publications/resources/home-matters-making-most-home-learning-environment[iii] Stewart, H., Watson, N., Campbell, M. (2018). The cost of school holidays for children from low income families. Childhood, 25(4), 516–529. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568218779130[iv] Rothermel, P. (2004). Home-education: Comparison of home- and school-educated children on PIPS baseline assessments. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 2(3), 273–299.[v] Carlson, J. F. (2020). Context and regulation of homeschooling: Issues, evidence, and assessment practices. School Psychology, 35(1), 10-19.[vi] Blumberg, F.C., Deater‐Deckard, K., Calvert, S.L., Flynn, R.M., Green, C.S., Arnold, D. Brooks, P.J. (2019). Digital Games as a Context for Children s Cognitive Development: Research Recommendations and Policy Considerations. Social Policy Report, 32, 1-33. doi:10.1002/sop2.3[vii] Simms, V., McKeaveney, C., Sloan, S., Gilmore, C. (2019). Interventions to improve mathematical achievement in primary school-aged children. England, UK: Nuffield Foundation.[viii] Verhoeven, L., Voeten, M., van Setten. E., Segers, E. (2020). Computer-supported early literacy intervention effects in preschool T and kindergarten: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 30, 100325.[ix] Hirsh-Pasek, K., Zosh, J. M., Golinkoff, R. M., Gray, J. H., Robb, M. B., Kaufman, J. (2015). Putting Education in “Educational” Apps: Lessons From the Science of Learning. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 16(1), 3–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100615569721[x] Griffith, S. F., Arnold, D. H. (2018). Home learning in the new mobile age: Parent‐child interactions during joint play with educational apps. Journal of Children and Media, 13, 1–19.[xi] Steenbergen-Hu, S., Cooper, H. (2013). A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of intelligent tutoring systems on K–12 students’ mathematical learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105(4), 970–987[xii] Kulik, J. A., Fletcher, J. D. (2016). Effectiveness of Intelligent Tutoring Systems: A Meta-Analytic Review. Review of Educational Research, 86(1), 42–78. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654315581420[xiii] Orben, A., Tomova, L., Blakemore, S. (2020, April 20). The effects of social deprivation on adolescent social development and mental health. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/7afmd[xiv] Nelson, E. E., Jarcho, J. M., Guyer, A. E. (2016) Social re-orientation and brain development: An expanded and updated view. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 17, 118–127.[xv] Hall, F. S. (1998) Social deprivation of neonatal, adolescent, and adult rats has distinct neurochemical and behavioral consequences. Critical Reviews in Neurobiology, 12, 129–162.[xvi] Bell, H. C., Pellis, S. M., Kolb B. (2010). Juvenile peer play experience and the development of the orbitofrontal and medial prefrontal cortices. Behavioural Brain Research, 207, 7–13. Michael Thomas and Cathy Rogers discuss the potential contribution of the science of learning to the educational challenges presented by the COVID-19 crisis, in a new article appearing in Prospects (The UNESCO Comparative Journal of Curriculum, Learning, and Assessment).In the COVID-19 crisis, the science of learning has two different responsibilities:to offer guidance about how best to deal with the impact of the current situation, including lockdown and home-schooling;to consider bigger questions about what this large-scale educational experiment might mean for the future.The first part of this Viewpoint article summarises advice for parents on mental health, and on becoming stand-in-teachers.The second part, taking the longer view, considers the potential negative impact of the COVID-19 crisis in increasing inequality in education; but also the potential positive impact of driving innovations in technology use for educating children. Over the past three years, Dr. Alice Latimier (D.E.C, Ecole Normale Supérieure) has studied which learning practices best promote long-term memory retention. In this blog post, she tells us about her PhD project and her main findings. My supervisor Franck Ramus and I wanted to know which learning practices best promote long-term retention, based on the science of learning. A review of the literature indicated that commonly used learning strategies, such as reading, blocked studying (e.g. studying the same content in a given session instead of interleaving with other contents), and massed studying (e.g. having a long session instead of multiple, shorter ones that are spaced through time) are not necessarily the most efficient ones. Retrieval practice and spaced learning, although less frequently used (e.g., Dunlosky et al. 2013; Weinstein et al., 2018), have been shown to promote better long-term retention among a great variety of populations and pedagogical contents (Brown, Roediger McDaniel, 2014).We first focused on retrieval practice. Over the past decade, research in psychology has demonstrated that practicing retrieval methods is particularly efficient because it creates a testing effect (e.g., Roediger Karpicke, 2006): retrieving newly learned information from memory is an active process that consolidates information. It can be done via free recall (i.e. recovering as much information on a given topic as possible), cued recall (i.e. recovering information from memory via cues, often given by teachers), Multiple Choice Questions (i.e. either factual MCQ for definitions or inference-based MCQ), or flashcards (i.e. presenting one question on one side, the answer on the other). Whatever the format of the practice session, the learner should try to retrieve the information that has just been presented in the context of a new lecture (see for recent meta-analyses: Rowland, 2014; Adesope et al., 2017). My question of interest was ‘How can we optimize the benefits of retrieval practice when exposed to the content of a lecture?’.My project was lead in partnership with the start-up company Didask, which designed an “evidence-based” teaching platform. On this platform, each course consists of a set of modules organised in a logical order. A module is an elementary learning unit, including both learning material (text, videos, pictures) and a corresponding training quiz (e.g. multiple choice, pairwise matching, ordering, sorting into categories etc.), lasting in total between 5 and 15 min. To carry out our experiments, we used a modified version of Didask that allowed us to specify several learning conditions and to control the learning environment, in particular, the order in which the pedagogical content and the quiz were arranged with each other. We designed three experiments investigating the benefits of different placements and schedules of retrieval practice episodes on the long-term retention of new information.Experiment 1 – Retrieval practice is best used after, rather than before being exposed to a courseIn the first experiment, we studied whether students should use retrieval practice before or after a learning session (Latimier et al., 2019). Recent research found that taking a test even before being exposed to learning content enhances memory retention compared to having no retrieval practice at all. For the first time, our experiment directly compared the benefits of using quizzes for memory consolidation, before (Quiz-reading group) and after (Reading-quiz group) reading an online course, relative to an extended reading condition (Reading-reading group). We used material from a course on DNA. The retention of information was asssessed seven days after the learning session (composed of the reading only or reading and quizz components).Final performances revealed a significant advantage in memory retention for the Reading-quiz group over the Quiz-reading group and the Reading-reading group. The Quiz-reading group out-performed the Reading-reading group. This pertained to both trained and untrained information. Thus, using a retrieval practice after being exposed to new knowledge appears to bring both specific and general learning benefits. Overall, our results do not support the specific idea that a pre-test on the information of the subsequent text passage improves learning more than a post-test.Experiment 2 – The length of the retrieval practice episode does not impact its efficiencyThe second experiment went a step further and investigated the optimal lengths of both the learning units and the retrieval practice episodes. In other words: In how many chunks should the learning content be separated?. This question is less explored in the literature despite being very relevant to students and teachers. Our experiment demonstrated that the granularity of the learning contents is particularly of interest when learning with successive readings: short reading passages led to a better retention than longer readings. However, when learning with retrieval practice, granularity did not matter for long-term retention.Experiment 3 – Spaced retrieval practice is not better than crammed retrieval practice at short term examsFinally, the last experiment raised the question of the optimal schedule of repeated retrieval practice and reading. Indeed, decades of research in the science of learning demonstrated that inserting a time interval between the study sessions promotes better consolidation than massed practice, where learning the same piece of information in a repetitive fashion occurs without inter-study interval (i.e., spacing effect, Cepeda et al., 2006, Kang, 2016). In this experiment, we wanted to compare 4 learning strategies that mimicked the ones students would use to review a course before an exam: crammed re-reading, spaced re-reading, crammed retrieval practice, and spaced retrieval practice. The hypothesis was that combining both retrieval practice and spacing might enhance long term retention better than the other three strategies. Our main results provided a replication of the well-known testing effect (retrieval practice was better than just reading) but not of the spacing effect. Moreover, and contrary to our predictions, the combination of both learning strategies did not lead to significantly better retention compared to crammed retrieval practice. This result suggests that further research should focus on the parameters that promote a spacing effect (e.g., inter-study interval, retention interval, type of contents, learners’ characteristics…).  Overall, the results of my thesis provide a better understanding to how learners should use retrieval practice to aid memory retention, and suggest new research questions in optimizing learning.Practical implications for the learners and teachers Throughout my studies, it was particularly important to find a balance between (a) realism, using real life learning contents extracted from the French high school curriculum and from professional training, and (b) experimental rigor, by designing well-controlled and randomized set up as well as recruiting a large sample of adult participants with a great diversity of socio-demographic characteristics. By being realistic yet rigorous, it is possible to derive practical recommendations.My results suggest to try and implement retrieval practice, because it can be considered as a real learning tool to consolidate new knowledge as well as to promote knowledge transfer (Agarwal, Bain, Chamberlain, 2012). Concrete examples on how to implement retrieval practice can be found here. While being tested after the exposure to pedagogical resources is optimal to consolidate and assess what is understood and what is not, being tested before could be very useful for the teacher to assess prior knowledge, and for students to be introduced to new learning concepts.Digital learning tools seem very appropriate to integrate retrieval practice in the routine of the classroom. There is an amazing diversity of platforms for teachers and learners to develop formative assessment and self-testing (Plickers, Quizlet, Polleverywhere, SuperMemo, Google forms, Kahoot!). These digital tools do not replace the expertise of the teachers but help them to promote active learning. Furthermore, apart from the benefits on memory retention, retrieval practice promotes self-regulated learning by stimulating students’ metacognitive abilities. They can better estimate their feeling of knowing, to avoid the illusion of mastery and planning relevant reviewing activities (Littrell‐Baez, Friend, Caccamise, Okochi, 2015, Fernandez Jamet, 2017). It also fosters motivation and attentional focus on complex and lengthy contents. It should be mentioned that retrieval practice is even stronger with rich and elaborative feedback without it the learners can’t properly identify how to improve their knowledge (Butler Roediger, 2008). A combination of learning strategies for which we have robust proof of efficacy can therefore be particulary efficient !Alice’s project was funded by the Programme d’Investissement d’Avenir (call for proposals e-FRAN for “Espaces de formation, de recherche et d’animation numérique” in French) launched by the mission on the digitalisation of education in France.  This educational funding program aims at supporting different innovation projects to improve education based on research. The project gathered the association Synlab, which promotes the link between research and actors from education; the start-up company Didask; and 3 research teams in the field of cognitive psychology and machine learning.Alice is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University Bourgogne Franche-Comté, in France, studying the impact of expertise on musical reading (Laboratory for Research on Learning and Developement). You can follow her @AliceLatimier.For more resources on retrieval practice, and to learn more about strategies for effective learning, you can download pedagogical material on the Learning Scientists’ website.ReferencesAdesope, O. O., Trevisan, D. A., Sundararajan, N. (2017). Rethinking the Use of Tests: A Meta Analysis of Practice Testing. Review of Educational Research, 87(3), 659-701. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654316689306Agarwal, P. K., Bain, P. M., Chamberlain, R. W. (2012). The value of applied research: Retrieval practice improves classroom learning and recommendations from a teacher, a principal, and a scientist. Educational Psychology Review, 24(3), 437–448. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-012-9210-2Brown, P. C., Roediger (III), H. L., McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make It Stick. Harvard University Press.Butler, A. C., Roediger, H. L. (2008). Feedback enhances the positive effects and reduces the negative effects of multiple-choice testing. Memory Cognition, 36(3), 604–616. https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.36.3.604Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest: A Journal of the American Psychological Society, 14(1), 4–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354Fernandez, J., Jamet, E. (2017). Extending the testing effect to self-regulated learning. Metacognition and Learning, 12(2), 131–156. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-016-9163-9Kang, S. H. K. (2016). Spaced Repetition Promotes Efficient and Effective Learning Policy Implications for Instruction. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1177/2372732215624708Littrell‐Baez, M. K., Friend, A., Caccamise, D., Okochi, C. (2015). Using Retrieval Practice and Metacognitive Skills to Improve Content Learning. Journal of Adolescent Adult Literacy, 58(8), 682–689. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.420Roediger, H. L., Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-Enhanced Learning Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.xRowland, C. A. (2014). The effect of testing versus restudy on retention: A meta-analytic review of the testing effect. Psychological Bulletin, 140(6), 1432–1463. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037559Weinstein, Yana, Madan, C. R., Sumeracki, M. A. (2018). Teaching the science of learning. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 3(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-017-0087-yArticles from the projectLatimier, A., Riegert, A., Ly, S. T., Ramus, F. Do spacing and retrieval practice effects interact? (in prep).Latimier, A., Rierget, A., Ly, S. T., Ramus, F. (2020, March 10). Retrieval practice promotes long-term retention irrespective of the placement. PsyArXiv, https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dk63qLatimier, A., Peyre, H., Ramus, F. (2020, March 5). A meta-analytic review of the benefit of spacing out retrieval practice episodes on retention. PsyArXiv, https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/kzy7uLatimier, A., Riegert, A., Peyre, H., Ly, S.T., Casati, R., Ramus, F. (2019). Does pre-testing promote better retention than post-testing? Npj Science of Learning, 4(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-019-0053-1 Hi Keri,You are a Lecturer in Psychology at the Institute of Education (University College London), and you are the Principal investigator of the Global Covid-19 Study of Social Trust and Mental Health.Can you tell us what drove you to create this study, and why it is necessary?I had a few personal motivations to run this study. I am from Hong Kong and when I visited my family in December, I could see the early development of the Covid-19 crisis. As a teenager, I also lived through the 2003 SARS pandemic, which had a significant impact on my generation. I was old enough to remember the situation I sat at my exams with a face mask. This experience with SARS gave me the impetus to start looking at how people are currently affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, especially in terms of mental health.It started with a conversation with my collaborator at Penn, Professor Adrian Raine. It was early March, he was in London, before the UK lockdown. I had participated in a few COVID-19 surveys to see what other researchers were addressing. None of these (I believe) tackled social trust, which is my research area.We ve heard and seen people behave differently during the pandemic I certainly behave differently too. In particular, I am interested in whether people may become less trusting of others, more suspicious about who has coronavirus or not, and feel more anxious given that the respect for lockdown guidelines vary across individuals. The virus is like an invisible enemy, circulating between people, and there is lots of uncertainty surrounding COVID-19. All of this, rightly so, can be very stressful! And individuals in a persistent state of stress are probably not operating at their best.So I wanted to capture this right now, and to follow-up with people in 6 months and 12 months’ time, to see whether their experience has changed for the better (fingers crossed). Our survey is currently available in English, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian and Spanish.I really want to understand what people are going through personally, because understanding people’s reactions, thoughts and emotions, can inform policies. The physical efficacy of public health guidelines (e.g. Which types of masks are efficient and when should we wear them?) has associated mental health concerns too (e.g. Does seeing other people wear face masks reduce or increase stress levels?). So it is important to adopt a multicultural approach to see how people s experiences differ given that different countries have different policy responses to COVID-19.Anyone 18+ years and resident of any country can take part as long as they can access the link www.GlobalCovidStudy.com (available in Chinese, Italian, Greek, French, German, Spanish). The survey takes most people 20 to 40 mins to complete. By taking part you are helping us understand the impact of COVID-19 on people’s health and how we can best support people moving forwards. So do contribute to the survey!Do you have any other ongoing projects ? Outside of this Covid-19 study, my research focuses on young people’s mental health. I currently have two projects.In the first, I work with Dr. Marta Francesconi and Prof. Eirini Flouri on the ALSPAC study. We have a paper in preparation for submission looking at children’s and adolescents’ internalising (emotional) and externalising (behavioural) problems. In this paper we want to better understand when these emotional and behavioural problems best predict the occurrence of psychotic-like symptoms in adulthood. The findings from this paper can help identify windows for early interventions.In the second, I work with the World bank to identify which behaviours promote effective teaching in developing countries. Most observational teaching tools (such as the Classroom Assessment Scoring System) are developed in Western countries, and what we might conceive as effective practices in these countries might not be the same elsewhere. It is therefore important to come up with comprehensive assessments that reflect the pedagogical and cultural reality in developing countries. The World Bank has developed the Teach observation tool with this purpose in mind.This all looks very exciting Keri. A final word: How do you do to look after your mental health when you are researching other people’s mental health?Well, I practice yoga! And I go for a walk or run every now and then – respecting social distancing, of course.The Global Covid Study is open to anyone above 18 years of age.The research team has also put together key resources about mental health, and publications on Covid-19.Twitter: @DrKeriWong; @GlobalC19Study As part of the Collection ‘Everything you and your teacher need to know about the learning brain’, Lana Vedelago has published an article explaining teenagers how cannabis affects the developing brain. In this interview, she shares her experience writing for a young audience, and she tells us more about her current area of research.Thank you Lana for taking the time to answer our questions. Why was it important to write an article for adolescents about cannabis and the learning brain? We know that the teen years are a time when the brain is developing rapidly, so during this time it is especially susceptible to neurotoxins like cannabis. Because of the changing laws around cannabis and its various uses, teens are given a lot of mixed messages about the risks and benefits associated with its consumption. I wanted to summarize the neuroscience literature on cannabis use in adolescents in a way that is easily understandable and accessible to teens, so that they can be equipped with the information they need to help make the best decisions for themselves. I was especially excited to write an article for a Frontiers for Young Minds collection because the journal is open access, and I think it’s important for teens to be able to access quality information without barriers such as needing to pay for access.How did it feel to write for adolescents? Did you learn any new skills, or did you adopt a new perspective on the topic?Writing for adolescents was definitely something new for me! As researchers we are used to writing for other academics who are familiar with our area of research, so it was a really rewarding challenge for me to explain cannabis research in a way that would be relevant to an adolescent reading this article. I also wanted to find a balance between presenting the research in a matter-of-fact way but avoiding telling adolescents that they should be doing this or that. Adolescents are the experts of their own experiences, and I wanted to provide them with information so that they can make the best choices for themselves.What are you working on at the moment?I am currently working on finishing up my Masters degree in Neuroscience! My thesis looks at computer-based decision-making and impulsivity tasks among offenders in federal prisons, and whether these measures can tell us anything useful about their risk for reoffending. I published an article a little while back that reviews the literature in the field. I’m also very excited to be starting a PhD in Clinical Psychology this fall, so that in the future I’m able to help people who are experiencing problems with alcohol and drugs in a more direct and individualized way.Thank you Lana and congratulations on this new position! This is a particularly strong example of how research can serve people s wellbeing.You can follow Lana @LanaVedelago Professor Michael Thomas, Head of the Centre for Educational Neuroscience, and Dr. Victoria Knowland wrote an article for primary school children to debunk three common neuro-myths:Neuro-myth (1) Intelligence is Fixed Neuro-myth (2) Girls and Boys Think Differently Neuro-myth (3) Some children are left-brained and some are right-brained By explaining why these ideas are wrong, the authors are encouraging children to believe in their own learning abilities, outside of ready-made categories.This article has been published in Frontiers for Young Minds, as part of the Collection Everything you and your teachers need to know about the learning brain . This Collection aims at providing children with all the relevant knowledge about the brain to understand themselves and their learning processes better, and to equip them to distinguish myths and facts. All the articles are in open access.Our Neuro-hit / Neuro-myth resources provides corresponding articles for adult readers:Neuro-myth (1) Intelligence is Fixed Neuro-myth (2) Girls and Boys Think Differently Neuro-myth (3) Some children are left-brained and some are right-brained

TAGS:Neuroscience University College 

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