What a neat way of combining two textbooks to get a novel course design (which meshes with current theories of interleaving): In an effort to maximize spacing and encoding variability, Robert Bjork once taught an honors introductory psychology course twice in one term. Up to the point of the midterm, the basic concepts of introductory Continue reading

I’ve been having some fun reading Bjork and his followers on elements of instruction. It’s good stuff! This comes from Successful Lecturing: Presenting Information in Ways That Engage Effective Processing by  Patricia Ann de Winstanley & Robert A. Bjork: In addition to its having a strong negative impact on encoding, divided attention has been shown Continue reading

I’ve talked a bit in the past about good concept inventory questions — questions that address difficult conceptual questions but have black and white answers and don’t require any special vocabulary to answer. Dan Meyer’s Linear Modeling exercise [PDF] is a good example. The first question has a specific answer, and answering it requires the right Continue reading

From the Utne Reader, in an article showing that we ” are segregating [our]selves politically and geographically” in the U.S. : “In 1992, 38 percent of Americans lived in counties decided by landslide elections; by 2004, that figure was 48 percent.” One thing that jumps out at me immediately is that elections are very hard to Continue reading

What do we call this genre of videos, these informal explanations by Khan Academy, RSA:Animate, Common Craft, Vi Hart, and others — these sit across the desk from you and talk things through? I have no idea. But I’m fascinated with the form, and how rethinking video this way makes a lecture seem more like Continue reading

Sir Austin Bradford Hill’s classic article on the characteristics of a causal relationship is well worth a read, and is still one of the most concise lists of what to look for in any research you read. Here’s a summary of what helps us make the leap from association to causation: Strength (is the risk Continue reading

The recent boycott of Elsevier provides us with a great quote for use in a statistical literacy class. People are boycotting for a number of reasons, particularly because of the high cost of the “bundles” Elsevier sells. Claiming that their journals are some of the cheapest in the industry, an Elsevier rep states: “Over the past 10 Continue reading

Term of the day: ecological validity. Ecological validity is a pretty big concern in ed psych, obviously. But I’ve also just read an interesting paper in Health, Risk, and Vulnerability which talks about the ecological validity of psychiatric assessment of criminals being treated for mental illness. The idea there is that many prisoners that do poorly in Continue reading

From The Numbers behind Numb3rs: Cobb illustrated the distinction by means of a famous example from the long struggle physicians and scientists had in overcoming the powerful tobacco lobby to convince governments and the public that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. Table 2 shows the mortality rates for three categories of people: nonsmokers, cigarette smokers, Continue reading

Since the statistics class I teach is supposed to be integrative — that is, to show connections between various disciplines and other aspects of life — I’m always on the lookout for ways to jury-rig an understanding from one domain to understand another. I think I just found a neat example. But first, look at Continue reading