The Learning Scientists Podcast

In Episode 81, Megan, Cindy, Carolina, and Althea walk through their Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP) Annual Conference on Teaching (ACT) talk! The episode was recorded in October 2023 when all four Learning Scientists were together in Portland, Oregon for the conference. After they gave their formal talk, they recorded their talk in one of their hotel rooms to reach more people.

In Episode 80, Cindy interviews Kareem Farah, CEO and co-founder of the Modern Classrooms Project.

In Episode 79, Althea interviews Spencer Russell, an award-winning teacher and educator about early childhood literacy. You can learn more about Spencer's approach to early childhood literacy at https://www.toddlersread.com/. Follow him on Instagram (@toddlerscanread) for tips and videos!

In Episode 78, Megan, Cindy, Carolina, and Althea talk through the resources available on learningscientists.org.

In Episode 77, Megan interviews Maxim Vickerie and Adam Smith from EF+Math, a program supported by the nonprofit AERDF.

In Episode 76, Cindy interviews Sarah Oberle (@S_Oberle) about the intersection between research and education.

In Episode 75, Megan, Cindy, Carolina, and Althea talk about their new book, Ace That Test: A Student’s Guide to Learning Better. They provide an overview of the book, provide some examples, and discuss the writing process. Ace That Test: A Student’s Guide to Learning Better is out July 19th! Preorders are available now with a 20% off code if you access through our website.

Content warning: Please be advised that in this episode we discuss the topic of suicide in depth with a lived experience story. Matt reads a part of his book where a mother describes her personal experience with this topic. In Episode 74, Carolina interviews Matt Pinkett – the author of Boys Don’t Try? – to talk about his new book Boys Do Cry: Improving Boys’ Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools which comes out this month.

In Episode 73 Althea interview Mark Schneider, Director of the Institute of Educational Sciences (IES). Mark discusses some of the challenges facing educators today and how IES can facilitate education research.

In Episode 72, Althea interviews Jerry Apps and Natasha Kassulke, authors of Planting an Idea: A Guidebook to Critical and Creative Thinking about Environmental Problems.

In Episode 71, Althea interviews John Hattie, author of Visible Learning. They talk about his newest book, Visible Learning: The Sequel.

In Episode 70, Cindy interviews John Dunlosky from Kent State University and Regan Gurung from Oregon State University. John and Regan recently published a book entitled Study Like A Champ: The Psychology-Based Guide to Grade A Study Habits. In this episode John and Regan discuss a little bit about their research and how they practice what they preach in the classroom.

In Episode 69, Cindy interviews Garth Neufeld from Cascadia College and Eric Landrum from Boise State University.

In Episode 68, Carolina interviews Dr Zayba Ghazali-Mohammed (@Zayba_G) and Dr Arun Verma (@drarunverma) to learn more about the concept of intersectionality.

In Episode 67, Megan interviews Eva Dundas from Branching Minds (@BranchingMinds). Visit Branching Minds www.branchingminds.com, for free resources for teachers and leaders.

In Episode 66, Cindy interviews Rebecca Rolland, a speech pathologist, Harvard Lecturer, author of The Art of Talking with Children, and mom of two! Listen to learn about talking with your own children, as well as the children in your classroom.

In Episode 65, Althea interviews Lyndsey-Lee Dunwoody (@LyndseyDunwoody) of 1851 Trust (@1851Trust) about their new platform Protect Our Future.

In Episode 64, Carolina interviews Emma Noble who is a final year Psychology student at the University of Glasgow. Emma gives an overview of her final year dissertation project where she explored the lived experience of Higher Education students with a formal dyslexia diagnosis.

In Episode 63, Megan chats with the hosts of the Lab Out Loud Podcast, Brian Bartel and Dale Basler. Last month (February 2022) we talked on the Lab Out Loud Podcast, and in this episode, we continue our conversation.

In Episode 62, Cindy interviews Dr. Laura Nevins and Dr. Frank Patranella on making professional development workshops effective.

In Episode 61, Althea interviews Amber Birsen,. Amber recently made a contribution to a report by Oxford University Press called, ‘Addressing the Deepening Digital Divide’. Much of what she discusses she learned and has taken from the report as well as her experiences as a teacher over the last two years.

In Episode 60, Cindy interviews Mary Chappell (@LiteracyMary), A Department of Education Special Education Curriculum Specialist.

In Episode 59, Carolina interviews Dr Chiara Horlin (@aussieweegie) who is a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Glasgow and who co-founded the Neurodiversity Network (@UofGNeurodiv). Chiara provides a definition of neurodiversity and talks about challenges in education and ways to overcome them.

In this bite-size research episode, Megan discusses research on delayed vs. immediate feedback in the classroom.

In Episode 57, Cindy interviews Kathryn Desmarais, a Senior Director of Global Education Solutions at Johnson & Johnson.

In Episode 56, Cindy interviews Andrew Watson (@AndrewWatsonTTB), author of The Goldilocks Map and founder of Translate the Brain.

In episode 55, Carolina interviews two students who have been heavily involved in inclusivity in education, Ally Lloyd and Anna Gallagher. Together, they co-lead The Luna Project. Their goal is to increase awareness and support of young people with chronic illnesses disabilities and long-term health conditions.

In Episode 54, Megan interviews Josh Ling and Jesse Mao, the co-founders of Podsie. Podsie is a nonprofit organization, and its mission is to empower teachers and improve student learning by providing free access to evidence-based learning techniques.

In Episode 53, Althea interviews applied linguist and author of Learning a Foreign Language: Understanding the Fundamentals of Linguistics, Alex Poole.

In Episode 52, Carolina interviews two of her students, Ellie Brownlie and Alicja Turek, about their experiences with online learning.

In Episode 51, Cindy interviews memory expert Boris Konrad (@borisnkonrad).

In today’s episode, Althea covers a paper about metacognitive monitoring and differences between adolescents (ages 11-12) and traditional university-aged adults (ages 18-25) when using different learning strategies.

In today’s episode, Megan and Althea cover a paper that tests learning styles and dual coding theories within one experiment.

In today’s episode, Cindy talks about prevalence-induced concept change and implications for society and the classroom!

In this episode, Megan shares her current thoughts about the pivot to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In today’s episode, Cindy interviews Pooja Agarwal (@PoojaAgarwal).

In this bite-size research episode, Carolina discusses research on seductive details—the details we include in our teaching that are not necessarily relevant for understanding the topic but make the lesson more interesting.

In this episode, Cindy Nebel interviews Kristen McQuillan, her student in the Vanderbilt EdD program in Leadership and Learning in Organization. Kristen is a director at TNTP, a non-profit organization that helps schools reach goals for students. Cindy and Kristen talk about learning mistakes in literacy.

In this bite-size research episode, Althea describes a study about how attention affects learning with retrieval practice when students are studying on their own by Neil Mulligan and Milton Picklesimer (2016).

In this episode, Carolina Keupper-Tetzel interviews Dr. Naomi Winstone (@DocWinstone) an expert in assessment and feedback.

In this episode, Cindy Nebel interviews Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath (@JCHorvath), neuroscientist and educator affiliated with University of Melbourne and author of Stop Talking Start Influencing: 12 Insights From Brain Science to Make Your Message Stick. During the interview, they discuss how we take information in, and how do we use it, or transfer it to new situations.

In this Bite-Size Research Episode, Megan describes a paper by Kayla Morehead and colleagues (2016) about student and instructor knowledge about evidence-based study strategies.

In this episode, Megan and Cindy talk about their massive research project at Washburn University investigating the effectiveness of an intervention to teach first-year college students effective study strategies.

In this episode, Megan describes a paper by Dr. Jennifer McCabe investigating whether students understand what learning strategies are most effective, and whether we can teach this to students.

In this episode, Megan and Carolina chat about Carolina's CPD research, her Service Learning projects, and the TILE network.

Listen as Megan, Cindy, Althea, and Carolina discuss our workshops during our England 2019 tour, and the excitement around talking with teachers about the science of learning.

In this bite-size research episode, Megan covers a research article that finds taking notes by hand to lead to more learning than taking notes on laptops.

In this episode, Megan interviews Dr. Althea Kaminske, the newest member of the Learning Scientists and Assistant Professor at St. Bonaventure University in New York.

This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Yana talks research findings about the benefits of retrieval practice when learning complex materials.

In this episode, Yana interviews Alexander Chamessian, an MD PhD student who has been consistently utilizing evidence-based learning strategies.

In this episode, we interview Julien Mercier at the EARLI conference in London about his work with brain imaging and Education.

In this episode, we interview Miriam Reiner at the EARLI conference in London about her work with technology and the brain. Miriam is the head of the Virtual-Reality & NeuroCognition at the Israel institute of Technology.

In this episode, we interview Jane Emerson at the EARLI conference in London about her work with those who suffer from dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dyspraxia. Jane is the founder of Emerson House, a teaching center helping children who need extra help with literacy and numbers.

In this episode, we interview Jessica Massonnié at the EARLI conference in London about her research on noise in the classroom, and how noise affects student learning and creativity.

In this episode, we interview two teachers at the EARLI conference in London about their teacher learning and student learning communities.

In this episode, we interview Ignatius Gous at the EARLI conference in London about his framework to assist in lifelong learning.

In this episode we interview Rina Lai in London!

In this episode, we interview Emma Blakey at the EARLI conference in London about executive function development in young children.

In this Episode, we discuss the importance of sleep for learning and self care, and talk about tips for bed time.

This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Megan talks research findings showing that medical residents benefit from retrieval practice after didactic conferences.

Alyssa Smith, a 3rd year medical student at Chicago Medical School, talks about using evidence-based learning strategies.

In this episode for parents, we first briefly review spaced practice, interleaving, and retrieval practice. We then talk about elaboration, concrete examples, and dual coding. We talk about what parents might see their children doing if their teachers or schools are encouraging these effective learning strategies. We also talk about ways parents can help their kids use these effective learning strategies.

In this episode for parents, we cover spaced practice, a little bit about interleaving, and retrieval practice. We talk about what parents might see their children doing if their teachers or schools are encouraging these effective learning strategies. We also talk about ways parents can help their kids use these effective learning strategies.

In this episode for students, we briefly recap how students can use spacing and retrieval practice. Then, we shift into explaining how students might use other effective study strategies, interleaving, elaboration, dual coding, and concrete examples, to make study sessions more effective and efficient.

In this episode for students, we explain how to use spacing and retrieval practice to make study sessions more effective and efficient.

This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Yana Weinstein talks about dual coding vs. learning styles. You don't have to be a "visual learner" to benefit from the combination of visuals and words! (In fact, there's no such thing as a "visual learner".)

In this episode, we talk about the last strategy, dual coding. We talk about ways teachers and students can utilize dual coding, and distinguish this from learning styles.

This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Megan Sumeracki talks about the need for providing multiple concrete examples to facilitate students' ability to transfer the underlying idea to new problems.

In this episode, we introduce Concrete Examples. Most teachers probably use concrete examples, but in this episode we talk about why it is important to use more than one!

This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Yana Weinstein talks about interleaving while trying to learn to categorize, such as paintings by different painters or chemical categories such as alcohol.

In this episode, we introduce the concept of interleaving. We explain when it works, why it works, and open questions.

In this bite-size research episode, Megan Sumeracki talks about a research study where 6th and 7th grade students used elaborative interrogation independently and with a partner. Elaborative interrogation improved learning compared to reading and students picking their own learning strategy. The effects were durable, and students who used elaborative interrogation still knew more than other groups 60 days later.

In this podcast, we discuss elaboration, specifically elaborative interrogation. We also talk about how teachers might implement elaborative interrogation in the classroom, and some things to watch out for when students are using this strategy.

In this bite-size research episode, Yana Weinstein talks about the learning benefits of combining spaced practice and retrieval practice. Assessment of both fact learning and application of knowledge is discussed.

In this podcast, we discuss what spaced practice is and how to utilize it to promote learning. We share some ways teachers can help students use spaced practice on their own, and ways for teachers to integrate spacing into their own teaching. Finally, we share some personal stories about spacing out learning or cramming before important events.

In this bite-size research episode, Megan Sumeracki discusses research comparing short-answer, multiple-choice, and hybrid quiz formats. She addresses the question, do some formats produce more learning than others?

In this podcast, we discuss what retrieval practice is and how it benefits learning. We also talk about ways to implement retrieval-based learning activities in the classroom and for independent studying.

In this episode, the two of us – Dr. Yana Weinstein (UMass Lowell) and Dr. Megan Sumeracki (formerly Megan Smith; Rhode Island College) – introduce ourselves and tell you a bit about our backgrounds, how we came to start the Learning Scientists project, and what we’ll be talking about on this podcast.