Psychology in the Classroom

This week the episode will be based around retrieval practice - a concept most of you will be familiar with, and if you aren't then do take a listen to this episode which delves into the research underpinning the concept. Many students when learning, make the error of being passive recipients of information, reading, listening, watching or copying. Whilst a few bits may stick, more information will stick if they actively reconstruct the information through some sort of recall activity. Today we will cover 4 retrieval concepts you will know but thinking about the why. My hope is that this episode will perhaps reframe some of these basic ideas so that students use them even more effectively. Just in case the link above doesn't work here it is in full to copy and paste: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/recall-or-re-read-the-research-into-retrieval-practice

You know that thing, you're listening to the radio and minding your own business and a song comes on the radio and memories flood back (possibly embarrassing teenage ones!). That song is a cue to unlocking your memory - all sorts of things can be cues - smells, images, letters, words. In an exam the main cues are going to be words - specifically those in the question. If we understand that cues help us remember and that they are important at the time of learning then we can ensure that when we learn information we learn it with specific cues at the forefront of our mind. This week we consider how to leverage the theory of 'cue dependent forgetting' during revision to help us recall more when we are in an exam. If you want to watch my very embarrassing 'Mind Palace' video here you go: https://youtu.be/l4kPShjm9mM?si=0rkcOEa4PXrLJYKv As I mention too in the podcast I am really seeking listener feedback so please spare 2 minutes to complete this form: https://forms.gle/d3ehS8citt2NvsSy7 Finally you can find out more on this podcast: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/cues-to-recall-0

This week we move from the practialities of starting and planning revision to the learning itself. The focus is on how we can help students to build learning so that it is retained in long term memory. Whilst there are lots of ways to approach this today's episode focused on 3 key concepts: Levels of processing, spacing and interleaving. I mentioned that there are several podcasts that delve into these concepts in more depth. Further information can be found here: Levels of processing: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/getting-stuff-to-stick-in-long-term-memory Interleaving: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/interleaving-a-useful-learning-strategy Finally please do fill in the podcast feedback form so I can make the content even better! https://forms.gle/jJzpJwWDNovwAPez5

I would argue that good planning is an art or at the very least a skill that needs to learned and perfected and yet we often cut our planning teeth on a revision timetable just before we do exams. How many student's plans turn out to be too vague, over ambitious or too rigid? This week's episode explores this skill and how we can best encourage students to become effective planners: understanding what they need to get done, what the time frame is in which they need to do it and how best they can plan to suit their own context. If you want to watch the youtube video I made you can take a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UuJiwvfppg

What is it that motivates students to study? A few lucky people may genuinely enjoy the process of memorising facts and preparing for exams, but this is probably rare. For most people studying requires effort and despite the high stakes, the reward of good exam results (or fear of bad ones) in the distant future is not enough of a motivation when there are far more exciting and immediately rewarding things to do instead. So this week we consider how we can motivate students to engage in independent study by bringing in short term, tangible rewards. If you want to learn more about planning the link I mention is here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1177/237946151500100205

In this second episode we explore why study habits may help students with independent study and how we as teachers can support students to build effective study habits. Behavioural change is really hard, as anyone who had already forgotten their new year's resolution, can attest to! There are a few key things that we can help students with if they want to build in independent learning to their schedule. We consider the role of homework in building habits, habit stacking, cueing habits and reducing friction. Finally we think about how we can help students embed behaviour change when it needs to happen outside of the classroom context. These behavioural change tips are equally applicable to other behaviours such as exercise, sleep and work, so worth a listen if you want to change your habits too! The two books for further reading are Wendy Wood's Good Habits, Bad Habits and James Clear's Atomic Habits.

Inherent in our educational system is the expectation that students will study independently to achieve at the higher levels. Some students are lucky and hit on strategies that work, others flounder whilst motivated to do well they don't know how to learn. As educators why leave the effectiveness of independent study largely up to chance when we have a whole host of excellent tools at our disposal, we need to share them with our students in a strategic and coherent way to give students the confidence to use these tools effectively in a wide range of different scenarios and ultimately to take control of their own educational success.

Welcome back to the new term of podcasts. We are starting off with an episode about wellbeing with Dr Ros McLellan from Cambridge University. We take a deep dive into exactly what wellbeing means and its impact on educational attainment. Rather than taking wellbeing as a homogenous concept this discussion considers the difference between eudaimonic and hedonic wellbeing and how they have differing impacts on educational outcomes. You can find the original paper here: Tania Clarke, Ros McLellan & Gordon Harold (2023) Beyond Life Satisfaction: Wellbeing Correlates of Adolescents' Academic Attainment, School Psychology Review: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2372966X.2023.2217980 Companion Paper: https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rev3.3393 Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory posits that an individual's development is influenced by a series of interconnected environmental systems, ranging from the immediate surroundings (e.g., family) to broad societal structures (e.g., culture).

In this second 'takeover' Niamh and Summer, from Bootham School, ask you to think about autism and some common misconceptions - which peice of research is real and which is fake. Test your understanding in this fun podcast.

It's Christmas Takeover time and today's episode is hosted by Oliver Sherratt, a year 12 student at Abingdon school studying A level psychology. He delves into the intricate and fascinating world of psychology approaches. These six approaches will lay a base for your understanding of what we know psychology to be as well as igniting a flame within you which will spur you onwards to learn more about the great subject. Today's episode will be a brief and concise whistle stop tour and thus I encourage listeners to read more in depth after listening to fully cement their understanding. Come along for the journey! A great taster for those thinking of choosing psychology A level.

There are many things that make this time of year special, one of which is music - whether that is carols or corny Christmas songs, they can prompt memories and get us together to sing as a community in ways that we simply don't at any other time of year. But there is strong evidence to suggest that singing has physiological, psychological and social benefits and we should not just relegate community singing to Christmas. Today I am speaking to two psychologists who believe that schools can and should be a place where singing is embraced everyday - Dr Yoon Irons and Natasha Hendry. Links from this week's episode: Sing Up: https://www.singup.org/ You are the Music by Victoria Williamson Why we sing by Julia Hollander Singing by Yoon Irons and Grenville Hancox Links to Natasha's research can be found here: Hendry, Natasha (2023), 'Fitting in and sticking out: An exploratory study of the Whiteness of the school music curriculum and its effects on Global Majority musicians', Journal of Popular Music Education, 7:1, pp. 25–45, https://doi.org/10.1386/jpme_00107_1 Hendry, N., Lynam, D. S., & Lafarge, C. (2022). Singing for wellbeing: formulating a model for community group singing interventions. Qualitative Health Research, 32(8-9), 1399-1414. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323221104718

We know that many neurodivergent young people such as those with ADHD or autism traits develop depression during adolescence – but we currently don't know which individuals are at risk, what underlying processes increase that risk or, perhaps most importantly, the best way to intervene to increase resilience to reduce that risk. RE-STAR aims to address this by exploring the interplay between autism and/or ADHD traits, exposure to environmental stressors, and emotional responding in neurodivergent young people (NYP), in driving developmental pathways to depression. My Guests this week are Dr. Steve lukito, Eloise Funnell and Tiegan Boyens from the Re-Star team who are heading up work package 2: My Brain, Emotions and me or BE ME. If you would like to find out more about RE-STAR in general here is the website: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/re-star The BE ME Website is: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/my-brain-emotions-and-me Maciej's Blog: https://kingsengagedresearchblog.wordpress.com/2023/10/04/enhancing-participatory-neuroscience-research-the-re-star-project-perspectives/

As we come to the end of a very long term a few of you might well be considering which lessons you might be able to put on a film. So to ensure that this is a justifiable educational tool Dr Sheila Thomas talks about her use of film in the classroom: how to make it a really valuable experience for the students and get them thinking more deeply and in a cross curricular way about films. To get Sheila's website and get hold of the list of films and how to use them you can follow this link: https://www.thepsychologyschool.com/ The previous podcast I did on videos and learning is here: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/making-the-most-of-videos-as-a-teaching-resource The AI question generator for Youtube videos is Quizizz.

'Smart' or 'Study' drugs are usually prescribed for people with ADHD to help them concentrate. However many people without ADHD take them, in theory, to focus on studying - e.g. writing an essay or revising for an exam. The estimates of how many people have taken them vary between about 16-20%, and the use of these drugs is on the rise. So the question is do these drugs actually help complex cognitive processes that are required for study? Recent research done by Elizaeth Bowman and her colleagues aimed to find out and in this episode Elizabeth joins me to talk about their research and most importantly their findings. You can read the orginal paper in Science Advances here: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add4165 You can read a summary (or share it with your students) here: https://theconversation.com/smart-drugs-make-you-worse-at-solving-complex-problems-new-study-finds-207711 You can find out more about the Centre here: https://www.unimelb.edu.au/cbmm

Here is the next installment of the 'Talking to psychology teachers series' with guest teacher Sophia Afsar. We are going to be talking about how to create the perfect multiple choice question (with and without the help of ChatGPT), the importance of student-teacher relationships and how using concrete examples that students can relate to helps them understand more abstract concepts. The links to the episodes mentioned are: Dual Coding: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/working-memory-and-dual-coding Interleaving: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/interleaving-a-useful-learning-strategy Student-Teacher Relationships with Dr Ben Looker: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/the-pupil-teacher-relationship-with-dr-ben-looker Metacognition: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/an-introduction-to-metacognition Desirable difficulties: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/powerful-learning-with-patrice-bain

"Be the best you can be, now." This is the overriding message to self and others which aligns to my personal values and fuels my being! Joshi Jariwala During, the Covid era, there was a will to be kind to students who were overwhelmed with endless unpredictable lists to survive, completely unrelated to study. Though committed, they could not jump start their drive to learn. Joshi Jariwala shares with you her journey of turning that kindness into a practical tool to softly help her students unfreeze their state of mind and guide them towards their study in bitesize chunks. The journey culminated into a six-step bite size learning cycle to help form new habits in a simple and easy to follow manner. The basis of the model resides in positive psychology, neuroscience, and mindfulness, which are her interests particularly the latter which she enjoys and in which she has completed the eight-week course. Although honestly, the model was borne through reflection, practise, and an urge to help! With nearly 30 years in the fields of youth and community work, accountancy, human resource management, and teaching initially on a sessional basis and on a full-time basis for the last six years, she is happy learning and contributing to make a difference where she can! To get in touch with Joshi email: [email protected]

This episode is the 4th in the 'Talking to Psychology Teachers' Series and Paramjeet Moon, psychology teacher with 24 years experience, talks about her love of psychology and the myriad of ways in which it has influenced her teaching practice, from cognitive psychology, working memory, interleaving, relationships, the teenage brain, seating arrangements and much more this conversation is full of great tips for any teacher wishing to tweak their practice to make it just a little better. If you want to watch the 'Kevin becomes a teenager' it is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLuEY6jN6gY And an example of a PLC can be found on this link if you go to the show notes via the podcast page of my website (if you are listening via an app such as Spotify or Amazon): www.changingstatesofmind.com/podcast

In this episode Dr Brooke Macnamara shares details of her research about mindset. Her research is a fascinating insight into the interventions around mindsets including growth mindset - a concept which I am sure you are familiar. If you, like me, have read Carol Dweck's work it is compelling, but can we really change mindset? The concept itself is quite vague and is a belief or set of beliefs that then impact behaviour. The challenge for research is to show that we can firstly change the belief (and only the belief) and this will ultimately result in improved academic ourcomes. The interventions though rarely just focus on the beliefs as we shall hear. You can find the Twitter/X thread here or search @BrookeMacnamara on X to find the thread which is pinned to her profile. The paper we are discussing can be read via open source here: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/ba7pe

This week Evie Bentley talks about how her knowledge of psychology helped her understand and manage what could have been a very frightening experience. As teachers we are often asked 'what is the point of learning this' whatever this might be. But you never know when knowledge may come in handy and sometimes it is at the moments you least expect, something Evie discovered in the early hours of the morning.

Alessia Evans developed a love of makeup from a young age and started working in the cosmetics industry at 19 where she climbed the ranks as a makeup artist, trainer and manager for L'Oreal. Fast forward 10+ years, and Alessia has bowed out of the beauty industry to study Psychology, undertaking a dissertation investigating whether applying makeup makes us smarter... what she discovered was remarkable! Since being awarded the British Psychological Prize for Best Dissertation 2020, Alessia has gone on to write for a magazine on the psychology of beauty and currently lectures at the University of South Wales where she also recently completed her Masters in Psychology Research. This week she joins Psychology in the Classroom to talk about the impact that make up can have on social interaction, mental health and cognitive function. We discuss schools' general aversion to make-up and ask the question 'Is this rule appropriate?' The answer may not be what you expect, whatever you think about make-up, Alessia provides some really fascinating insights into the reasons why we wear make-up and why we should perhaps open up the conversation around make-up in schools. You can get in touch with Alessia Here: https://staffdirectory.southwales.ac.uk/users/alessia.evans.html You can find details of Nancy Etcoff's book here - Survival of the Prettiest, or just search her name online.

This week is the third in the 'talking to psychology teachers' series and Ed King shares some insights into expectancy-value theory and how it drives motivation as well as some practical tips on how to work on both expectancy and value to increase student (and our own) motivation in the classroom. Student's Achievement can be determined by two factors: Expectancy & value - These two interact to predict outcomes such as engagement, continuing interest, and academic achievement. For more information this is the link: https://education.okstate.edu/site-files/documents/motivation-classrooms/motivation-minute-expectancy-value-theory.pdf To find out about the diary project: https://www.standandstare.com/reimagining-the-diary

This week Felicitas Biwer talks about how students can study smarter with better self-regulation, effort regulation, planning and reflection. Packed with top tips on independent learning this is the episode I want all my students to listen too, but can also help teachers understand how and why we need to teach these skills to our students. If you would like to listen to the original podcast about Felicitas's research the link is here. If you would like to find out more about the study smart programme this is the website: https://www.studysmartpbl.com/

This week Lyndsey Hayes talks about how she has learned to support learners who don't have English as their first language, the challenges this poses and some really practical tips to help them learn. This is the second podcast introducing psychology teachers talking about how psychology has influenced their practice. Below are the links to some useful resources that Lyndsey mentions: International House, London: https://www.ihlondon.com/course/content-and-language-integrated-learning-clil/ Some Ideas on encorporating CLIL into your lesson: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/teachers/knowing-subject/articles/clil-lesson-framework Link to the ATP Article

...with Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou and Dr Myrto Kakoulidou. How do neurodiverse individuals experience emotions? Is it different to neurotypical people? If not then should schools be relying on interventions based on neurotypical (adult) experiences? The team at RE-STAR (Regulating Emotions - Strengthening Adolescent Resilience) are part way through a huge 4 year project to understand emotional experiences of young neurodiverse people with Autism and Attention Deficit Hyper activity disorder or ADHD In this episode Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou and Dr Myrto Kakoulidou talk about their work on understanding emotional experiences of young people with Autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD and how schools (in particular) could better understand and support these young people with their emotions and we get a sneak peek at some of the results! To find out more follow the link: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/re-star The link for families to find out more about the My Emotions and Me-part 2 study and take part: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/my-emotions-and-me The link for teachers/schools to register an interest and get involved in the RE-STAR programme more generally: Microsoft form

This week sees the first of the 'talking to psychology teachers' series, Dani Bryton discusses how the psychology of motivation has influenced her to think carefully about the social dynamics in the classroom: from seating plans to making a cuppa for your colleague, managing the relationships and building a sense of belonging in your classroom can have a clear and visible impact on academic outcomes.

As we start a new academic year how can we ensure that we manage our own wellbeing? This week my guest, Gemma Drinkall, a qualified coach, trainer and supervisor shares her top tips on setting boundaries, managing expectations and learning how to look after your own wellbeing, after all you can't pour from an empty cup. If you would like to learn more about Gemma's work you can find it on these links: Website: https://headsphere.co.uk/ Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/teacherswithboundaries/ Twitter: @Gemma_Drinkall

It's the holidays - but just how can we make the most of the summer break and ensure we go back to school rested and recharged, ready for another year. In this week's episode, the final one for the 2022-23 academic year, Dr Jill Dunbar and Dr Nicola Cann, part of the team behing the Travel Psychologist blog talk about their top tips for getting the most out of your holidays. And if you happen to be moving abroad next year to teach in a foreign country they have some really good tips for managing the transition. If you would like to find out more you can read their blog at thetravelpsychologist.co.uk Happy Holidays!

...How to reduce upsetting experiences in school for young people with ADHD and Autism with Dr Sylvan Baker and Prof. Jane Hurry In this podcast we discuss the amazing work that is being done in 'work package 5' of the RE-STAR project. We discuss the importance of communication and leadership in driving change. As well as ways to hear the different voices in our school communities. If you would like to get involved in the project the link is: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/emotional-lives-young-people-school-1 and you can email the team on [email protected] If you want to listen to the other podcasts in this series you can do so via my website: www.changinstatesofmind.com/re-star-project

The 7th and 8th July was the 40th Annual Conference for the Association for the Teaching of Psychology. With 34 workshops and 3 keynote talks it was a veritable feast of information as well as a fantastic time to catch up with our psychology family. Whether or not you teach psychology this episode covers some really interesting ideas for your classroom, thought provoking conversations and psychological theory. My guests were David Foster, Rosie McGinley (AQA), Ashok Jansari, Michelle Satchwell, Cara Flanagan, Bea and Lucia and Dr Bo Kelestyn. (Podcast artwork photo myself with conference organiser, Helen Kitching) Links that you may be interested in: Teaching Using Analogy with Matt Slocombe Prosopagnosia and other neuropsychological things with Ashok Jansari Prosopagnosia with Judith Lowes Ashok Jansari's YouTube Channel Inspiration Walks link.

This week I am joined by Bradley Busch and Edward Watson from InnerDrive for one final time this year and we are talking about their new book 'Teaching and Learning Illuminated'. Chris Hack from Abingdon School is also co-hosting the episode. This week you have the chance to win your very own copy of the book so just listen to the episode and find out how you can win. (T&Cs can be found here).

This week Karen Duffy and the Psychology PGCE students of Manchester Metropolitan University have taken over the podcast. Take a listen to this lively conversation about the dreams, fears and expectations of teachers just entering the profession. A reminder too, for those of us who have been here a while, about the joys of the classroom. With just a hint of how a knowledge of psychology has supported these trainees through the past year.

What a year this has been, as I upload this podcast I currently have 145 episodes of Psychology in the Classroom for you to listen to. But there are still more to come but this is the last solo episode of the year so I thought I would take the chance to reflect on the year gone and look forward to the year ahead. As I plan for 2023-24 please do let me know what you would like to learn more about, get in touch via social media or on the speakpipe link. I love hearing from you. Here is the link to my Libsyn page - just in case.

This podcast reviews a paper with the title 'Teacher, forgive me, I forgot to do it' the impact of children's prospective memory on teachers' evaluation of academic performance. Prospective memory is, according to Einstein and McDaniel the memory for intentions. It enables us to remember to carry out an action that has been planned for a predefined time in the future, while performing a concurrent activity named ongoing task. One of the interesting things about prospective memory is how others perceive it. If you fail to carry out your intention it is seen as character flaw - so where you forget to hand in book you might be considered forgetful, flaky, or in terms of social skills - like remembering to wish someone happy birthday you might be thought of as indifferent. Can this then affect teachers' perceptions of students and can this in turn inpact academic success? The link to Grace Molloy's podcast on cognitive bias is here. Reference: Basso D, Corradini G, Cottini M. "Teacher, forgive me, I forgot to do it!" The impact of children's prospective memory on teachers' evaluation of academic performance. Br J Educ Psychol. 2023 Mar;93(1):17-32. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12537. Epub 2022 Aug 7. PMID: 35934815; PMCID: PMC10087291.

The Note Taking Effect is the well documented effect that taking notes during learning increases retention and recall. There are factors that effect it such as whether you type or hand write - the latter is more effective - for example. This episode looks at research into the underlying cognitive processes that may help us improve our students retention through more effective note taking techniques. If you would like to take a look at the original paper: Lalchandani, L. A., & Healy, A. F. (2022). Elucidating the cognitive processes involved in the note-taking effect. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 36(5), 1009–1021. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3985

This week looks at a research paper into the Pomodoro Technique - breaking down revision into 25 minutes segments with 5 minute breaks. Whilst many people use this we often don't consider why it is useful or what processes might support its use or not. The use of system-regulated breaks may have several benefits over self-regulated breaks such as reducing secondary cognitive load, making students more motivated and more efficient but little research has been done on this. This paper is a starting point for this research. You may also like to listen to these podcasts on Cognitive Load and Task Switching. Original Paper: : Biwer, F., Wiradhany, W., oude Egbrink, M. G. A., & de Bruin, A. B. H. (2023). Understanding effort regulation: Comparing 'Pomodoro' breaks and self-regulated breaks. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 00, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12593

This week Psychology in the Classroom talks to Dr Daniel Jolley, Assistant Professor in Social Psychology at the University of Nottingham. His research explores the psychology of conspiracy theories, where he is interested in understanding why millions of people find conspiracy theories so appealing. He is also keen to explore the social consequences of believing in conspiracy theories and develop tools to address their negative impact. In particularly we talk about how adolscents may develop beliefs in conspiracy theories and how, as teachers, we can address such beliefs and encourage young people to critically assess the content they are viewing. If you wish to have a go with the Conspiracy Kitchen here is the link and you can find out more about Daniel's work here or follow him on twitter: @DrDanielJolley Additionally (not mentioned in the podcast) Daniel has also helped to develop some lesson plan about mis/disinformation more broadly which can be found at Project Real.

This week (15th May 2023) is Mental Health Awareness week and the theme is anxiety and to mark it I am looking at the link between perfectionism and anxiety. This is based on two papers by Burcas and Cretu (2021) and Egan et al. (2022) that explore the link between the two concepts in different ways. I have got quite a lot out there this week so please do take a look at my blog for OCR and my podcast with Natalie Hunt for Abingdon School. Further back in time I have a wide range of mental health podcasts that you can find on my website. To download resources please click this link. References Burcaş, S., Creţu, R.Z. Multidimensional Perfectionism and Test Anxiety: a Meta-analytic Review of Two Decades of Research. Educ Psychol Rev 33, 249–273 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-020-09531-3 Egan, S., Wade, T., Fitzallen, G., O'Brien, A., & Shafran, R. (2022). A meta-synthesis of qualitative studies of the link between anxiety, depression and perfectionism: Implications for treatment. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 50(1), 89-105. doi:10.1017/S1352465821000357

How do students choose A levels? There are all sorts of reasons that might influence a student's A level choices such as enjoyment of a subject, parental influence, university requirements and in Psychology we talk about the therapy hypothesis - that students choose psychology to better understand themselves and possibly their own neurodivergence or mental health conditions. But the GCSE data in 2020 provided a unique opportunity to understand how much influence class rank (and potentially self-perception of their ability in a given subject) plays into students' A level choices. Whilst this research is quantitative in nature it raises so many interesting questions around setting, self-perception, referencing and even student-teacher relationships. My guest Dr Joanna Williamson from at Cambridge University Press & Assessment where she is a Senior Researcher in educational measurement. You can find the research on this link and the link to the Fleischmann paper here.

We all use videos in teaching and the ability to embed them directly into powerpoints or just find a good link on Youtube has transformed our ability, as teachers, to bring learning to life. But passively consuming videos doesn't necessairly encourage long term learning. This week we look at research that considers how to make the most of videos to aid learning. Based on Fiorella, L. (2022) Learning by explaining after pauses in video lectures: Are provided visuals a scaffold or a crutch? Applied Cognitive Psychology 36:5, 1142-1149 https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3994.

This week I am speaking to Bradley Busch from InnerDrive about the most recent research on the impact of social media and screens. We consider how teens navigating this new digital world are affected in terms of Mental Health, wellbeing, learning and life in general. As parents we also share some of the challenges we have have faced as digital immigrants when our children are digital natives, and the battle against the brains of silicon valley screaming for our children's attention - and mostly winning. We mention the latest OfCom report - Children and Parents: Media use and attitudes report 2022 - which you can read on this link.

The second of 5 podcasts helping you to make the most of your revision. In this episode we will think about making your revision as effective as possible and how to avoid bad revision strategies that feel good but don't help you remember things long term. You can listen to other podcasts in the series on this link or hear more about sleep here.

The fourth of 5 podcasts helping you to make the most of your revision. In this episode we will think about where you revise and things that make it easier or harder to get started and stay focused. It also discusses whether music is a good or bad thing and the challenges of mobile phones. You can listen to other podcasts in the series on this link.

The third of 5 podcasts helping you to make the most of your revision. In this episode we will consider 5 effective revision strategies that can help you make the most of your revision. You can watch a short video and listen to other podcasts in the series on this link.

The second of 5 podcasts helping you to make the most of your revision. In this episode we will think about making your revision as effective as possible and how to avoid bad revision strategies that feel good but don't help you remember things long term. You can watch a short video and listen to other podcasts in the series on this link.

The first of 5 podcasts helping you to make the most of your revision. In this episode we will think about the best way to plan your revision to make sure that you get the most out of the time you are revising and a balance between work and play. You can watch a short video and listen to other podcasts in the series on this link.

When we switch between one task and another due to an interuption there is a cost. Whilst we may feel like we are managing we often underestimate the toll task-switching has on our time, productivity and wellbeing. In this episode we take a brief look at how we get interupted, the cost of those interuptions and the impact it has on learning, productivity and our wellbeing as a whole. Plus there is a great little experiment you can do so have a pen and paper ready. The book mentioned is Flow: the classic work on how to achieve happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

This week we really start to draw on previous episodes with the theory of Dual Coding. Key to this is Working Memory Model (for a image of this please use this link) which is covered here. This epsiode then discusses dual coding before extending to the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning proposed by Mayer (2002) and links it back to Schemas and Cognitive Load Theory (the links take you back to previous episodes). Finally we consider the EEF's review of the evidence and then the implications for classroom practice.

What exactly are schemas and why should teachers know about them? We learn about retrieval practice, metacognition, cognitive load, working memory and many other cognitive theories and underpinning pretty much all of them are schemas. It is the way that we theorise about how knowledge is stored in, linked and retrieved from long-term memory and so therefore we need to understand not only what they are but how to move our students from novice schema to expert schema. In this episode we will look at different ways that this can be done and reflect on some best practice. There are lots of previous episodes that link to schema that can be found via this link.

The links between sports psychology and education may not be immediately obvious but talking to Matt Shaw from InnerDrive clearly demonstrates just how interrelated these two areas are. Both sport and education require learning, need students to manage emotions especially during performance and aim to encourage behaviour change for many different reasons. Packed with top tips this is a really fascinating podcast. Matt mentions the InnerDrive Blogs: the sports blogs can be found here and the education blogs here.

This week's episode looks at Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) in detail, we have talked about it before with Bradley Busch but this delves into the original theory and how it has been researched more recently. With a good understanding of CLT and various other concepts that underpin it such as working memory and schemas teachers can transform learning in the classroom. We cover Sweller's 5 principles, different types of cognitive load and 14 things you could try in your classroom. The document mentioned in the podcast can be downloaded here. Sweller, J. (2010). Cognitive Load Theory: Recent Theoretical Advances. In J. Plass, R. Moreno, & R. Brünken (Eds.), Cognitive Load Theory (pp. 29-47). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511844744.004 The EEF Review can be accessed on this link.