🧠 Why Don’t Students Like School? by Daniel Willingham is one of the most influential books for teachers on cognitive science. It explores how students’ minds work and how to use this knowledge to be a better teacher. TOP 5 TAKEAWAYS! 1/ 🧠 Working memory has limited space, and thinking becomes increasingly difficult as it gets crowded. ‘Unless the cognitive conditions are right, we avoid thinking.’ Promote challenging cognitive work by reviewing each lesson in terms of what students will THINK about. 2/ 📚 ‘Background knowledge from our long-term memory helps us to make sense of new information.’ Knowledge is best learned when it is conceptual and facts are interrelated. Guide students to learn the unifying ideas of each discipline—the most common concepts. 3/ 💭 Students remember what they THINK about—‘memory is the residue of thought.’ Effective teachers connect personally with students and organise material to make it interesting and easy to understand. E.g. through storytelling... Stories have a familiar and memorable structure! 4/ 🧱 ‘Understanding is disguised remembering,’ because every new idea is built on existing ones. Develop deep knowledge by working with the same idea in different ways. Support learning with multiple examples and guide students to categorise, compare and contrast ideas. 5/ 🏋️ ‘It is virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extended practice.’ Practice helps make mental processes automatic, reducing the demand on working memory capacity. Prioritise giving students ample practice with the knowledge and skills they need to master. 🙌 Thanks for reading! Support my work by tapping REPOST and grab a FREE high-quality copy here: static1.squarespace.com/stat…

“We have to expose students to written text to teach them rare, rich, sophisticated vocabulary and words that don’t appear in every day language!” @SoniaCabell highlights the importance of read Alouds to build students’ Langauge comprehension, develop their vocabulary, and syntax knowledge!! @yyCBEdu @JoannePitman5

Thank YOU, Kim! Your sessions were amazing as always, and you knowledge and energy inspiring!

Sometimes, we often over-scaffold to the point where we’re basically just giving them the responses!” I love this point by @SoniaCabell …and it makes me reflect on spelling programs in Ontario that GIVE students the spelling (ex. In the word “give” you add an “e” at the end”, rather than teach them and then remind them of the rule: “no words in the English language end with a single “v”. In the olden days, when we used printing presses, the letter “v” would fall down so we used the end letter “e” to hold up the “v”. The end letter “e” doesn’t always make the vowel say its own name, such as in the words “give” and “have”.) @yyCBEdu @crconsortium @kn_jensen @JoannePitman5

Kim is on her way, folks!!! 🤩And a few spots have opened up for the conference over the past day, so if you are interested, please feel free to try and register at calgary.aplc.ca/program/1419…

What a day it will be!! Thank you for making the trip to be a part of this amazing day, @MmeLockhartLDS

The science of learning isn't about prescriptions, it's about probabilities. And this is where knowing the boundary conditions of any principle matters so much. Knowing when not to use it can be as important as knowing when to. This is my problem with every lesson starting with retrieval practice "because science". A principle applied everywhere becomes dogma; a principle applied within its limits increases the probability of it being effective, because it honours the conditions that make it work in the first place. Retrieval practice is a key driver of learning but there are a lot of contexts where retrieval might be counterproductive: introducing new concepts or when prior knowledge is insufficient to make retrieval attempts meaningful rather than random guessing. The boundary conditions matter precisely because they reveal the mechanisms underlying the effect. Retrieval practice works through the effortful reconstruction of knowledge from memory, which strengthens retrieval pathways. But if there's nothing meaningful to retrieve, or if the retrieval demands exceed working memory capacity, the mechanism breaks down. The practice becomes ritual rather than science. Interleaving benefits discrimination between similar concepts, but becomes less valuable when categories are already easily distinguishable. Spacing enhances retention through forgetting and relearning, but may hinder initial acquisition when foundational knowledge is still forming. Senior leaders saying "use retrieval practice when learners have established some initial knowledge of the material, when the cognitive demand matches their capacity, and when errors can be corrected through feedback" is less compelling than "start every lesson with retrieval practice." The nuanced version requires professional judgment; the simplified version offers algorithmic certainty. This is where we need to move away from "what does the research say" but "under what conditions does this research apply/not apply to my context and how can I apply it?"

Saving this for later, as @Suchmo83 always shares great information.

Spent time this past Saturday with the kind & brilliant @SoniaCabell 🤩from @TheFCRR planning two keynotes for the 2nd annual NetWORDing Literacy Conference taking place on Oct 4. The entire lineup is looking amazing! Please check out registration calgary.aplc.ca/program/prev…

The Easter holidays are here, so I have a copy of Primary Reading Simplified to give away. Just **retweet** this tweet to have a chance to win. The winner will be selected 19th April.

If I've ever taken the time to reply to a request from you for advice on here - and you have read Primary Reading Simplified - please consider *retweeting* this tweet and giving the book a quick rating (or even a review) from where you bought it.

Thanks for this opportunity! Really looking forward to this time together.