Teaching Tip: Variety is the spice of learning

This week’s post summarizes and comments on two closely related principles from the Life Long Learning at Work and at Home website. Principle 2: Varying learning conditions makes learning more effortful but results in enhanced long-term retrieval. Principle 3:  Learning is generally enhanced when learners are required to take information that is presented in one [...]

What’s “Critical Thinking” in Your Discipline?

In an article for Education Week Teacher, high school principal and world lit teacher Daniel McMahon notes the Orwellian “sheer cloudy vagueness” around the term “critical thinking” despite wide consensus that it’s critical for student success.  He defines critical thinking as a series of skills that move well beyond memory and recognition, those staples of [...]