The Science of Learning--What Every Teacher Should Know - Teachers College

This education course will show you, through current research, how we learn — the way our brain makes, stores, and retrieves memories. You will examine common misconceptions and misunderstandings about learning that can prevent students from learning at their fullest capacity. Along the way you will explore the practical implications of cognitive science for classroom teaching in terms of choosing effective instructional strategies, developing useful assessments, motivating student effort, and designing learner-centered curricular units. This course is aimed to enhance the practice of K-12 teachers.

What you'll learn

• How the brain encodes memories, stores them, and retrieves them for later use.
• Why working memory is so important for learning and ways to prevent it from getting overloaded.
• Strategies for making memories that “stick” and can be readily recalled when needed.
• Misconceptions that many students have about learning and ways to correct them.
• How student mindsets and beliefs about learning can help or hinder their academic success.
• How to help students become independent and self-regulated learners so they can lead their own learning.
• Teaching strategies and assessment techniques that maximize student learning.