Thread by @Inner_Drive

Yesterday @EducEndowFoundn released a preview of their report on Cognitive Science in Education.

We're looking forward to seeing the full publication next week, but whilst we wait here is our thread 🧵on our initial thoughts on what they said here (1/14)

First off wanted to start by saying thanks to @TWPerry1 and his team for sharing their thoughts. Their review seems very thorough which identified 40,000 studies, before focusing on about 500 that met the criteria, with 43 viewed as 'high priority' (2/14)

They wanted to explore what is the applied research behind popular cognitive science areas in education. This includes retrieval practice, spacing, interleaving, cognitive load theory, scaffolding etc.

These are areas have become much more popular in the last 5-10 years (3/14)

Some research is done in a lab. This allows us to test a concept as it allows for more control over other factors.

Some s done in classroom. This allows us to assess the usefulness in messier realistic environments.

Both matter. This review focused on the latter (4/14)

So what did they find? The first point in their summary is that 'Cognitive Science matters'. Teachers should know about this stuff, as we are in the game of helping students learn and think. It is a potentially exciting area and one that can help us be more evidence-led (5/14)

They identified spacing (small positive effect) & interleaving (moderate to large effect)

They distinguish between the two and note interleaving helps students think harder about the appropriate strategy they choose. (Graphic below is our representation of interleaving) (6/14)

Retrieval practice =moderate effect. But the researchers note that in this is often tested against re-studying. The study below arguably being the most famous

On one hand we think this is ok as students tell us that is often their alternative, but more range is needed (7/14)

Cog Load - evidence from Worked Examples is positive, thelping student transition to Completion Tasks may need considering as the evidence for doing this effectively isnt as strong.

If want to read about Worked Examples, our last blog looked at this blog.innerdrive.co.uk/cognitive-load… 8/14

It is very important to note that they highlight many studies are mainly done on certain subjects and with certain age groups. A wider range of subjects (beyond maths and sciene) and of pupils (including early years) will add to our understanding of the area (9/14)

Perhaps the most important finding from this review is going to revolve around nuance. The researchers talk about how we can probably agree on general principles, but not strategies.

Context here is king. No 'off the shelf' strategy is going to work everywhere (10/14)

They also urge caution is not getting swept up into thinking the research is far more positive then we would like to believe.

More research is needed. More trial and error in the classroom to work out what works is needed (11/14)

At InnerDrive we believe that shifting the needle on education achievement is hard. The words like 'low', 'small' or 'moderate' effect are not bad words. Any 'intervention' isn't just about effect sizes. It should be viewed as a 'time spent vs learning gain' formula (12/14)

But for anyone to be able to make that judgement call, we certainly need to heed the lessons that may emerge from this report, specifically that more research is needed and more nuance in the application of the findings thought about (13/14)

This remind us of a brilliant quote by William James, who was the first educator to offer a psychology course in education in America.

This quote has pride and place at InnerDrive HQ.

Essentially we have to marry the science of learning with the art of teaching (14/14)