Psychology in the Classroom

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 th...

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 fa...

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...

Don Berg is an author, education psychology researcher, alternative education practitioner, and leader.  He has over 20 years of experience leading children in self-directed educational settings.  In this episode we focus on motivation, going beyond the traditional intrinsic-extrinsic paradigm to discuss the need for autonomy, competency and relatedness in order for students to feel motivated and...

Interleaving is a concept that has been around in the pyschological literature for about 10 years, the findings are quite robust but there is a lot of confusion about exactly what interleaving is and how it should be used in the classroom.  This episode we define what interleaving is and is not, the consider the research that underpins it as a concept and the theories as to why it might work and f...

Following on from last week Bradley Busch from InnerDrive talks about the importance of retrieval practice in learning and how it links to the broader landscape of learning through the development of schemas, how to develop effective questions, not to mention why students don't opt for retrieval practice in their revision. If you's like to listen to Bradley's other Psychology in the Classroom Podc...

Many teachers understand the concept of retrieval practice in learning, in this week's podcast we are looking back at some seminal research on this by Roediger and Karpicke (2006) that looks at how effective recall is over reading as a learning strategy, whether more retrieval practice means better learning and how good we are at judging how well we know stuff.  Knowing this research has implicati...

Dancing has been shown to have numerous benefits and as we will hear they are physical, social and cognitive. Dr Peter Lovatt explains the psychology of dance and movement, why it is so important to get movement into the classroom and suggests some great ways to do this in any classroom. You can find out more about the psychology of dance and join the programmes on these links: Dr Peter Lovatt's W...

I have been struggling to get my head around Metacognition and what it looks like in the classroom.  In this episode I go right back to Flavell's 1979 paper where he outlines his ideas and discuss a variety of examples of metacognition in the classroom.  I hope you find it a useful introduction to metacognition and a spring board to thinkin about what it looks like in your classroom. Useful links:...

Today's episode we are revisiting the RE-STAR project or Regulating Emotions - Strengthening Adolescent Resilience, a large 4 year research project looking at the relationship between poor mental health and neuro-atypicalities, in particular Autism and Attention Deficit Hyper Activity Disorder (ADHD). Today I am joined by Professor Edmund Sonuga-Barke, who is leading the project and we are also jo...

The final takeover podcast of the season comes from Will, Todd and Dan who, as you will hear, are all keen sports fans.  Whilst the conversation is loosely linked to psychology it is great to hear young people's thoughts on the effects of crowds on performance, the issue of sport related violence and why it is so prevalent in football rather than other sports.  It is great to eavesdrop on the conv...

Welcome to the next of the takeover podcasts about memory, music and Alzheimer's from Effie from Bootham School.  I am sure that for many of us there are songs that come on the radio and we are instantly transported back to a specific moment in time, a memory.  There is something different about the way we store musical memories and this is what forms the basis of music therapy for patients with d...

What is the point of Psychological research. In this short episode James asks if you can spot the real and the fake research? Showing our intuition isn't always correct.

For the next two weeks I hand my podcast over to students and teachers who would like to tell you about an area of psychology that interests them.  Today Harriet Ennis (a teacher and trained hynotherapist) introduces self-hypnosis with an explanation of what self-hypnosis is, how it can help you relax and how you can do it.  The second part of the recording (at 14 minutes) is the self-hypnosis rec...

As R esearch fellows of the Oxford Character Project, co-authors of the book ' Leader: Know, love and inspire your people ', Senior Fellows of the Human Flourishing Program's Network at Harvard University, and director and founder, respecitvely of the Wellington Leadership and Coaching Institute Emmie Bidsotn and Dr Katy Granville-Chapman are well placed to talk about leadership and its role in sc...

Sleep is a vital part of every animal's life and plays a vital role in emotional regulation, memory consolidation and physical health.  But many people struggle to get a good night's sleep and that includes adolescents.  The impact of poor sleep can be devastating.  This week Dr Maria Gardani talks about her research into sleep and why and how we can all get a better night's sleep.   The links Mar...

How can Neuropsychology integrate with education to support our understanding of how learning works?  This week Clinical Psychologist and neuropsychologist Dr Jenny G'in-toni talks about her work in the multidisciplinary fields of educational neuroscience.  This is a really interesting area but it is difficult, as we shall hear, to make the move from research to practical application.  If you want...

Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou is an assistant professor based at the Department of Psychology and Human Development at University College London and is the lead autism workforce trainer at the Anna Freud Centre. She is the founder of the Group for Research in Relationships in Neurodiversity .   We discuss the relationship and experiences of neurotypical siblings who have a neurodiverse sibling.  The impa...

Cognitive Load is something that we should all be aware of when teaching, but what is the scientific theory that underpins it and how can we hit the sweet spot where cognitive load isn't too high but is still high enough to engage and motivate students to learn.  This week Bradley Busch from InnerDrive talks about the science of cognitive load, as well as redundancy effect, coherency effect and sp...

Over its very long history, cannabis has been celebrated by some for its pleasures and medicinal properties.  It has also been demonised for inducing psychotic effects, addiction and cognitive impairment.  A cannabis plant can contain over 140 cannabinoids and levels of these vary widely in different strains of cannabis.  In this episode I am talking to Professor Valerie Curran from University Col...

Is it ok to smile before Christmas? This week my guest, David Lowe and I talk about humour in the classroom - what it is, how it can help learning and how it can go wrong, there are also some (very good) jokes!  If you want to find out more about David's research or get involved you can visit his website hahasquad.com . Research Mentioned: Huber, G. & Brown, A. (2017) Identity Work, Humour and Dis...

Dr Laura Jenkins, Laura is a University Teacher in Psychology at Loughborough University, a Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.  Laura's research interests focus around areas of personality and factors that could be influenced by personality.  Today we are going to be talking about how three very specific personality traits may be linked to academic misc...

We don't give much thought to names, but we probably ought to.  In this emotive podcast Prof. I. M. Nick, the current Editor-in-Chief of NAMES, the scholarly journal for onomastic research("Onomastics" is the formal name for the scientific study of names and naming) discusses name-based prejudice and how incredibly harmful to individuals and groups.  Teachers have a critical role to play in callin...

A couple of years ago I saw a tweet asking if the fashion for hessian backing on display boards was based on any evidence.  It turns out no one has researched this but Dr Karrie Godwin researches (amongst other things) the impact of classroom displays on off-task behaviour and learning. In this podcast we talk about just how distracting displays can be to learning and what the perfect classroom mi...

Aphantasia is the inability to visualize, people with aphantasia don't create any pictures of familiar objects, people, or places in their mind's eye. Not for thoughts, memories, or images of the future.  This conversation is a fascinating insight into the condition itself but also how our assumptions about other people's perception and understanding of the world may differ from our own.  Whilst r...