I have put together a list of the articles I have published on LinkedIn over the past couple of months with a short description of what the articles contain. I just updated the list with my latest additions and reversed the order so the most recent articles are at the top. A few articles I published here as well, but not in the last few weeks.
I have double starred the ones that, if you haven’t read them, you should. These articles that are ** have really informed both my thinking and my teaching practice.
46. Using Marks or Grades: The Science of Learning – June 20, 2017
• This article presents the science underlying the arguments about whether using grades (A, B, C, D, F) is better or using percentage marks (0% – 100%)
45. Science of Learning : LecturingEdit article – June 19, 2017
• This article presents the evidence that we know about lecturing and it is the article that most professors will avoid reading because they don’t really want to know.
**44. Science of Learning: Thinking & Understanding – June 15, 2017
• The presentation of what higher order thinking skills actually are (from metacognition and critical thinking through to creativity) and some of the obstacles that mean we really don’t teach them.
43. Science of Learning: Behaviorism - June 14, 2017
• Classical behaviourism is embedded in education and, although it works well in the short-term, is responsible for many of the long-term challenges we face in education today.
42. Science of Learning: Metacognition in Life – June 12, 2017
• Metacognition is one of my things. Metacognition impacts so many areas of our lives. I go over some of them in this article.
41. **Science of Learning: Metacognition – 10, 2017
• Metacognition is one of my things. I have done work in the area, and so would naturally double star it because I think it is important.
40. **Science of Learning: Creativity – June 8, 2017
• How we can foster creativity in the classroom using the principles laid out in Jones’ MUSIC model. I draw heavily on my own teaching technique here to illustrate how we can foster real academic creativity with our teaching techniques.
39. Science of Learning: Alternatives to Conformity – June 7, 2017
• Conformity, what else can we do?
38. **Science of Learning: The Immense Cost of Conformity – June 6, 2017
• Why conformity in education is not only a bad thing, but how conformity in education can, literally, destroy lives.
37. Science of Learning: Conformity in the Classroom – June 5, 2017
• How conformity is fostered in our schools, classrooms, and higher education institutions.
36. Science of Learning: Conformity – June 3, 2017
• The first of five articles about the harm that can come from conformity in education – considering how conformity is a central tenant of education.
35. Science of Learning: Cramming – April 26, 2017
• The April 26th article put here with a Science of Learning prefix.
34. **Science of Learning: Subjective Judgments of Learning – June 2, 2017
• How poor we are at really judging how well we have learned something.
33. **Science of Learning: Learning Styles – June 1, 2017
• The debunking of the learning styles myth – one of the most persistent fads in teaching (96% of teachers believe and practise it).
32. Science of Learning: Organization Effect – May 31, 2017
• The last of four pieces about a technique for how students can effectively memorize material.
31. Science of Learning: Disfluency Effect – May 30, 2017
• The third of four pieces about a technique for how students can effectively memorize material.
30. Science of Learning: The Spacing Effect – May 29, 2017
• The second of four pieces about a technique for how students can effectively memorize material.
29. Science of Learning: Testing Effect – May 27, 2017
• The first of four pieces about a technique for how students can effectively memorize material. This has proven to be the best way for students to memorize what they need to learn.
28. Science of Learning: Controlled <-> Automatic Processes – May 26, 2017
• Another piece about a different aspect of memory.
27. **The Science of Learning and The Art of Teaching – May 26, 2017
• Learning is a science because we know exactly how people learn. However, teaching is an art that relies on gut feelings and popular fads with no evidence base about how people learn to inform how we should be teaching.
26. Science of Learning: Declarative <-> Procedural Memory – May 25, 2017
• Another piece about a different aspect of memory.
25. **Science of Learning: The Motivation of an Audience – May 24, 2017
• Although not a part of Jones’ MUSIC model, the audience that students are working for has a massive impact on how well they work. If they are writing for their peers, just as they polish their social media profiles, they will polish their academic work as well.
24. Science of Education: Short-Term <-> Long-term – May 23, 2017
• How information is transferred from short-term memory to long-term memory.
23. **Science of Learning: Basics of Memory – May 22, 2017
• The basics of how memory really works – as opposed to how most people think memory works. This article also asks the questions about what we expect our students to do with what they are supposed to remember from our teaching.
22. **Science of Learning: Mindset – May 19, 2017
• This piece is about the success aspect of Jones’ MUSIC model, but is one of the most critical aspects of what drives students to learn. Dweck’s mindset theory is one of the most important principles of learning that there is.
21. Science of Education: Usefulness and Interest in Motivation – May 18, 2017
• Two more pieces of Jones’ MUSIC model.
20. **Science of Learning: Motivating Students Academically – May 17, 2017
• The first in a series of articles covering Jones’ MUSIC model of academic motivation. This article talks about empowerment in learning and how that drives students to achieve.
19. Science of Learning: Internalization of Motivation – May 17, 2017
• How we can change the motivation from extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation – the kind of motivation that really gets students learning.
18. **Science of Learning: Extrinsic Motivation in Education – May 16, 2017
• Double starred article. How extrinsic motivators are destroying learning in education.
17. Science of Learning: Intrinsic Motivation Basics – May 15, 2017
• The basics of intrinsic motivation.
16. Science of Learning: Extrinsic Motivation – May 15, 2017
• The basics of extrinsic motivation.
15. Reading and Learning in Higher Education – May 13, 2017
• A piece about the place of reading in higher education.
14. **Learning? – May 12, 2017
• What place does learning have in our higher educational institutions.
13. University: Preparation for??? – May 11, 2017
• How the job market has changed over the decades, and yet, universities have still promoted learning that fed a commercial/industrial model years out of date.
12. Marking Experts – May 10, 2017
• Why we think we are good at marking, but really, we are really bad.
11. The Value of Learning – May 9, 2017
• What value does our society put on learning as compared to other activities and should we be trying to change that?
10. **Academic Skills: Why should We have to Teach Them? – May 6, 2017
• A double star for a reason. This is a discussion about how brain development means that we, as higher education professionals, have to teach higher order thinking skills. People are unable to learn these brains are developed to a particular point and this doesn’t happen until late teen and early adulthood.
9. **Information Scarcity & Information Abundance – May 5, 2017
• Double star this one. This article lays the groundwork for the most important change in higher education in centuries and how we, as a community, have simply ignored it.
8. Virtuous Cycle of Higher Grades – May 4, 2017
• Behaviourism drives up grades and causes grade inflation because we all respond to the reinforcements we receive.
7. Performance and Learning – May 3, 2017
• How performance is not learning and yet all we want to measure is performance.
6. **The Tyranny of Content – May 2, 2017
• Double star this one. In higher education we decide the content we teach. However, we have never shaken off the tradition of trying to teach everything about a subject.
5. The Failed Promise of Technology – May 1, 2017
• How technology is the promised salvation of education but all we are doing is taking the methods we use in face-to-face teaching and moving them online with no acknowledgment that what we do is about teaching and we simply ignore what we know about learning.
4. Effort in Learning – May 1, 2017
• Should have been a science of education article. Talks about how if there is no effort in learning (if it seems to easy) then there is no real learning taking place.
3. Wilful Blindness & Education – April 28, 2017
• How is it that we can ignore the failings in higher education by simply pretending that they are not there.
2. Cramming – You Don’t Learn from Episodic Memory – April 26, 2017
• Should have been a Science of Learning article. This is about how students use their episodic memory to cram for exams and the reason behind why the material is not remembered.
1. It’s Not How we do Higher Education, It’s What we do in Higher Education – April 25, 2017
• We are failing to address the lack of thinking in our graduates in higher education because there is so much focus on how we can use technology in higher education.