Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 16/11/2025SUMMARY • Elaboration helps students deepen and apply their understanding. • We can foster it by getting students to summarise, explain, visualise, and enact. • This works best when it is not cognitively overloading, and students have sufficient prior knowledge. 👊 060
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 16/11/2025🎓 For more on the theory, check out this review of generative learning activities: link.springer.com/article/10.... (and for a wonderfully practical exploration, see the Enser’s book on the topic)link.springer.comMaking Sense of Generative LearningEducational Psychology Review - How do learners make sense of what they are learning? In this article, I present a new framework of sense-making based on research investigating the benefits and... 141
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 16/11/2025And all of them work best when students have sufficient background knowledge, can hold new ideas in mind, and see the point of such exercises. 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 16/11/2025Some of these activities work better for certain content (eg. diagrams are great for spatial relations) and different age groups (eg. young children can often experience cognitive overload when mapping). 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 16/11/2025- Enacting: Using movements to represent actions, concepts, or relationships → Conceptualise planetary orbits by physically modelling the solar system, walking in circles around a central ‘sun’, and representing different planets. 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 16/11/20253/ Visualising Creating drawings, maps, or diagrams to illustrate key ideas and their connections → Create a flowchart to show the steps of cellular respiration, linking glucose breakdown to energy release and waste production. 120
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 16/11/20252/ Explaining Describing how ideas work, comparing examples, or predicting outcomes, either to others or oneself → Explain Newton's third law to a peer by describing how pushing against a wall results in an equal and opposite force. 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 16/11/20251/ Summarising Reworking the main ideas in one’s own words to deepen comprehension → Rewrite the main points of photosynthesis in your own words, focusing on key stages like light absorption and glucose production. 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 16/11/2025This process, known as elaboration, often requires teacher guidance, as learners aren’t typically inclined to do it naturally. Examples of activities that foster elaboration include: 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 16/11/2025During externalisation, if we prompt students to expand upon new ideas, integrate them with prior knowledge, or organise them in more meaningful ways, we can help them to deepen their understanding and better apply it to new situations. 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 16/11/2025Prompting students to externalise their thinking through activities such as talking, writing, or drawing can enhance learning. This works by focusing attention, strengthening encoding, and fostering clarity of thought. 120
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 16/11/2025Elaboration: The key to deepening understanding and transfer ↓ 1103
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 09/11/2025SUMMARY • At appropriate points, prompting students to externalise their thinking can boost learning. • Such as getting them to talk, write, or draw. • This works via boosting attention, strengthening encoding, and forcing clarity. 👊 030
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 09/11/2025🎓 For more, check out this review of the generation effect and its underpinning mechanics: link.springer.com/article/10....link.springer.comTheories of the generation effect and the impact of generation constraint: A meta-analytic reviewPsychonomic Bulletin & Review - The generation effect is the memory benefit for self-generated compared with read or experimenter-provided information. In recent decades, numerous theories have... 120
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 09/11/2025Externalised thinking works best when we provide as few clues as possible to the answer (eg. free recall tends to be more powerful than MCQs), while still ensuring that students think the right thing (and if not: we provide immediate feedback & prompt re-thinking). 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 09/11/2025Note → Despite these benefits, externalising our thinking can sometimes feel less productive, in part because it tends to require more effort. 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 09/11/2025It’s not that internal modes aren’t useful—just that they can be enhanced when combined with external modes, because this can: • Increase the chances of attention being paid • Strengthen encoding, via neural activation • Force greater clarity of thought 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 09/11/2025Externalisation is the product of things like talking, writing, or drawing… in contrast to more internal thinking processes generated by things such as reading, watching, or listening. 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 09/11/2025This is a fairly basic idea that will be intuitive to most teachers. However, just because it’s basic doesn’t mean it’s easy to apply in sophisticated ways. 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 09/11/2025For example, instead of just explaining an idea, if we also ask students to discuss it... or instead of just reading something, we also ask students to create a written summary in their own words... they are more likely to understand and remember better. 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 09/11/2025At appropriate points in our teaching, if we prompt students to externalise their thinking, it can lead to stronger learning than if we just let them think in more internalised ways. 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 09/11/2025“How can I know what I think till I see what I say?” — Graham Wallas How to harness the 'Generation Effect' by externalising thinking... ↓ 130
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 12/10/2025SUMMARY • One reason learning styles may be so popular is due to their ‘moral appeal’. •They align well with our admiration for individuality, choice, and natural approaches. • However, applying such liberal ideals to the process of schooling may limit our ability to achieve liberal outcomes. 👊 040
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 12/10/2025🎓 For more, check out this analysis of the wonky moral intuitions that underlie the learning styles myth: www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...sciencedirect.comWhy the learning styles myth appeals and how to persuade believers otherwiseMany teachers and researchers, among others, continue to believe, despite the lack of evidence, that learning will be more effective if educators matc… 140
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 12/10/2025In these reactions, we are merely reflecting the deeply held moral positions of our society. However, despite the best of intentions, when we let such gut feelings get in the way of the evidence, we risk thwarting the very values we seek to advance. 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 12/10/2025and why some folks—including me—can find ourselves experiencing an negative emotional response to things like consistent routines, centralised curricula, and choral response (at least until we better understand the cause and effect of the classroom). 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 12/10/2025Liberal overreach explains why notions such as student-led education, personalised learning, and inquiry teaching have such intuitive appeal (irrespective of their efficacy)... 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 12/10/2025This represents a particularly pernicious form of means-ends conflation, which we might call ‘liberal overreach’. 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 12/10/2025For example, the more we provide students with choices during their schooling, the more we may inadvertently limit their ability to make choices in the future (because they’re not always in a good position to make wise decisions about the what and the how of their learning). 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 12/10/2025However, we find ourselves in a logical pickle when we fail to recognise that sometimes applying liberal ideals to the process of schooling can limit our ability to achieve liberal ideals as the outcomes of schooling. 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 12/10/2025Through this lens, the allure of learning styles begins to make sense. It reflects our desire to protect and promote the uniqueness of our students and to honour their natural inclinations. 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 12/10/2025We live in a society that places a high value on individuality, personal choice, and the inherent superiority of natural traits. Understandably so—these are the cornerstones of liberal democracy and romanticism, the grand narratives upon which many Western nations have been built. 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 12/10/2025The myth of learning styles is pervasive across society (and even education). But what exactly makes it so attractive? One compelling—albeit more theoretical than empirical—argument is that such concepts hold a modern-day ‘moral appeal’. 120
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 12/10/2025🚨 LIBERAL OVERREACH When applying our values backfires: ↓ 132
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 05/10/2025SUMMARY • The idea that we should tailor our teaching to student learning preferences is unhelpful. • A better (yet still related) maxim is to focus instead on the best medium for the message. • Students with SEND stand to gain the most from evidence informed approaches. 👊 020
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 05/10/2025🎓 For more, check out this review of the evidence around learning styles, from Professor Daniel Willingham: www.aft.org/ae/summer20...aft.orgAsk the Cognitive Scientist: Does Tailoring Instruction to “Learning Styles” Help Students Learn? 121
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 05/10/2025What about students with SEN (Special Educational Needs)? Well, SEN is an unhelpfully broad label… but in general (aside from highly specific needs), students with SEN need this approach more than ever... because they are often less equipped to compensate for wonky teaching. 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 05/10/2025For me, our best bet is the idea that we should tailor the modality (speech, text, gesture etc.) of our teaching to the needs of the CONTENT, rather than the preferences of our learners. Aka, the best medium for the message. 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 05/10/2025One way we can help counteract this unhelpful idea is to have a more informed idea on hand to replace it with. (without a replacement, we just end up reverting) 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 05/10/2025I’m pretty sure everyone reading this will be aware of this, despite studies showing that upwards of 80% of the global education profession still believe in learning styles 😱 www.frontiersin.org/journals/ed... (you are in the minority)frontiersin.orgFrontiers | How Common Is Belief in the Learning Styles Neuromyth, and Does It Matter? A Pragmatic Systematic ReviewA commonly cited use of Learning Styles theory is to use information from self-report questionnaires to assign learners into one or more of a handful of supp... 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 05/10/2025AND it can prompt teachers (and parents and students) to assume that visual learners are smarter, creating unhelpful expectations around student abilities ⤵️ www.nature.com/articles/s4...nature.comBeware the myth: learning styles affect parents’, children’s, and teachers’ thinking about children’s academic potentialnpj Science of Learning - Beware the myth: learning styles affect parents’, children’s, and teachers’ thinking about children’s academic potential 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 05/10/2025There are indications that it can be actively harmful. For example, it can perpetuate a fixed mindset, where students believe their abilities are static rather than adaptable. 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 05/10/2025Not only is there no evidence to support this idea (formally known as the ‘meshing hypothesis’), which makes it a poor use of teacher and student time (which could be spent on things which do support learning) but... 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 05/10/2025Learning styles—the idea that individuals differ in the mode of instruction that is best for them, and that we should tailor our teaching accordingly—is one of the most pervasive myths in education. 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 05/10/2025Tailor to lesson content, not student preferences. An alternative to the learning styles myth: ↓ 182
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 28/09/2025SUMMARY • A shared ‘pedagogical toolkit’ can be a powerful thing. • It entails agreeing to a limited suite of tools, and how you’ll use them. • Achieving alignment across staff has the potential to help your students learn more and your colleagues lives easier. 👊 110
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 28/09/2025And for the ultimate customisable toolkit, check out the fandabulous Steplab: → steplab.co 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 28/09/2025🎓 For more, see this paper on the fundamental units of behavioural influence: link.springer.com/article/10....link.springer.comEvidence-based Kernels: Fundamental Units of Behavioral InfluenceClinical Child and Family Psychology Review - This paper describes evidence-based kernels, fundamental units of behavioral influence that appear to underlie effective prevention and treatment for... 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 28/09/2025Now, does all this reduce autonomy? Well, it depends how we see our role and what we value more... doing things our own way or student learning & colleague workload. 100
Peps @pepsmccrea.bsky.social · 28/09/2025The fewer tools we agree to include in our toolkit, the quicker they can be mastered and the more skilled everyone can get at using them. And the more precise we our in our codification (exactly what to do, what to say, what to expect), the more powerful the overall effect. 110