Foundations of Teaching and Learning

Purpose:

This course is designed for a broad audience, including teachers, students, and parents, who wish to deepen their understanding of learning processes and enhance both their teaching and learning experiences. It draws on essential principles from cognitive science and psychology to explore the science of learning, offering insights applicable across various subjects, from reading and math to science and language learning.

The course aims to demystify these principles, bridging theory with practical application to make them accessible and beneficial. We will cover several key concepts:

• Working Memory: Understanding how we temporarily hold and process information.

• Long-Term Memory: Exploring the mechanism for storing and retrieving information over time.

• Learning Transfer: Examining the process of moving learning from one context to another.

• Schema: Investigating how we organize and structure knowledge.

• Student Engagement: Exploring how we maintain learners' interest and participation and comparing and contrasting that to learning.

• Retrieval Practice: The process of actively recalling information and why that is important.

• Spacing: The benefits of distributing learning over time.

• Interleaving: Mixing different topics or subjects to improve learning.

• Meta-cognition: Awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes and how that can be an effective learning tool.

• Dual Coding: Using both verbal and visual information to aid understanding.

• Elaboration: Enhancing learning by adding details or creating connections.

• Concrete Examples: Using real-world examples to support learning.

Through these lessons, I aim to connect theoretical insights with practical strategies, making them relevant and actionable for enhancing educational experiences.