Episode 250 Transcript

The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast, Episode 250

Jennifer Gonzalez, host

GONZALEZ: This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to Episode 250 of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast. In this episode, we’re going to learn a handful of easy, fun, fast, and effective strategies for adding more retrieval practice to your classroom.

If there is one learning strategy I’ve probably talked the most about on this platform, it’s retrieval practice. In the 10 years since I chose a book called Make it Stick for a book study in the summer of 2015, I’ve been encouraging teachers to add more retrieval practice to their teaching. But if you’re new here, I’ll give you a very quick overview: Retrieval practice is the act of trying to recall something you learned from memory — by doing things like taking a test on it or using flashcards — instead of just looking at, re-reading, or reviewing the information. A big and growing body of research tells us that when we study with retrieval, we learn and remember things much better than we do by other review methods. 

While I think we’ve established the value of retrieval as a learning strategy, I think there’s still room for more practical ways to build it into our teaching. I have encouraged giving frequent quizzes, think-pair-shares, and teaching students to use flashcards, but there are a lot of other ways to do it, and in today’s episode, we’ll get a lot more.

Joining me are three cognitive scientists. The first is Dr. Pooja Agarwal, who has been a guest twice already to talk about retrieval practice. Dr. Agarwal has been regularly sharing research and resources on retrieval through her website, retrievalpractice.org, and just recently, she published a book, Smart Teaching Stronger Learning: Practical Tips from 10 Cognitive Scientists. Each chapter in the book was written by a different cognitive scientist, sharing actionable, evidence-based classroom practices they have used themselves. Two of these authors — Dr. Michelle Rivers and Dr. Janell Blunt — are sharing theirs today. By the time you finish this episode, you’ll have nine high-impact retrieval strategies you can use with your own students. 

Before we get started, I’d like to thank Zearn for sponsoring this episode. Elementary and middle school teachers, what if you could give students more opportunities to learn and practice the same math concepts they’re learning with you? That’s exactly what you’ll get with Zearn Math. Zearn is a free online math learning program with content for every concept of K-8 math. Every day, kids in tens of thousands of classrooms across the U.S. log in to Zearn to complete guided, interactive lessons based on leading math pedagogy. Students learn and solve problems with on-screen teachers, who use visuals to make challenging grade-level math concepts intuitive. If kids get stuck, Zearn lessons adapt in real time to help them work through challenges and stay on track. Zearn is a nonprofit, which means every detail of their program has been designed, developed, and tested with a single goal in mind: helping every student succeed in grade-level math. Sign up for a free account today at Zearn.org.

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Now here’s my conversation with Dr. Pooja Agarwal, Dr. Janell Blunt, and Dr. Michelle Rivers about retrieval strategies.

GONZALEZ: Dr. Agarwal, welcome back for the third time on the podcast. 

AGARWAL: I am so excited. Thank you for having me again. 

GONZALEZ: We have basically only ever talked about retrieval practice when you’ve been on. You have become my go-to person for all things retrieval practice, which is great. And you have a new book, it’s called “Smart Teaching Stronger Learning.” So tell me about this book and why you put it together. 

AGARWAL: I am so thrilled for this book. “Smart Teaching Stronger Learning” brings together a team of 10 cognitive scientists, and I know that can sound intimidating, for me too. I’ll tell you a bit more about it first. But it’s, it’s really a book by teachers. And the 10 authors that are featured in this book, I’m the editor, and so the 10 authors featured in this book are also teachers. They’re all classroom teachers. They’ve taught in the past. They currently teach. And they just happen to conduct research on learning, but I like to think of us as teachers. And in this book, what we’re doing is each author shares a little bit of their research, but they really dive more into how they teach. So the approach the authors have is more to demonstrate and talk about how they actually practice what they preach. Because so often we’ll learn about science or the science of learning, but it’s just kind of like out there, and it’s never put into practice. And I love that more and more people around the world are putting the science of learning into practice, and I love that these 10 scientists are doing it, they’re doing it in their classrooms every week, every semester, every school year. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

AGARWAL: What I also love about the book is of course, as you and I have talked about, Jenn, all teachers are experts. Everyone listening to your podcast, everyone who reads your blog, are experts on learning. And it’s important to me that with this book, the experts reading it are going to know more about the research that backs up the great strategies they already use. Teachers already use retrieval practice, and we’ll talk a bit more about that, but all of the strategies teachers use is backed by research. And they’ll also learn some new strategies from these 10 authors. The 10 authors are also very representative, which I find incredibly critical and important to know that these are strategies and this is research from a wide variety of schools, age levels, countries. We’ve got some authors who are from Singapore and Brazil. And so it’s kind of like visiting 10 different classrooms —

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

AGARWAL: — around the world of teacher scientists. And I also think about it as getting a sense of kind of double evidence. The readers will read about the research evidence behind these strategies. But there’s also this evidence from the classroom. So the scientists have done the work to translate their own research, but they practice what they preach, and they talk about what that means when they’ve got students coming into class late, what that means when they’ve got absent students, what that means when they’ve got a pile of grading to do, or they need to get feedback or they need to prep class at the last minute. So it’s really this added level of evidence in addition to being scientists, them being teachers. 

GONZALEZ: Mhmm. 

AGARWAL: And I’ll say that one of the things, I don’t know if I should say this, but I’m going to. One of the things that I am the most excited by is that it’s short. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

AGARWAL: It is —

GONZALEZ: I was excited about that too. 

AGARWAL: It is ten truly very short — it’s 10 chapters, but they’re only 10 pages each. And there’s no statistics. There’s no scientific jargon. They’re strategies that you can implement immediately, and you can flip through the book. You don’t have to read it in the correct order or front to back. If you really want to learn about a certain type of strategy or a certain area of learning, you can just flip to that chapter. So it’s really, really short because not all of us — or at least a lot of us — don’t have time to read it. And so when I have started my teacher training in K-12 and then I’ve been teaching at the college level for 20 years, but when I started my teacher training, this is the kind of book that I really wish I had. And hearing the voices of my 10 friends, colleagues just feels so insightful and exciting to know how they teach, and then I’m, I already have a list of which strategies I’m going to use in my own classroom in the fall. 

GONZALEZ: Oh, I love that. Yeah, it’s a very accessible book. When I opened it up I thought, oh, this is very readable, this is just, you can just grab — and the thing is the research and the numbers are important. But you can also, you know, you can footnote that stuff and sort of slide it, you know. And it’s like, because people aren’t necessarily going to be checking. They just want to know, does this work? 

AGARWAL: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: Is there some research to back it up? Yes. Okay, tell me what to do. 

AGARWAL: Right, exactly. 

GONZALEZ: And that’s what this book does. 

AGARWAL: And so we, and we’ve got those footnotes at the end, not in the middle of the chapter. We’ve got bullet points. We like bullet points. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

AGARWAL: So those strategies are there and practical and short and hopefully easy to implement knowing that the research is there too. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. And the title is “Smart Teaching Stronger Learning.” 

AGARWAL: It took, of course, some time to come up with a book title. In my head I kind of think of it like the title for the movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” 

GONZALEZ: Very nice, yeah. 

AGARWAL: But the smart teaching is knowing that when you read this book, you’re going to be better informed. You’re already an expert as a teacher, but you’re going to be a smart teacher knowing that there’s research to back it up. And with stronger learning being the ultimate goal we all have. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

AGARWAL: Our students forget, and they forget, and we have to reteach and reteach. So if we can implement these research-based strategies and strengthen students’ learning, that is the goal that we all are rallying behind. 

GONZALEZ: Mhmm. I like this idea that teachers are already doing a lot of this stuff. We don’t necessarily all know how to back it up with research, but teachers know what works and what doesn’t work. And sometimes, we get into these conundrums where it’s like, I don’t understand why this thing isn’t working, and that’s where the research can also help. So having a little bit of a research base — and I used to always wonder when I was in the classroom why there wasn’t a stronger connection between people doing the research and people who are practicing in the classroom. 

AGARWAL: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: So all the stuff you’ve been doing in the last couple of years has really been bridging — you and a few other people that I’ve had on too — have really been bridging that gap, which is so fantastic. We need to be talking to each other all the time. So let’s, for people who have never heard of retrieval practice until this very moment, even though you and I have talked about it a lot over the last close to 10 years now. 

AGARWAL: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Let’s just do a super quick overview just so that we don’t assume that everyone listening knows. What is retrieval practice? Why is it so powerful, and why do we keep hammering people with it?

AGARWAL: Yeah. We have been talking about it for a long time. And it’s not new, so we’ll talk about that too. Retrieval practice is not a new strategy. But as a teacher, I like to start with a question. So I have a question for you, Jenn. 

GONZALEZ: Mhmm. 

AGARWAL: When you meet new people, let’s say you go to a party, a conference, you’re meeting new students. When you meet new people, how do you feel about remembering their names? Is this easy for you? Is it hard for you? 

GONZALEZ: My brain is a sieve when it comes to that, unless I, unless I give myself a mnemonic the second they say their name and I sort of mentally, you know, yeah. Or I get my notes app out and write it down. No, I feel stressed about it. I’m not good about it, yeah. 

AGARWAL: It’s stressful, and names are really hard for all of us to remember. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

AGARWAL: They’re incredibly hard. And I love thinking about it. I teach about 200 students every year, and that’s also a lot of names to remember. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

AGARWAL: What happens with names, and this happens in class, and this happens in everyday life, with names, when you meet a new person, at least I find myself doing this, I then might repeat their name in my head. So if I were to meet you for the first time, in my head I might say, okay, I’m going to try to carry on a genuine conversation, but in my head, I’m going, “Jenn, Jenn, Jenn, okay, her name’s Jenn.” And now I have to pay attention to the conversation, and now her name’s Jenn, Jenn, right? I’m repeating this, what we call rehearsal. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

AGARWAL: I’m rehearsing your name in my head. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

AGARWAL: And as scientists, we call this encoding. It’s kind of focusing on getting information into our heads. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

AGARWAL: The same is how students cram. It’s that “Jenn, Jenn, Jenn” let me reread, reread, reread. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

AGARWAL: And we have to do that to learn. That’s how I’m going to learn your name. What retrieval practice is, is focusing on getting that information out. It’s practicing, and it’s retrieving it. It’s kind of this mental time travel. If I were to retrieve what I did last weekend, that also takes me some time. I am not very good at remembering what I did yesterday or three days ago. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

AGARWAL: But that mental process is what we call retrieval, just like a dog goes and retrieves a ball, retrieving someone’s name after a conversation or maybe just once in the middle of a conversation, is going to help strengthen that learning much more than focusing on getting information in with the rehearsal, “Jenn, Jenn, Jenn.” So as teachers, we of course do great things to help students get information into their heads. Retrieval practice is being more intentional about getting information out of their heads. So we do this with think-pair-share, with discussion prompts, with conversations in class, with homework. That’s all retrieval practice. So we already do it. And what you learn about in this book and in what we’ve talked about in previous episodes is just how to do more of it. How can you really encourage retrieval practice in a way that is no pressure, no stakes, has nothing to do with testing. It’s using retrieval as a learning strategy instead of an assessment strategy. 

GONZALEZ: That’s, yes, that’s the piece. Usually when I try to explain this to people, I say, you know when you’re studying for a test, and you feel like you’ve got it, and you hand your book or your notes to someone else and you say, “Test me”? That’s what you’re doing. You know that this is going to be a next level way of studying it if somebody, and you have to try to remember it, and that, even if you get it wrong, you’re learning it better — 

AGARWAL: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: — than you would be just by staring at the stuff over and over again. 

AGARWAL: Absolutely. That’s why we know that, you know, we learn from our mistakes, right. This is why musicians practice their instruments. They know they have to make mistakes in order to get better. They can’t cram the night before a performance or a gig. They have to practice. So when I talk to my students about what retrieval practice is, I point out that musicians have to practice their instruments, and in my classroom, my students are going to practice their knowledge as well. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

AGARWAL: And I, you’re saying that retrieval practice isn’t new, but it seems like, and correct me if I’m wrong, that the research on it has been — compared to all the other research in education — it seems like retrieval practice research has been a very hot thing for about the last 10, 15 years where they’re starting to really uncover this idea that the more you do it, it’s better than many other ways of sort of studying material. That when you add this into teaching and learning, it’s a huge boost. Yes? 

AGARWAL: Yes, yeah. And the research on retrieval practice goes back more than a hundred years. And part of why I got interested in both retrieval practice but a lot of the science communication work I do is that research just sort of sits around in really boring journals that no one wants to read, myself included. 

GONZALEZ: Yep. 

AGARWAL: So the research goes way back, but I’m really glad to see that there’s more and more conversations, there are more resources and books about how you can take this research and apply it in the classroom. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

AGARWAL: So it’s not new, research-wise, and of course as teachers it’s not new for us either. It’s being mindful of helping students and supporting them making mistakes, testing themselves, using flashcards, using tech apps to really strengthen their long-term learning. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. And so in the book, from what I saw, the book is not entirely retrieval practice strategies, but there’s lots and lots of it in there, yes? 

AGARWAL: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

AGARWAL: There’s one chapter that focuses on retrieval practice. You’ll find the theme that a lot of the strategies are around the same basic foundation. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

AGARWAL: You have to practice in order to get better. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

AGARWAL: The book extends that by saying, okay, how often do you practice? How long should you space it out? How do you take that practice and add in more reflective questions to improve students’ learning? What types of questions are the most effective types of questions? So it’s about retrieval but then it’s taking all of the complicated things we do as teachers and all of those questions we wonder about when it comes to actual lesson planning and activities. So great. It makes sense that I should get information out of my students’ heads, but then what does that actually look like? 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

AGARWAL: So yes, you’re right. There’s a lot of it in the book, but I think of it as a foundation, and all of the chapters kind of take that basic foundation and level it up. 

GONZALEZ: Right. And so, what I thought we would do for this episode was to have two of your authors join us. 

AGARWAL: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: And share some of the retrieval practice strategies that they actually are using in the classroom that work really well for them. So the first person we’re going to be talking to is Dr. Janell Blunt. And she shares a lot of prompts in the book that she uses with whiteboards and really sell — I mean, when I read this section on whiteboards, I got so excited and I thought, and it’s not like I’ve never used them or seen them, but the way that you describe these really was interesting. And so I thought, let’s put this into this episode. It’s an easy thing that teachers can apply right away. So Dr. Blunt, if you would, please tell us a little bit about what you teach, what you do, and then we’ll get into the whiteboard stuff. 

BLUNT: Hi, Jenn. Thanks for having me. I am a cognitive scientist who is in the classroom teaching four days a week. I’m teaching anything from memory to cognitive and neuroscience. And I ask students, like, who do you think I am, if you were to say, who am I? And the thing they all said was, “You’re that girl who rollerblades with her dog and rock climbs.” So there’s, I kind of want, I want everyone to know, we are people. We’re teachers like you. We’re researchers. And we are crazy people who rollerblade with our vizslas because we don’t know how to get their energy out. 

GONZALEZ: That’s awesome. 

BLUNT: When I’m in the classroom, I love to bring that same kind of energy and excitement to the classroom. And the thing that I have found most effective is whiteboards. And so students love whiteboards. They just, they’re contagious. I model them in class. I have this suitcase and I wheel it into class, and there’s a whiteboard for each student, and they just know it’s their routine. Every class, they get out their whiteboard. And I ask them, guys, people want to know, why you like the whiteboards? And the only thing they can give me is, “I just love whiteboards! It’s fun!” And I’m like, “But why?”

GONZALEZ: Different, yeah. 

BLUNT: Yeah. I don’t know if it’s because doing things on paper feels like it’s busy work or if the whiteboards are just, there’s something really fun about the whiteboards. And when I push them further, they’re like, “I don’t know, Dr. Blunt. It’s just fun.” But when I really push them, they kind of go back to this thing that Dr. Agarwal was saying, which is something about mistakes. When you’re practicing retrieval, you are going to be making mistakes. And when they have their whiteboard, they got their eraser in one hand and their pen in the other. And so they just, when they make a mistake, it just, it just goes away. And it almost is normalizing these mistakes. It’s fine. This is part of the process. They’re not confronted with lines of crossed out mistakes. The whiteboards let them practice retrieval in this really low stakes, low anxiety kind of way that is apparently quite fun. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. And these are, I know that I’ve seen a lot of whiteboard hacks too where you can go everywhere from like a sheet of paper inside a page protector can be used as a really cheap whiteboard. 

BLUNT: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: All the way to cutting up PVC board from Home Depot or just actually buying little whiteboards. So you have a set of prompts that you share in the book that — I think this is the part where I started to get really excited about. What things do you have your students do with the whiteboards? 

BLUNT: Anything they want, anything I want, and that’s one thing I absolutely love about it, and I love that about retrieval. Retrieval doesn’t mean a late-night lesson plans, wondering what you’re going to do the next morning. Retrieval can be as simple as “tell me what you remember.” It’s just incredibly flexible, and the whiteboards, having them on hand every class just takes that flexibility to a whole new level. Last class I was in, I had a student who wanted to, you know, he’s going to grad school, going to get his PhD, and he wanted to teach a 15-minute section of class. And so I’m like, all right, knock yourself out. And he teaches, and he ends, you know, five minutes early. So what do I, what do I do? Five minutes, it’s five minutes that we can use. And so I can say, list 10 of the disorders that were just mentioned to you today. And the students then, and they can just get their whiteboards and start retrieving. No planning, great learning that also then highlighted some things they didn’t understand on the fly. And they’re into it. They can also then, they can do some silent retrieval, and they can also turn to the person next to them after a couple of minutes have passed and there’s this collaborative retrieval that’s happening. So the prompt is, whatever we just said, what did we say? And I love this book that Dr. Agarwal put together for us because it goes through not just practice retrieval but here’s some schedules you might consider. So in that moment, I said, what did we just talk about? But I also can easily say last week, yes, last week, what are two things we talked about? Or what’s the definition for this? Or what’s an example of this term? So this ultimate kind of brain dump. What are just things you remember is definitely one thing I do. I also want to make sure I’m doing this intentionally so it’s not just all like, “What does my soul feel like?” But having some intentionality, and one way to do that is I have these slides, and for me, these slides are light blue with little dots on the outside, it’s a faint border, and it says, rapid retrieval. And that is a cue to me that it is time to do some retrieval, and to make sure that I’m not going more than 10 minutes, 15 minutes without having some engagement from the students. And that is the way I do it. I’ve heard of people who have used a golden retriever image to, you know, make things, make things cute. Dr. Agarwal shared that with me. Again, low stakes. Low anxiety. Like, this is fun time. 

GONZALEZ: And that, that’s what you’re saying is that when you’re in the middle of sort of a lecture or something and you’ve got slides that you’ve made for that, you will stick something in periodically to remind yourself. 

BLUNT: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: And when you do that, is it really just a generic symbol or is it an actual exercise that comes up that asks a question? Is it just “do some sort of retrieval”? 

BLUNT: The beauty of it is it’s both. Sometimes, I have a slide, and it’s for me, it’s always that light blue, dots on the outside, and sometimes it says “rapid retrieval,” and sometimes I have an idea of what I might like to say, and sometimes there are specific prompts that I might use, like “list five things about counterfactual thinking” or “list the three stages of memory” and I have specific prompts that I have planned in advance. And sometimes there are just these brain dump things. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. When you ask a question like this, so for example, like a brain dump, what happens after you ask? The students write it down, and then what? Do they compare these with each other? Do they call out and share with the whole group? 

BLUNT: Yeah. A variety of things. Like, the world’s your oyster here. So in my intro class, they write it down, and then they triumphantly hold them up to me and show me what they have written. In some classes, when I have larger classrooms, I have them divided into pods, which is the Dr. Blunt-speak for groups. And so they have groups of five or six and then they show and they help each other to make sure that everyone’s on board. I’m always saying, “Help your podmate. If you’ve got all five, does your podmate have all five?” 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

BLUNT: And so in that way, you can use some collaborative learning to kind of model what they should be doing when they’re having group study sessions without me. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Nice. 

BLUNT: So sometimes it’s group. Sometimes I can see what they’re doing. In my favorite, most radically retrieval practice-based class, I have split the class so that half watch the lecture before class. Everyone watches it before class. And then half come in person at a time. So I’m looking at no more than 8 or 10 students at once, and they’re retrieving on the boards, like around the classroom, on the walls. Yeah. So they’re retrieving, and I can actually see what they’re doing in the moment. And that’s been a really powerful way to improve learning that’s just an hour and 15 minutes straight of retrieval practice. And that class, since I started doing that, it’s a 20 percent improvement in the exam grades, and that class always has a waitlist now. Instead of being the scary neuroscience class, like, ah, I don’t like science. Now they know that we’re going to do a whole bunch of fun things in class with whiteboards on the wall, and you are going to be working, and you’re going to be really proud of yourself at the end of that hour and 15 minutes. 

GONZALEZ: And that could be done for any subject area. 

BLUNT: Oh yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Almost any grade level as long as the kids can write. 

BLUNT: Yep. 

GONZALEZ: You could be doing this with third-graders. 

BLUNT: Or draw. I’ve had students draw things before. My students in memory were really inspired by something they read and aced that test about sketchnotes, and so some of them have really latched onto, and these were college students, they’re drawing pictures. But elementary students can be retrieving photosynthesis or how do plants grow. They can draw an image and use retrieval in that way on the whiteboards. 

GONZALEZ: You’ve also got here examples as another thing that is a good retrieval question. 

BLUNT: Yeah. So we really want students to not just repeat back, like a parrot, what they’ve heard. We want them to do the elusive transfer and apply knowledge and go change the world. And so let’s practice that in class with the whiteboards, with retrieval. So that could be as simple as you’re in grade school teaching some basic English structures. Okay, we’ve just learned what nouns are. Everybody, what’s an example of a noun? And then I write “dog” and you write “cat” and then we can use them to come up with examples. Or in my intro psychology class where we’re talking about personality traits, and I might say, come up with an example of someone who’s really extroverted that you’ve seen in a Disney movie? And in that way, they’re retrieving, okay, what is extroverted? What are those traits? And then applying it to new knowledge and saying, okay, can I think of an example on my own? And you’re writing that on the whiteboard. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

BLUNT: Having a whiteboard at your desk is powerful because it gets rid of something in social psychology we call the diffusion of responsibility. When you walk into the class and say, “How are you today?” And it’s crickets. So if I say, “Give me an example of a noun,” and that one kid raises their hand and no one else is retrieving. They’re all waiting for that one kid. But by having the whiteboard, everybody’s coming up with their example. 

GONZALEZ: I love that idea, the diffusion of responsibility, is that what it’s called? 

BLUNT: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: And it’s good because that really is, I think, one of the reasons so many students don’t participate when we ask them to because it’s like, who’s supposed to, who is going to just take the risk? So if everyone’s doing it, then yeah, it’s just less risky. 

I’m going to interrupt this episode for just a minute to tell you about something I think will be a big help to you as an educator, whether you’re a teacher, a school leader, an instructional coach, or even someone studying to become a teacher. It’s something I’ve been publishing for the last ten years called the Teacher’s Guide to Tech, and it’s basically an encyclopedia of tech tools curated especially for teachers. My team and I keep an eye on all the tech tools that are out there — the ones that are fresh and new and the ones that have stood the test of time, and we think about how they can best be used in classrooms. Then we sort them into categories, give you a really simple description of what each one does, provide a link to the tool’s website so you can check it out, and we also pick out a video that shows the tool in action so you can understand quickly how it works and if it will work for you. And because tech changes all the time, we have to maintain these listings to make sure they stay fresh and accurate. On top of that, we have a really nice collection of articles we’ve written that will help you explore more ways to use tech and fine-tune and troubleshoot things as you go along. Plus there’s a huge glossary of tech terms to help you stay current with the language. 

In the past, this guide was published as a PDF that we updated once a year. Although this worked fine, that PDF would stay the same all year until the new edition came out. In January of 2025, we moved the entire guide to a fully online, subscription-based model — this allows us to update it all year round, keeping it fresh and new all the time! A year’s subscription costs exactly the same as the PDF used to cost, so we haven’t raised the price one bit, and it’s even more affordable if you get it as a group. To learn more about how this guide can help you become the most tech-savvy teacher in your school, visit teachersguidetotech.com. 

GONZALEZ: You’ve got some stuff in your chapter about things to watch out for with whiteboards, so what are some sort of don’t, I guess, that you’ve figured out, yeah. 

BLUNT: Yes. I have figured out that you’ve got to practice what you preach. So I can say practice retrieval, a great way to do this is to use whiteboards, and if I don’t model that for students, they aren’t going to do it. And so you want to start early. Day 1 is not just, you know, hello. Day 1 is we’re going to practice retrieval now with our whiteboard. And so if you try to bring in something midway, it could work, but it’s going to work if you start early and you model it for the students. So don’t expect students to just take your word for it. Actually, model that process for them. 

GONZALEZ: Okay, great. And this is with the idea that they’ll do the same thing at home? 

BLUNT: Yeah. It’s, I think the whiteboards really are contagious. I have students I have never had come up to me and say, “Dr. Blunt, look at my whiteboard!” And I’m like, “Awesome!” Like, they heard your friend is in my class, and they have their whiteboards, and I have, I was actually giving a guest lecture in a nursing class, and I said, “Okay, guys. Today we’re going to use — ” and before I’d finished my sentence, three of them were holding up their whiteboards. They’re like, “I have a psych friend, and we study all of our classes this way now.” 

GONZALEZ: They carry their own with them? 

BLUNT: They carry their own with them. 

GONZALEZ: That’s amazing. 

BLUNT: Contagious. They love the whiteboards. 

GONZALEZ: Well especially in the digital age —

BLUNT: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: — for them to be carrying around a whiteboard and a dry erase pen with them is like, that’s fantastic. 

BLUNT: Mhmm. Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. So start early. 

BLUNT: Start early, right. 

GONZALEZ: Is one tip, okay. 

BLUNT: It’s tempting for students to want to use their notes at first. You know, “I’m a good student. I want to get it right.” And so emphasizing that you’re going to be wrong. Mistakes are okay. It’s better to make a mistake in practice retrieval than to use your notes and be right but not have meaningful learning. And I often might model something like having people answer a question that is, you know, silly or a trivia fact or something like that to kind of normalize the mistake process, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re not copying our notes. And it’s hard, and that’s good, it’s okay. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. So we’re putting everything away. We’re not looking at any source material at all. This really is just trying to come up with whatever you have in your brain — 

BLUNT: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: — with these practices. Okay. 

BLUNT: And there really is, I think it would be tempting to be like, okay, I like this, but I’m not all-in, so maybe I’ll just try it with a piece of paper. And I would watch out for that because it’s, again, the whiteboards are fun and I was late one day. I didn’t bring my whiteboard, and a student came back to my office and was like, “I will get the whiteboards.” Because it’s just not the same on paper. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

BLUNT: They don’t have that freeing, eraser-free type zone that the erasers create. It doesn’t have that fun feeling. So testing the waters with paper would be a mistake. 

GONZALEZ: Okay, yeah. Okay, that’s really good to know. If somebody’s going to try it, and they go, eh, it didn’t really work that well. If it’s because you used paper, that’s probably why. Okay. Got a couple more. 

BLUNT: Yeah. If, you want to keep this low stakes. So we don’t want to say, “It’s okay to make mistakes, and I’m going to penalize you for it.” So you can do completion or participation, but I would avoid assigning points so as to — you don’t want to create anxiety around making mistakes. We’re trying to normalize making mistakes — 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

BLUNT: — as part of the learning process. 

GONZALEZ: Good. 

BLUNT: Another thing you might watch out for is when they do what I call the radical retrieval version where you’re doing it on the walls. There might be some social pressure, and that can be used to your advantage because people aren’t going to diffuse on you. They’re going to want to be, everyone else is doing it, but you just got to make sure that you’re always keeping it low stakes. My first day of neuroscience. We’re going to be walking into the classroom and headed towards those boards, even on Day 1. Again, we got to start early, and I start the class by thinking about, what is consciousness? What is the role of consciousness, as we start our neuroscience class. And so I have them demonstrate this really interesting phenomenon that happens when you try to write your name backwards with your opposite hand and everyone’s terrible at it. But when you do this demo with both hands and suddenly you can do it, but the idea is the first time they’re trying it, it’s terrible, and they can’t even write their own name, but everybody’s laughing, everyone looks terrible. I show them. Like, I always get my letters all mixed up too. And so it sets the stage for, look, this is the place where when we make mistakes, we help each other. So that, you have to be mindful of that social pressure. You want just enough to get people motivated, but not so much that people feel anxious. And the good news is we know that retrieval practice reduces anxiety, so we want to keep it that way by not making it high stakes. 

GONZALEZ: So would you recommend kind of going back and forth between personal whiteboards and doing things where people can see, just being more careful about when you plan those radical sessions? 

BLUNT: I haven’t, I used to do a little bit of both, but now I’ve kind of had a class where it’s all on the radical retrieval on the boards in the front of the room. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

BLUNT: And then I have the classrooms where they have them at their desk. But there’s, I think you could probably mix it up. But I don’t know. Someone report back. Let me know. 

GONZALEZ: Well so, so then the advice is if you’re going to do the on-the-wall, just know that there will be more hesitation and you’ll have to do some exercises to sort of loosen them up a little —

BLUNT: Yes, you want to be —

GONZALEZ: Normalize the mistakes. 

BLUNT: Exactly. You want to be making sure that you’re not doing it in a way that’s like, “Everybody look at Johnny right now. See how he’s wrong?” 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

BLUNT: We want to be like, “Everyone, we all made a mistake. Let’s move toward learning.” 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing. I have never heard so much enthusiasm for whiteboards, and I think it is going to be contagious because —

BLUNT: Oh yeah. 

GONZALEZ: — as soon as I started reading that, I thought, yeah. That’s, that sounds really fun. I want to get some and start using them. So all right. So we are going to be shifting gears now. We are going to be talking next to Dr. Michelle Rivers. And yours, you had a variety of strategies that were all kind of around retrieval. So I just sort of chose a couple that I thought would be really good to share here. So, Dr. Rivers, please tell us a little bit about what you teach and what you do, and then we’ll get into the strategies. 

RIVERS: Sure, Jenn. Thanks so much for having me. So this is my first year as a professor of psychology at Santa Clara University, which is in the Bay Area of California. But I have actually a ton of teaching experience. So growing up, I taught piano, I taught hands-on science classes to elementary students where we got to play with dry ice, I did creative writing, K-12 tutoring, and then I went back to my community college, actually, and taught there as well. So, and even as a kid, I was thinking, as Dr. Blunt was talking about whiteboards, I used to love going to work with my mom. So she worked in health care and would often give lectures on various topics. And while she was giving her lecture, she’d put me in another room where there was a whiteboard, and I would just pretend that I was a teacher and write on the whiteboard. So I definitely relate to those being fun and contagious and probably the start of my interest in teaching was playing on a whiteboard. 

GONZALEZ: Oh, that’s really cute. 

RIVERS: Yeah. I am not a rollerblader, but I do figure skate in my free time. 

GONZALEZ: Oh wow. 

RIVERS: So a little about me, yeah, yeah. 

GONZALEZ: That’s not something I hear every day. That’s pretty cool. So we’ve got, I’m going to just read these sort of ahead of time, and then we’ll go through them one at a time. You’ve got name tents, question du jour, which I loved that, peer instruction, answer explanations, and then confidence ratings, which we kind of apply to all of them. So you do something interesting with name tents. Let’s start with that, and how does that play into retrieval?

RIVERS: Sure. So this kind of started with I wanted a way to really quickly determine first whether or not my students were in the class, so taking attendance, especially in these larger lecture classes that I teach. Were they there, and were they engaged, and is there a quick way for me to just kind of assess how they did with the day’s material? So what I did is I give everyone a piece of paper, usually cardstock, a little bit thicker. And I have them fold it into a pyramid, and they put their name on one side, and it kind of sits on their desk, so you can imagine a little tent with their name on it, hence the name “name tent.” And I’ll have them write a fun fact on the other side or their pronouns, whatever they wish to share with me, so a little personal touch. And then on the back of that sheet of paper, I leave space for these exit tickets. So the idea of an exit ticket is it’s a really quick prompt to get them to engage in some retrieval as they’re walking out the door. So it’s kind of like these mini suitcases that carry through class, and then on the way out, they’re just packing up one little souvenir that they’re going to take from the day’s lesson. And so that could be a response to a very broad question like what is one thing you learned today? So similar to Dr. Blunt’s takeaways, or what was the most challenging part of the lesson? And for me, this is really helpful for identifying areas of misunderstanding. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIVERS: It’s also a really equitable practice because everyone has to do it. Right? I’m not just relying on the students who will raise their hand and tell me what they learned. 

GONZALEZ: Yep, mhmm. 

RIVERS: And sometimes I’ll even write a little note back to them. So it’s kind of a way to engage in the conversation. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah, it sounds like there’s a lot of uses for these. 

RIVERS: Yeah, yeah. So these I just take to every class and collect them as they walk out the door, and quick way to take attendance and identify gaps in their knowledge. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Okay. I like that. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the name Norman Eng, but he’s been on the podcast a couple of times too, and he talks about college instruction. And he had also used name tents as a really good way to just get to know who your students are, but he didn’t have any retrieval practice on that. So you’re really making use of this one piece of paper. So there’s probably lots and lots of ways you could use that. 

RIVERS: Absolutely. 

GONZALEZ: So what is the question du jour? 

RIVERS: So while these exit tickets that you put on the name tents are a great kind of end-of-the-day, walk-out-the-door, I think starting with a question, just engaging in retrieval early can also be really fun and effective. So as instructors, as educators, we’re very used to writing learning objectives. So for this lesson, here’s what I want my students to learn. But how often do we actually share that with our students? Here’s what I want you to know. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIVERS: Maybe we do. Maybe we say, here’s the agenda for the day. But just a simple tweak to engage retrieval would be to frame it as a question du jour or question of the day. So in my cognitive psychology class, I might start with a question like, what is a mind? We’re going to be talking about mental processes, we’re going to be talking about the mind. What is a mind? Is it different from a brain? How is it different from a brain? That’s going to guide our discussion for the day. So getting students to think about it, because they come in, they’re not blank slates, right. They have some prior knowledge and ideas about what a mind can be. And so early on, getting them thinking can kind of prompt that curiosity. So it’s kind of like giving students the menu before the meal comes, right. So they’re not just eating whatever’s served on the plate, but they’re anticipating what they’re going to put into their mouths or their mind and asking, what’s that going to taste like? So getting them excited. Directing their attention to what’s really important and what I might be assessing them on later, kind of an overarching question of the day. 

GONZALEZ: So sometimes, you know, you’ve got, it does tie sort of directly to — because when I read this, I was thinking it could be a question that they can’t answer or that they might answer incorrectly, but then — I remember having once a teacher say to me, here’s a bunch of different questions, and they said, “You’re going to be able to answer these by the end of today.” And I remembered thinking, oh, that’s kind of cool. 

RIVERS: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: Because I don’t know the answers to them now, and it sort of primed the pump a little bit. And it was true. By the end I did know the answers to those. So could it be kind of more of effect, because “What is a mind?” is a very, you know, you could talk for five hours about what that is. 

RIVERS: Literally. 

GONZALEZ: Do you ever ask any that are just kind of a little bit more like fact-based, where it’s just —

RIVERS: Sure, yes. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah? 

RIVERS: It can be a fact-based question. It can be, another example might be, why do we remember some things for a long time and forget other things very quickly, to kind of introduce this model of our memory. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah, yeah. 

RIVERS: And again, it’s just priming them to get excited, to get interested. And even if they answer incorrectly, you might think intuitively that that would be harmful for their learning. But research shows the opposite. As long as they’re corrected, as long as you correct them and give them the answer during the lesson —

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIVERS: — having, giving the wrong answer might actually be a great cue for them to remember, “Oh right. I was wrong about that, and it felt like I was right. But no, I was wrong.” Now, I’m going to remember what my instructor said or what I read in the book or the video we watched or whatever it was that corrected my knowledge. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. And that’s a more novel experience than just saying, “Here, this is what the day’s objective is.” 

RIVERS: Exactly. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. So the next one you have is peer instruction, which probably a lot of people listening are going to say, oh yeah, I already kind of do that. So you’ve got it a little bit more tied into retrieval though. So how does that work for you? 

RIVERS: Sure. So the basic process of peer instruction can look something like this where you present students with a multiple choice question, and multiple choice is great, because you can assess students’ knowledge quickly and equitably. So I’ll have students answer the multiple-choice question on their fingers. So, say, hold up a one if they think the answer is A, two if the answer is B, etc. And then I can quickly see, okay, how many of my students have the right finger up, the one that I want them? 

And they can easily see as well, if there’s difference in opinion. So they’re committing to their answer, and then I might say, okay, now go find someone with a different finger up than you. And go try to convince them that you’re right. 

GONZALEZ: Interesting. 

RIVERS: So kind of like a debate club. 

GONZALEZ: At this point you haven’t given away what the correct answer is yet? 

RIVERS: That’s right. I haven’t told them the answer. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIVERS: They’re all hopefully informed guessing at this point. So they’ve had some background knowledge, but maybe now they have to apply to a new scenario. So it’s a bit more difficult. So it’s kind of like, do you remember that TV show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIVERS: So it’s kind of like this but educational where students are picking an answer, maybe committing to it, but they’re not quite sure, and now they can phone a friend. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIVERS: But their friend’s just right next to them. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah, yeah. So, and then after you’ve done that, then what happens? Then you sort of reveal the correct answer? 

RIVERS: So I’ll have them revote. So they’ll re-answer after talking with their peers. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIVERS: And see, did they converge? And often they’ll converge on the correct answer, and the research supports this as well. You might think, oh, well, maybe it’s going to be like the most confident student who convinces everyone else that they’re correct. But that’s not the case. So that’s kind of encouraging. They often converge on the correct answer once they talk it through. And so that explanation process can be a really effective way for them to figure out what they know and what they don’t know. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah, yeah. 

RIVERS: And then at that point, I can come in and say, okay, here’s the correct answer. Let’s talk about why. Or I can have them tell me why. Getting them to reason through, well, here’s why I eliminated this answer. Here’s why I thought this one was right. Or I initially thought this was the correct answer, but after talking to my partner, I realized I forgot that you had said that one part in the lecture that made it not quite right. 

GONZALEZ: What I love about this one and actually the next two is that you’re taking basic retrieval, and you’re adding extra sort of layers to really make them even more robust, I think, make the moment even more memorable. 

RIVERS: Mhmm. 

GONZALEZ: There’s something here about ChatGPT and this strategy? 

RIVERS: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: Peer instruction? Yeah. Tell me about that. 

RIVERS: Yeah. So this is an exciting project I thought I’d mention, working with an undergraduate student who was like, well, okay. You have students use this peer instruction process, but now we have these chatbots, like ChatGPT or Gemini, these generative AI programs that can kind of act like a conversation partner. So is there a way for us to leverage generative AI to serve as a similar conversation partner knowing that just like a peer, sometimes ChatGPT is going to provide incorrect knowledge. 

GONZALEZ: Yep. And it’s going to sound very confident about it too. 

RIVERS: And it’s going to sound very confident, and it’s not going to necessarily know what your teacher said. It’s only going to know whatever it’s been fed through its modeling. We’re in the early stages of just comparing ChatGPT to a human partner, but I thought I’d mention that as we kind of head into this new frontier of educational research with generative AI. How can we leverage it to help students learn and use retrieval practice in a more personalized way?

GONZALEZ: Interesting. I like that. That’s great. So the fourth, I think it’s the fourth, strategy is answer explanations. Tell me about that. 

RIVERS: Sure. Similar to peer instruction, actually, similar idea here. You’re going to use multiple choice tests, and a lot of educators, including myself, use multiple choice testing because they’re really efficient measures of learning. You can very quickly see, does a student know it or don’t they? But they also have been criticized because you can rely purely on recognition rather than engaging these deeper retrieval, elaborative processes that we know really help with lasting learning. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIVERS: And so I was thinking, okay, how can we make multiple choice tests more meaningful and engaging while still keeping that efficiency component. Because of course as educators in the classroom, we know we don’t have all the time in the world. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah, yeah. 

RIVERS: So what I do in my classes is I just have students write short explanations next to their multiple choice questions. So basically, why did you pick that response? And students can interpret that however they want. It could be why they eliminated the other responses. A lot of students use process of elimination, which is a totally valid strategy for getting to the correct answer. 

GONZALEZ: Yep. 

RIVERS: Or it could be, “oh, I remember learning this in class” and explaining, walking through that process. So students like having this option. I use a variety of strategies to assess student knowledge, including short answer questions, essay questions, multiple choice. And they always say, I hate the multiple choice questions because it’s all or nothing. I either get the point or I don’t. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIVERS: And sometimes, of course they remember those few times where they change their answer from the right one to the wrong one, and they’re like, ugh. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIVERS: That’s painful. I get it. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Mhmm. 

RIVERS: So this is giving them a little bit more control back into their hands to be able to explain their reasoning so that, that helps with their perception. But we’ve also found in more recent research that they’re more likely to pick their correct answer as well, just by providing an explanation. So even if you as an educator don’t have the time to go through and read all those explanations or maybe you decide you’re only going to read three out of the 50 questions, three explanations that they tell you they really want you to see or something like that, they’re going to benefit from those elaborative processes of trying to explain their answer. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Does it ever influence the grade that they get on an item? 

RIVERS: So occasionally I will tell them, I might do partial credit if they pick the wrong answer and then have a strong justification. Because sometimes they just get messed up in the semantics or the wording of a question. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIVERS: And I don’t want to penalize them for that. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIVERS: Okay, you just misunderstood what the question was asking, but it’s very clear from your explanation that you understand this concept. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah, yeah. And you’ve got another use for this just sort of as a class activity using “explaining the answer.”

RIVERS: Right, right. So similar to the peer instruction process, these are really, go hand in hand. The difference is with answer justification or explanation, the students are doing that on their own, whereas with peer instruction, they’re explaining to the person next to them. So either way, this is something that can easily be incorporated into class time. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. And what a, I mean, nice, simple, quick activity to do, just show a multiple choice question, all the different answers. Let’s have a discussion about why would you have chosen these? And there, you’ve got a nice little five-minute thinking activity. 

RIVERS: Exactly. 

GONZALEZ: So the last one here is one that could be added to any of the other ones. In some ways, it could also be added to all the whiteboard stuff too.

RIVERS: Totally. 

GONZALEZ: Which is adding confidence ratings. So tell us about this one. 

RIVERS: Sure. So one area of my research is metacognition, which is students’ knowledge of their own knowledge. So I notice sometimes when I give students multiple choice tests, I’ll get the Scantron, which is what I’m grading, but then if I look through their test, even if I’m not having them explain, sometimes they’ll circle certain questions and leave little notes to themselves. And it’s almost like they’re calculating their grade, like, okay, the lowest I could possibly get is this score. And I’m like, wow, that is really cool to see that they’re kind of using their confidence to guide their self scoring. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIVERS: They’re trying to get a sense of hmm, how well will I do on this exam? 

GONZALEZ: Mhmm. 

RIVERS: So some students are already engaging in these types of processes, but how can we get more students to do that? Could it just be by asking them, well how confident are you that your response is correct? So following peer instruction or following answer explanation, having students hold up fingers again, except this time their fingers are for how confident they are. So one finger if they’re just totally guessing, have no idea, and five fingers if they’re like, I got this. I’m a total champ. I’m very confident. And that’s not to say that their confidence will be directly in line with their accuracy. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIVERS: And sometimes identifying where there’s that mismatch is really insightful, but for you as an educator because you’re identifying misconceptions but also for them to kind of flex those muscles to start engaging in the self reflection processes, and they might realize, oh, I was super confident, but I was totally wrong, which can be really good for a restudy tool. Like, okay, definitely going to need to go revisit —

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIVERS: — and make sure that I’m not making those errors when it really is a high-stakes assessment. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIVERS: So being able to make these mistakes early on in the retrieval practice fun activities during class instead of on that big exam. 

GONZALEZ: I feel like having that built into a lot of these activities too, especially if it’s sort of public, if everyone is sharing their confidence ratings in any kind of a public way, just normalizes that. I think there are certain students that are just lacking in confidence in themselves as learners, and they think everybody else has it all together. But then if you see some of the better students in class just saying, “I’m not feeling that confident” it just sort of normalizes that and makes it, I don’t know, makes it part of the classroom culture that we are all making mistakes, we’re all trying to learn, and this is a process for all of us. 

RIVERS: Absolutely. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIVERS: And I think, kind of like Dr. Agarwal said, where many teachers are already using retrieval practice, they just might not know that’s what we call it. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIVERS: I think a lot of students are already engaging in these kinds of self-reflection activities. Even before I have them write their confidence, I’ll see them hold up their hand to answer a question, and they’re kind of like wiggling it back and forth, like, “Uhh.” You see on their face that they’re like, “I don’t know. Maybe.” So they’re already doing this. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIVERS: But putting a name to it and telling them, this is what I’m doing. I’m assessing your confidence, and here’s why I’m doing it. 

GONZALEZ: Right, right. I love that. Those are such great reflections. Okay, so, where can listeners go to learn more about retrieval practice and about the book? 

AGARWAL: For learning about retrieval practice, I have a website, retrievalpractice.org. I’ve got more than 100 free resources for downloading. I’ve also got lists of other books on the science of learning that I hope folks will check out. But of course I feel really strongly and really excited about “Smart Teaching Stronger Learning.” As I think I mentioned in the beginning, I’m the editor of the book. I didn’t write any of the chapters. So I also just got to visit 10 classrooms and read the book like readers. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

AGARWAL: And it’s just, it’s so fun. So I really hope people check it out. It’s available in paperback and ebook. It’s on Amazon. It’s on bookshop.org where the proceeds benefit your local bookstore. And if you go to retrievalpractice.org/smartteaching, there you can download the introduction to the book that I wrote, and I’ve got a handy Google Doc of just 10 tips from the book. So even though “Smart Teaching Stronger Learning” is really short, I also wanted to make a resource that was even shorter. So I think it’s like a two-page Google Doc with one tip from each chapter. 

GONZALEZ: Nice. 

AGARWAL: And there you can also subscribe for my newsletter, because we’re going to have more webinars, events. I want more of these teachers who just happen to be scientists sharing more of their teaching and interacting with educators. So definitely subscribing for my newsletter at retrievalpractice.org or finding me on social media @retrievelearn would be a great way to stay on top of any of the upcoming events that we have. 

BLUNT: I have a course on LinkedIn about learning. You can find it under my name, Janell Blunt, and so that’s great tips, anything from how you prepare your body to learn, from retrieval practice and names and other strategies there. 

GONZALEZ: Awesome. Okay. And then Dr. Rivers, you’ve got a blog on cognitive science? 

RIVERS: I do. So this is a blog I started as a graduate student where I was just really interested in science communication. I know there’s not a lot in the realm, in the space between empirical articles and journals that academics read and then popular press that’s written by journalists. So this is kind of that in-between space. These are articles, summaries, that are written by early career researchers, scholars in cognitive science. 

GONZALEZ: Awesome. 

RIVERS: And it’s bite-sized cognition, so the blog is cogbites.org, and we try to post at least once a month, just a summary of a recent article in the cognitive science space. 

GONZALEZ: That’s a great idea. Okay. And I will put links to all of this stuff too in the written version summarizing this interview. Thank you all so much for taking this time to share these great ideas. I have a feeling teachers are going to listen, and they’re going to want to try it all right away. So thank you so much. 

AGARWAL: Thank you, really, really appreciate this. 

RIVERS: Yeah, thank you.

For links to all the resources mentioned in this episode and a full transcript of our conversation, visit cultofpedagogy.com, click Podcast, and choose episode 250. To get a regular email from me about my newest blog posts, podcast episodes, courses and products, sign up for my mailing list at cultofpedagogy.com/subscribe. Thanks so much for listening, and have a great day.