What is Cognitive Load Theory (CLT)? Cognitive load theory (CLT) is an instructional design principle at the intersection of psychology and education which helps teachers optimize the learning potential of their students. CLT divides the storage in our brains into 2 fundamental buckets, short-term and long-term memory, and helps define instructional procedures and
What is a Reluctant Learner? How do educators find motivations for students and reluctant learners? Virtually everyone has encountered students who experience some degree of motivation challenges. A wide variety of complex reasons help explain "reluctant learners", including problems at school, problems at home, confidence challenges, and illness. And student engagement plummeted during
Common Core Math Standards and Fractions The myth that Common Core is “new math” can spell disaster for teachers, kids, and parents. For one thing, Common Core has been around since 2010, so it’s hardly still in its infancy. We call the math NEW because we still don’t know how to teach the
By Candace Williams & Marquise Atkinson Across the nation, students are still facing the lingering effects of learning loss due to the pandemic. For students in certain demographics, that learning loss is even more apparent. In many cases, typical approaches to catching students up have not proven effective. What can educators and administrators
By Christina Barragan & Alicia Atkinson What constitutes granular data? Granular data breaks information down into its most detailed parts. In any assessment, the data can be broken down into tiers of granularity. The broadest assessment data is represented by the summative score. From there, the data can be broken down by
Global Math Assessments Beginning this fall, American students will participate in a global math study, known as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Beginning in 2000, this study is given every 3 years, however it was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so the tests being given this fall are occurring 4
“A growing body of research finds that states that have achieved both equity and adequacy see stronger achievement and graduation rates, which translate into societal savings in lower rates of crime, incarceration and welfare and higher rates of employment, wages and taxes.” (Forbes, 2019) IDEA and Special Education Funding IDEA and its
What Is Scaffolding in Education? Instructional scaffolding, or simply scaffolding, is an instructional strategy which helps students learn new skills by providing appropriate, flexible, temporary supports in their learning experience. It’s an iterative process of building a learning bridge between old and new material by systematically supporting new skills while building upon prior
Nationally, student K-12 math scores have been at an all-time low as measured by state accountability testing. Much of this started ten to twelve years ago, when state standards were updated to become more rigorous. Math was rightfully expanded to include not just basic numeracy (arithmetics) but also the application of mathematics in the
When a test is not using a fixed form or fixed set of questions but instead adjusts based on input from the test-taker, it is computer-adaptive. The idea is that the questions change based on the students’ responses as they are taking the test. In practice, there are many different types of computer-adaptive tests.
