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#OER

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OpenStax | Free Textbooks Online with No Catch

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OpenStax offers free college textbooks for all types of students, making education accessible & affordable for everyone. Browse our list of available subjects!

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#OER

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MIT OpenCourseWare | Free Online Course Materials

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MIT OpenCourseWare is a web based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity

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#OER

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The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.

MERLOT is an international community of educators, learners, and researchers.

Add a Material

Submit an online learning material you've found or created to the MERLOT Collection.

Create your own materials, add materials to the MERLOT collection, and be a part of the community. All for free!

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The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers. MERLOT is an international community of educators, learners, and researchers. Submit an online learning material you've found or created to the MERLOT Collection.

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#OER

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Open textbooks are licensed by authors and publishers to be freely used and adapted. Download, edit and distribute them at no cost.

Now offering 1353 open textbooks, the Open Textbook Library is supported by the Open Education Network.
Browse Subjects

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Open Textbook Library - Open Textbook Library

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Open textbooks are licensed by authors and publishers to be freely used and adapted. Download, edit and distribute them at no cost.

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#OER

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Child welfare is a unique field of social work practice that requires the use of special interdisciplinary skills with attorneys, judges, and other member of the legal system. The skillful application of these interdisciplinary skills is extraordinarily difficult.

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#annotation #read

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Comment on and highlight what interests you.

Annotate articles, websites, videos, documents, apps, and more - without clicking away or posting elsewhere. Hypothesis is easy to use and based on open web standards, so it works across the entire internet.

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Collaborate with anyone, anywhere. Use Hypothesis to annotate anything online with classmates, colleagues, or friends. Create a free personal account, or talk to our sales team about Education solutions. Get [...]

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#graphic organizer

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Create Infographics, Presentations & Flyers | Piktochart

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No complex design software. No heavy designer fees.Just a simple, intuitive tool that helps you tell your story with the visual impact it deserves.

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#discussion

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Explore more than 4000 discussion prompts for a wide range of subjects, topics, and levels. Created by teachers in the community and the Parlay team.

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#discussion #video #feedback

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#communication #feedback

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#research #best practices

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#Professional Development

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The Open Learning & Teaching Collaborative

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ACE Framework | The Open Learning & Teaching Collaborative

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At the Open Learning & Teaching Collaborative at Plymouth State University, we have developed the ACE Framework to guide our decision-making and professional development planning. ACE stands for Adaptability, Connection, and Equity. ACE elevates three characteristics that are clear, context-sensitive, values-driven, and mission-aligned; we can use them to plan assignment-, course-, and institution-level responses to [...]

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#Professional Development

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We are cognitive psychological scientists interested in research on education. Our main research focus is on the science of learning. (Hence, "The Learning Scientists"!). Our Vision is to make scientific research on learning more accessible to students, teachers, and other educators.

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#DEIB #1stGen #Professional Development

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The following resources from the Transparency in Learning and Teaching project (TILT Higher Ed) can help faculty, educational developers and administrators to apply the Transparency Framework (of purpose/task/criteria) in contexts including assignments, curricula, assessment and strategic initiatives, all toward the goal of enhancing student success equitably.

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#Design #best practices

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Generating and Facilitating Engaging and Effective Online Discussions

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Generating and Facilitating Engaging and Effective Online Discussions

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These tips can help educators ensure that online discussions are engaging and beneficial for postsecondary students.

For many of today's students and more than a few educators, effective participation in online discussions in postsecondary education may not be second nature. In particular, graduate-level discussions present challenges quite different from their undergraduate counterparts, as master's degree candidates tend to be highly motivated. This may mean that they frequently exceed the minimum number of required posts and write longer entries. The recommendations below are based on my own experience teaching fully online graduate courses with fifteen to twenty students, although many of these points would benefit those teaching at the undergraduate level as well.

1. Convey Clear Expectations

It would be easy to hold online discussions to higher standards than discussions happening face-to-face. Yet not all students participate equally in a face-to-face seminar. In my courses, I require two answers to the initial questions and two additional replies to classmates by the end of each week.

Be careful what you wish for, however! Remember that you'll need to read everything your students write; therefore, if you have fifteen students and require two posts and two answers per student, you'll receive a minimum of sixty posts by the end of the week. In my experience, graduate students frequently post more than the minimum required, and I routinely wrap up the week with around eighty to ninety posts. For this reason, make it clear that every post needs to be meaningful.

Make sure to provide clear expectations regarding the number of posts, the number of replies, and the associated deadlines. I ask students to read and sign this Discussion Guidelines document prior to posting to the discussion board, and I provide a link to the document under each discussion question for easy reference.

2. Adjust to the Discussion Board

The first discussion assignment in my courses is deliberately low-stakes. Students must introduce themselves and are encouraged (but not required) to post a few photos. Students are then asked to read and reply to two or three of their classmates' introductions. This enables them to get to know each other and their instructors and to get accustomed to the discussion board.

Students-especially those who are new to online courses or new to the learning management system (LMS) you're using-will need some time to get familiar with the discussion board. I have worked extensively with three different types of LMSs; in my experience, their discussion boards are rarely intuitive. If yours is particularly clunky, be sure to provide instructions on how to submit posts and replies. You might think that your students are tech savvy, but very few may have experience with this type of asynchronous, semiformal mode of communication.

3. Clarify Your Role

The norms of online academic discussions are a lot less established than those that occur in person. Students might bring particular expectations to their online course. It is important to share with them how you envision your role in online discussions, which depends upon your pedagogical beliefs and teaching style. I let my students know that I read everything they post and that I respond when I think that I can make a significant contribution by providing useful information, answering a direct question, or clarifying a misunderstanding. Toward the end of the week, I do my best to reply to "orphan" posts (those that have not received any responses).

Keep in mind that your own contributions will set the tone for the discussion. I often copy and paste an excerpt of the post I am reacting to, and students quickly start doing the same. When referencing the readings, I provide a full quote with the corresponding page number, but I do not require a particular styling citation. Again, do not hold your online discussions to higher standards than your face-to-face exchanges. MLA or APA styling takes time; in my opinion, it's simply not necessary in online discussions.

4. Provide Feedback and Coaching

The first two weeks of an online course are critical because this is when students develop good habits. As you begin reading students' posts, kindly prompt them to provide the page number, quote, or the title of the article to which they are reacting (e.g., "Good point, Sam-what's the page number for this quote?"). Ask for clarifications if a post appears vague. Even at the graduate level, students will be students, and early in the course is when they are finding out what they can get away with and what lines they should not cross.

For the first two weeks of a course, I leave detailed feedback in the gradebook comment section. If a student didn't meet the discussion expectations, I deduct points and refer them to the discussion guidelines. This feedback process will take time, but I rarely have to do this beyond the first two weeks. I also promptly email students who miss the first deadline but I do not remove points for late work during the first week.

5. Track Participation

I use a simple Google spreadsheet to track my own participation and that of my students, checking that the required initial answers are posted by the first deadline. Some LMSs provide this information for you in the course's student analytics section. I also keep track of whom I responded to and make sure to provide one meaningful reply to each student by the end of the week. (If you don't keep track of your own posts, you might reply four times to one student and not at all to five others.) This can create resentment or insecurities, and an online course leaves little room to resolve such misunderstandings.

6. Offer Groups and Discussion Board Alternatives

If you have more than fifteen students, consider creating discussion groups or increasing the number of questions students may choose from. It will be easier for your students to stay on top of the discussion as they won't feel that they have to read everything everybody posts.

Consider offering live discussions. Students often take online courses because their schedule or personal life does not allow them to go to class twice a week. It does not mean that they can't attend live sessions.

Two years ago, I introduced live sessions in all my online courses. These are optional. I send a Doodle poll a week ahead to agree on a time, and I select the most popular times. To run a live session, I require at least four students in attendance. I rotate the times so that all who wish to participate can do so at least once. Students who take part in the live session can skip the discussion board, but the expectations are the same: they must prepare responses to two questions. Live sessions are recorded and posted to the LMS. In some courses we hold a live session every week, while others have just one or two throughout the course.

7. Create Questions You Care About

This might be obvious, but it wasn't obvious to me at first. I used to ask questions that I thought were important, but somehow, I dreaded reading the answers. Now, I ask questions that I am really interested in discussing. My questions are always open-ended; I make sure to provide five or six questions so that students can choose the ones they want to respond to, and I always include a general question that prompts students to react to an aspect of the readings that caught their attention.

8. Select Discussion Leaders

My students take turns leading the discussion every week. The discussion leaders are responsible for adding a discussion question and moderating the answers. Previously, I required students to write an end-of-week discussion summary, but I realized that I didn't want to read them-and I don't think students read them, either. I now ask discussion leaders to select three of their classmates' quotes and write a one-paragraph reflection on each, which has proven to be of greater value to all in support of the learning process.

9. Encourage Note-Taking

This might seem odd since the content of the discussion is archived on the LMS, but I encourage my students to take notes on weekly discussions. Courses ultimately close, and sooner or later students will lose access. Discussion posts don't export very well and are difficult to search. As students take notes on aspects of the conversation important to them, they further process the course information, which is a helpful activity in itself.

10. Know When It's Time to Stop Posting

Managing online discussions of any kind can be a time-consuming endeavor, but it is the heart of a distance education course. I noticed early that I didn't get the same sense of accomplishment out of my online discussion as I did from my on-campus classes. Those classes began and ended at specific times; when the bell rings, you know you're done. Online courses, however, are ongoing. It wasn't until I developed a system to manage my online discussions and began tracking my own contributions that I felt comfortable logging out of my LMS at the end of the week.

Edwige Simon is Director of the Graduate Certificate in Language Teaching with Technology at the University of Colorado Boulder.

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10 tips for effective online discussions

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10 Tips for Effective Online Discussions

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These tips can help educators ensure that online discussions are engaging and beneficial for postsecondary students.

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Actively Engaging Students in Asynchronous Online Classes

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Actively Engaging Students in Asynchronous Online Classes

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#mental health #wellness

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Change is challenging even when we choose it, and we all need support as we move through any kind of change. We also need to take steps to support our personal well-being beyond our intellectual lives and accomplishments. Because we are recovering from the collective trauma caused by COVID-19 we req…

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#mental health #wellness

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When you are studying it can be all too easy to get consumed by everything you have to juggle, especially if you are also working as many of our students are.

So, it's important to listen to your body and make sure you practice good self-care. Here are our top tips for looking after yourself while studying:

Sleep

Getting the right amount of sleep is very important for studying. Research has shown that you are more likely to take on information and improve your memory of subjects you have learned if you get enough sleep. When a deadline is looming, it can often be tempting to sacrifice sleep to cram more study time in, but this can be detrimental to your health. For most people 7-9 hours is the recommended amount of sleep you should be getting.

Healthy eating

I'm sure you don't need us to tell you that it is important to have a balanced diet. However, drinking lots of water, as well as eating plenty of fruit and vegetables is key to keep your mind and body healthy. Preparing your food ahead of a busy week can be a great way to make sure your stay on track. Looking for a supercharged snack? Check out our tips.

Take a break

Being an online student involves a lot of time sitting down and staring at your computer screen. So, make sure you are taking regular breaks to give your body a stretch and grab some fresh air or a snack.

Exercise

And there is no better way to take a break than doing some exercise to get those endorphins flowing. Research has shown that even exercising for just 15 minutes a day can reduce stress and help you be more productive. Not sure what exercise is right for you and worried about the costs? We have some great advice in our blog.

Keep a journal

Keeping a journal can be a creative way to deal with thoughts that are spinning in your head. Maybe you have lots of great ideas but don't know how to get them started? Perhaps you are thinking about various tasks you need to complete? Writing them down will help you manage and prioritise them, giving you peace of mind that you aren't forgetting anything. Channelling your thoughts is also a great stress reliever.

Make sure you plan

You know the saying "Fail to plan? Then plan to fail"? Recent studies have shown that you can't be productive without daily routines and rituals. That's why planning in regular study time is so important. There are many ways you can do this from using mobile apps to old-fashioned diaries and wall charts. Find a way that works for you.

Create a study space

And whilst we're in the planning phase why not look for a study space as well? You are less likely to procrastinate if you find a designated area away from distractions. Not sure how to find the perfect study space? We have a blog that can help you here!

Build a support network

It's always good to talk, especially if you are struggling with an assignment or a particularly tricky module. From tutors to your Student Support team there is so much support available to you so make sure you make the most of it. You could run your ideas and thoughts past your friends and family to see if they can help you. You may also want to select one or two close friends who can check in with you from time to time. Find out more about the student support we offer here.

Relaxation

Make sure you leave enough time to relax and do something you enjoy. Whether that be a pamper session in the tub or playing your favourite game and watching a movie. Giving yourself a rest from your studies will ensure you come back refreshed and motivated.

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9 self-care tips for online students | University of Essex Online

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Juggling work and study can be challenging. Read on for our top tips on looking after yourself while studying.

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#study skills

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Memory is the ongoing process of information retention over time. Because it makes up the very framework through which we make sense of and take action within the present, its importance goes without saying. But how exactly does it work? And how can teachers apply a better understanding of its inner…

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6 Classroom Tweaks That Move Beyond Memorization - Faculty Club

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Brad Richardson, MBA, adjusted his lectures, class discussions, and other classroom elements to teach students biology concepts—and better ways to learn them.

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#study tips #syllabus #1st Gen

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#online community #inclusion activities

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This isn't academic theory or some stuff we just made up. This is how real remote teams have fun and stay connected.

So. You're part of a team distributed across space and timezones. Maybe you're full-time remote employees, maybe you work in company offices scattered here n' there, maybe you've got a bit of both. Regardless, building connection and team spirit is the key to working well together. But for virtual teams, that's not as easy as going out to lunch together on Fridays.

Let's say for the sake of argument that you've got the basics of virtual collaboration covered. Your team schedules meetings at times that work for everyone and uses a video conferencing tool so those non-verbal communication cues come through. You fling questions, updates, and files back and forth using a chat tool like Slack. You even get together in person once or twice a year. Good.

But strong teams aren't built in a day-long offsite. The teams who perform best and enjoy a high sense of well-being weave team building into the fabric of their daily work, and take time out to have fun together on a regular basis. Trouble is, you can't do trust falls from 2,000 miles away. Also, nobody likes trust falls anyway.

Being a company of several thousand people distributed across five continents, 12 percent of whom work from home full-time, we've had plenty of chances to hone our virtual team building game. We've learned how to sprinkle in some fun throughout the day and developed a handful of one-off exercises that bring us closer while simultaneously improving the way we work together in very practical ways.

Ready to dive in? Take a look at our 12 favorite virtual team building activities below. if you're new to the world of distributed and remote teams, read on.

What is virtual team building?

It's just like regular team building, except you're not in the same physical space. In a virtual team building activity, each team member is on their computer and the team interacts using an internet-connected tool: chat, video conference, etc. Many traditional team-building exercises such as icebreakers and even team lunches can be adapted to accommodate remote workers or all-remote teams.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE
We use Trello boards as sort of a virtual whiteboard, Slack as our chat tool, and Zoom for video conferencing. You'll need at least one of these tools (or their equivalent) for each of the activities shared here.

Why is virtual team building important?

Loneliness is probably the biggest downside to remote work and can lead to disengagement, which, in turn, leads to poor performance on the job. Making time to form social bonds and build trust not only combats loneliness, it also helps teams work together on a tactical level.

Understanding each other on a personal level means we can communicate more effectively and have an easier time distributing roles and responsibilities across the team. In fact, 94 percent of workers we surveyed say mutual respect and connection are critical to their team's success, and 19 percent say it's the number one factor in their sense of well-being at work.

Road-tested team building activities that real-life remote teams actually do

If you've already scanned a few articles on team building activities, you know it can be a pain to sort through them all to find the one that fits your team best. So I've categorized each of the activities below along three vectors. If you're looking for activities that meet specific criteria, use the matrix below as a shortcut for finding some that suit. Then, scroll down the page to learn more about them.

Real-time vs. asynchronous - Do you need to do this simultaneously, or can each person participate at whatever time works best for them?

Practical vs. just for fun - Is the activity intentionally unproductive, or does it serve the dual purpose of building social bonds and improving the way you work in a more tangible way?

One-hit wonder vs. on the regular - Is the activity something you do daily or weekly, or is it something you'd do once (and maybe again when new team members join)?

Icebreaker Questions

Who was the last artist you searched for on your music streaming service of choice?

What are your parents' best qualities?

Put these morning routine items in order: breakfast, coffee/tea, open up your laptop

What was something that always frightened you as a child?

Virtual Lunch

Type: real-time, just for fun, on the regular
Time: 60 minutes
Tools required: video conferencing

This one comes from the engineering team that builds the Trello app for Android. Once a month, the team links up via video conferencing over lunchtime. Team members can even expense up to $25 so they can join from their favorite cafe, order delivery, or cook up a little something special at home (because, real talk: heating up leftovers gets old).

Only have 15-30 minutes to spare? No worries. Virtual coffee chats and virtual happy hours are fun variations on this activity.

Socialize Over Group Chat

Messy Desk Pictures

Type: asynchronous, just for fun, on the regular
Time: 5 minutes
Tools required: Slack, Teams, or other group chat app

When you work in an office, you feel compelled to keep your desk at least minimally clean: no used tissues, 3-day old cereal bowls, or constellations of coffee rings. But when you work from home, there's no such social contract to uphold. So one of our rituals in the #social-remote Slack channel is "messy desk Thursdays" in which we out ourselves for the abysmal state of our workstations while the ROTFL ??and ????‍?? facepalm emojis fly fast and thick.

It's also a chance for your preternaturally tidy teammates to do some humble bragging about their austere, magazine-worthy office spaces.

Gift Exchange

Type: real-time, just for fun, one-hit wonder
Time: 60 minutes
Tools required: video conferencing, Trello board

Whether your team prefers white elephant style or something more thoughtful, you can pull off a gift exchange even if you're not at an offsite. Start by copying this handy Trello board template and inviting your teammates to join. It has full instructions in the "Rules" column, but here's the gist. Each team member buys a gift that can be shipped easily. Instead of announcing what the gift is, you'll add a card to the board with a picture and title that provides a hint.

During the game, you'll take turns clicking on cards to reveal what the gift is. (In the example below, "Something for the epicurean" turned out to be a cookbook and some fancy olive oil.) Once you turn over a card, you've claimed that gift. You'll also get chances to steal a gift someone else has already claimed. After the game is over, mail the gift you contributed to the person who ended up with it.

"My User Manual"

Type: asynchronous, fun but practical, one-hit wonder
Time: 60 minutes
Tools required: Keynote or PowerPoint

When you're just forming as a team, or when a new member joins, it's worth taking the time to share your personal workstyle. Do you prefer chat or email? What time of day do you do your best heads-down deep work? Are you cool with impromptu video calls? Check out this example from the CEO at CultureAmp:

Inspired? So were the program managers in our marketing department. They built a slide deck template called "My User Manual" that gives any team - distributed or co-located - a structured way to communicate all their quirks and preferences. Download the template for Keynote or PowerPoint and have each team member fill it out. You can set up a meeting to discuss them in real-time, or share the decks around so people can review them asynchronously. Either way, collect the decks in a central repository where future team members can access them.

Learning Circles

Type: real-time, fun but practical, on the regular
Time: 30-60 minutes
Tools required: video conferencing, study materials as needed

It's easy to get so caught up in executing on your work that you forget to expand your horizons, especially when working from home with no office banter happening around you. Plus, remote work can be isolating if you don't make a point to connect with your teammates on a personal level. Learning circles address both issues. Choose a topic related to your work that you want to learn more about - anything from SQL to leadership styles to trends in recruiting practices - and find colleagues who share that interest. Each month, gather over video conference to discuss a book or article, or have someone in the group give a short presentation. ( Find detailed instructions, tips, and templates for learning circles here.) The best part about learning circles is that you can extend them beyond your immediate team and connect with people across the entire organization.

Team Health Monitor

Although this activity was not designed specifically for remote teams, it's amazingly beneficial. When your team doesn't sit shoulder-to-shoulder, it feels easier to sweep issues under the rug rather than address them head-on. But little problems have a way of growing larger while you're not looking, and eventually, you've got a crisis on your hands. The health monitor prevents this by prompting teams to self-assess on a regular basis and keep their weaknesses from becoming full-blown liabilities. Find full instructions and a facilitation guide here.

.gif Battles

Type: asynchronous, just for fun, on the regular
Time: 15-30 min
Tools required: video conferencing, Trello board

If you've ever been jealous of the Nerf dart wars waged by your co-located colleagues and friends, you'll love .gif battles. Copy this Trello board template and invite your teammates to join it. (Click on the "How it works" card to see full instructions for the game.) The game consists of four rounds, each with its own theme. You'll use Giphy.com or Google Images to find a .gif that fits with the theme for that round and attach that gif to a card. Once everyone has their gifs in, you'll vote on the round's best submission. At the end, the person who wins the most rounds will be crowned the Ultimate Gif Battle Champion of All Time™. Just think of the glory! Don't be afraid to add a tiebreaker round if needed.

Strength Finders

Type: real-time, fun but practical, one-hit wonder
Time: 30 min individual prep, 60 min as a team
Tools required: video conferencing

If you're ready to go beyond surface-level connections with your team, this is the activity for you. Each person will prepare for the session by taking an online strength finder assessment such as Clifton Strengths ($49 per person). During the group session, everyone hops on a video call and takes turns sharing their results. When my team did this, each person shared top three strengths, lowest-ranked strength, and something in our results that surprised us. Then we'd discuss as a group how that person's top strengths contribute to the team already, and how we could make even better use of them.

This is an intensely personal activity. You're going to feel a bit vulnerable and exposed, so it works best if there's already a sense of psychological safety amongst teammates. But because you're discussing each other's strengths, the conversation tends to be very positive and affirming. Chances are, everyone will walk away with a deeper sense of belonging and an understanding of the unique value they bring to the team.

"How You Doin'?"

Collaborative Playlists

This article by Sarah Goff-Dupont originally appeared in Work Life by Atlassian. It is republished with permission.

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The Best Virtual Team Building Activities-According to Real Remote Workers

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This isn't academic theory or some stuff we just made up. This is how real remote teams have fun and stay connected. Here are the best virtual team building activities, according to real remote workers. Career advice for women, Best careers for women, Career tips for women

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#productivity #apps #time management

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Undoubtedly, technology has allowed us to connect, perform, improve, and leverage our resources beyond what was once imaginable, and one of the biggest ways is through time management apps. But with so many apps to choose from, how do you know which ones to use?

The best way to identify an app is to look at your current challenges with time management. Do you get distracted too easily and never complete a task? Or perhaps you end the day without achieving much, wondering where all your time went?

We all have challenges when it comes to being more productive. The best time management apps around vary depending on your needs. That's why we've put together a list of 15 of the best time management apps to help you with the most common challenges.

If you're not taking advantage of some of the hundreds of time management tools , you're missing out.

Let's dive straight into the list.

15 Time Management Apps You Need To Try

1. Rize - Use Your Time Wisely

If you don't know what you did all day or feel that you haven't accomplished much at the end of the day, you will be excited to know about . Rize not only tracks your time but also gives you valuable insights to improve your productivity, build better habits and increase your focus. The highlight is that you don't need to constantly input information, this is automatically done for you.

You can see how many hours you have worked, how much of that time is focus time, how much time you spend context switching, and which websites distract you most, among many other features. Tracking and managing your time efficiently has never been easier.

2. Notion - Keep on Top of All Your Tasks

Think of Notion as a single platform with different productivity apps, helping you keep your notes and work in one place. You can collaborate, share documents and notes, and create a central knowledge base for your team, supporting you in all your project management needs.

You can use Notion to replace your to-do lists, project management, note-taking apps, spreadsheets, etc. It saves you time and money and helps you keep on top of your time management and organization.

3. Forest - Boost Motivation to Complete Tasks

is a unique reinvention of time management apps. This unique and fun app helps you stay focused and incorporates the Pomodoro technique, breaking work into chunks with short intervals. The concept is simple: If you stay focused during this time, your virtual tree will grow. If you lose focus, the tree will die. As the app's name implies, you can grow multiple trees to create a virtual forest!

On top of this particular time management tool being really fun, it reinforces the need to focus on the task. Go ahead and build a wonderful and colorful virtual forest to use as proof to you that you can focus!

Pro tip: Staying focused all the time isn't easy, especially when distractions are everywhere these days! Try the Time Flow System and learn how to sharpen your focus!

4. Spark - Finally Reach Inbox 0

Even with hundreds of communication tools available to us, email use continues to grow. Whether your job is based largely on emails or not, managing your email and staying on top of it is key to productivity. You will be shocked to see how much time can be wasted with email by not having structure or automation to support you in staying on top of your game.

According to a survey by Adobe, people spend at least 3.1 hours checking and reading emails at work. Spark has many features, from removing distractions to only notifying you of important emails to snoozing emails. You can also send an email to your Task Manager to add to your to-do's, reply quickly with templates, as well as get reminded to follow up on emails and schedule to reply to certain emails later.

Finally, reach inbox 0 with Spark.

5. Serene - Focus on Tasks at Hand

One of the biggest time wasters is giving in to distractions, multi-tasking, and not completing tasks because of this. Serene takes productivity to the next level in three easy steps and helps you to get more done in your day.
It helps you to:

1. Plan your day - Define your goals and tasks for the day and when you want to do them.

2. Block Distractions - When starting a task, Serene blocks websites, updates your statuses (ie. unavailable on Slack), and eliminates distractions overall.

3. Focus Enhancers - It helps you to stay focused on the task with timers, music, breaks, etc.

It is an all-in-one time management tool you want in your kit.

6. Fathom.Video - Zoom Is Your Minute Taker

Since COVID-19, the Zoom app has been downloaded 485 million times in 2020. Although Zoom has been a huge contribution to productivity, so much time is wasted capturing notes and important information, never mind losing focus on what is being said.

Fathom is an excellent time management tool for meetings and super easy to use. During your meeting, you can highlight important moments, such as decisions, questions, action items, etc. These are sent to you after your meeting with a transcription of the meeting and highlights. This tool syncs your notes to Hubspot, Salesforce, and other CRM platforms accordingly and automatically.

7. MyLifeOrganized (MLO) - Manage Your To-Do Lists Effectively

Excellent time management techniques entail to-do lists and having a system to manage your tasks. However, even with various apps and methods, they can be overwhelming for people. This is where MyLifeOrganized comes in.

This task management software helps you target what you should be focusing on to reach your objectives. MyLifeOrganized is one of the best time management apps for focused work. It automatically generates to-do lists with priority actions for your immediate attention so that you can track your progress methodically.

8. 1Password - Have All Your Passwords Remembered

How much time do you spend looking for login details or having to reset passwords? 1Password is still a must-have time management app as it allows you to keep all your passwords in one encrypted database - protected by one password.

According to research, more than half of Americans have had to reset five passwords each month on average. This saves you time when you forget your passwords and need to retrieve them and also allows you to use various passwords for different accounts so you don't compromise on security.

9. Alarmy - Joyful Alarm Clock

Waking up early to have time for yourself and set yourself up for the day is the ingredient to mastering your day. Alarmy makes it impossible to sleep in or snooze by giving you a few options of challenges to complete before the alarm turns off.

You can play memory games, do math, take photos, squat, and many more. By the time you have completed the challenge, you are already awake, and your mind is active. There are other great features, such as personalizing your sounds and recording how you feel, to gain insights. Get more out of your day with Alarmy.

10. Focus@Will - Boost Your Attention Span

This amazing app combines neuroscience and music to boost your productivity. According to the developers, it's possible to increase your attention span by up to 400% using Focus@Will, making this one of the best time management apps available, which is why it stays on our list.

Focus@Will is ideal for those who find it difficult to focus while studying, working, or reading. It also helps you control your ADD.

11. Alfred - Interact With Your Computer in a Smart Way

Alfred is a small and simple tool that lets you launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes. This is one of the greatest time management techniques as it removes the need for searching through multiple folders to find what you need. The only downside is that it's only available for macOS.

12. Habitica - Gamify Your Habits

Having the right habits can either save you hours of time or waste hours, and how productive you are, depends on your habits. The challenge is that the initial excitement and motivation to develop new habits wears off quickly, and when there is no consistency in building the new habit, it will never replace the old.

This is where Habitica becomes your partner in success. Track your goals, to-dos, and habits. Stay accountable for achieving your goals with features such as rewards, punishments, and streaks. Finally, have fun getting things done!

13. Quire - Unfold Your Ideas

Quire is another excellent and innovative time management app that boosts your team's productivity. The strength of this app is in its features for collaboration and ease of sharing. Through the various time management techniques this app offers, you can streamline and adjust your workflow based on your team's needs and preferences.

14. Doodle - Scheduling Has Never Been Easier

It can be quite frustrating going back and forth spending more time than needed coordinating a day and time that works for everyone to get together. Doodle comes to the rescue here.

Whether you're planning a meeting or a party, Doodle sends everyone options and times and tracks the time that works best for everyone to schedule. It keeps everyone up to date with all current and upcoming events and also syncs with Zoom, Google Meet, Outlook, Microsoft teams, and Zapier for easier collaboration.

15. Dropbox - Store and Send Large Files Easily

Dropbox stays on the list of the top apps that allow you to transfer content from your computer to other devices and access it anywhere. It is free, and it is easier to use than the others.

With the Dropbox app, you can even access and share important files on the go. It is an easy way to share your files and documents with others for improved productivity.

Final Thoughts

The above list covers what we consider to be the very best time management apps and tools available. And the good news is that many of them are completely free of charge! So, what are you waiting for? Select the ones that will be the most valuable to you, and begin boosting your productivity now!

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15 Best Time Management Apps and Tools (2023 Updated) - LifeHack

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With hundreds of apps and tools to choose from, you may not know where to start. Here're 15 best time management apps for productivity.

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#study skills #professional development

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Authors: Catherine Overson, Victor Benassi, Lauren Kordonowy, Meghan Stark, Jennifer Calawa, and Christopher Williams, Center for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching and Learning, University of New Hampshire

Assessment Coordinator: Elizabeth Tappin, Center for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching and Learning, University of New Hampshire
The Student Cognition Toolbox is made possible by a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation (Yarmouth, Maine). The Foundation was established by Stanton and Elisabeth Davis after Mr. Davis's retirement as chairman of Shaw's Supermarkets, Inc. This project was undertaken as a collaboration between the University of New Hampshire Center for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CEITL) and the Carnegie Mellon University Open Learning Initiative (OLI).

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The Student Cognition Toolbox provides detailed information about study strategies that are informed by research on the science of learning. Use of the study strategies described in the Student Cognition Toolbox has been shown by research to benefit student learning. Strategies included are: Practice Quizzing, Self-Explanation, Elaborative Interrogation, Worked Examples, Spaced Practice, and Interleaved Practice.

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#study skills #stress #wellness

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Kosha J. Mehta

Difficult situations in the classroom such as exams or interpersonal conflicts can challenge or exceed the coping strategies or resources available and thus threaten our homoeostasis, our inner balance, leading us to feel 'stressed'.7 The individual appraisal of the situation is critical as it determines the response that follows.8,9 If a situation is appraised as stressful, a well-described cascade of physiological and endocrine changes is set in motion in order to re-establish homoeostasis and to promote long-term well-being.10 Although this stress response is very complex with numerous mediators involved, two major stress systems appear to be critical for the modulation of learning and memory processes, the rapid autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the slower hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis ( Figure 1). Within seconds, the ANS is activated, leading to the release of catecholamines such as noradrenaline (NA), both from the adrenal medulla and the locus coeruleus in the brain.10 Catecholamines prepare the body for 'fight-or-flight' responses and rapidly affect neural functioning in several brain regions critical for learning and memory, such as the hippocampus, amygdala and prefrontal cortex (PFC).5,11 Somewhat slower, a second system is activated in response to stress, the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, resulting in the release of corticosteroids (in humans mainly cortisol) from the adrenal cortex. Cortisol reaches peak level concentrations ~20-30 min after stressor onset,10 readily enters the brain and binds to two different receptors to induce its effects on cognition: The glucocorticoid receptor (GR) is expressed ubiquitously throughout the brain, whereas the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) is mainly expressed in brain regions related to memory and emotion, for instance, the hippocampus, amygdala and PFC.12,13 On binding to these receptors, cortisol operates via two different modes of action, a non-genomic, often MR-mediated mode develops rapidly14 and enhances neural excitability in the amygdala and hippocampus,15,16 presumably supporting memory formation. This rapid mode is followed by a slower, often GR-dependent mode that is assumed to develop ~60-90 min after stressor onset and to involve longer-lasting changes to DNA translation and transcription.17 The slow genomic mode is assumed to revert the acute effects of stress and to re-establish homoeostasis by decreasing neural excitability in the amygdala and hippocampus long after stress.4

Systems activated in response to stressful events. On a stressful encounter, the autonomic nervous system (left) is activated within seconds to release catecholamines (e.g., noradrenaline) from the adrenal medulla and the locus coeruleus in the brain stem. Catecholamines are implicated in the 'fight-or-flight' response, but they also have profound effects on attention, working memory and long-term memory. Somewhat slower, the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis is activated, releasing corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) from the hypothalamus which stimulates the anterior pituitary to secrete adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). ACTH in turn causes the adrenal cortex to produce cortisol and release it into the blood stream. Cortisol reaches peak level concentrations ~20-30 min after stress onset and readily enters the brain to affect cognition and behaviour. Cortisol feedback to the pituitary, hypothalamus and other brain areas (e.g., the hippocampus) prevents the system from overshooting.

This striking temporal profile of the stress response leads to differential effects of stress on learning and memory, depending on the temporal proximity between the stressful event and the memory process investigated. For instance, stress experienced just before memory retrieval, when catecholamine levels are still high and cortisol levels are not elevated yet, may have very different effects than stress experienced 90 min before retrieval, when catecholamine levels returned to baseline and genomic cortisol actions are at work.18,19 Moreover, distinct memory stages, i.e., encoding, consolidation or retrieval may be differently affected by these time-dependent physiological changes after a stressful encounter. In the next section, we will portray the time-dependent effects of stress on learning and memory, taking into account both the specific memory stage affected and the temporal proximity between the stressful event and the memory formation or retrieval process ( Figure 2).

The effects of stress on memory depend on the specific memory process investigated and the temporal proximity between the stressful event and this memory process. While stress (indicated as red flash) long before encoding impairs memory formation, stress shortly before or after the presentation of new information generally enhances subsequent memory performance. In sharp contrast, stress before memory retrieval impairs the recall of information learned previously which may directly affect performance at exams. In education, knowledge needs to be frequently updated by new facts or concepts relating to prior knowledge. In addition to its effects on memory encoding and retrieval, stress appears to impair this integration of new information into existing knowledge structures.

Emotionally arousing events are typically very well-remembered. Likewise, individuals who experienced extremely stressful (traumatic) events may suffer from very vivid memories of these events, suggesting that severe stress during or just before encoding may boost memory formation. In line with these observations, studies showed that also lower levels of stress (as they may occur more frequently in schools) during or just before learning may strengthen human memory.20-23 This effect of stress on encoding was often stronger for emotional compared with neutral learning material.24 Another factor moderating the influence of stress on learning is the correspondence between the stressful context and the learning material. For example, stress during learning specifically enhanced memory for material that was related to the context of the stressful task and thus putatively more relevant.20 Material that is unrelated to an ongoing stressor, however, is typically not very well-remembered later on.25 Despite many studies showing a stress-induced learning enhancement if stressor and learning coincide, some studies found the opposite effect.26,27 This divergence might be due to other factors than just the timing of the stressful encounter, such as differences in the interval between study and retrieval or individual differences due to sex, genetics or the developmental background.28-31 In sum, being moderately stressed can enhance memory formation for emotional material and information that is related to the stressful context, whereas stress may impair the encoding of stressor-unrelated material.

At the neural level, catecholamines such as NA appear to play a critical role in the enhancing effects of stress or emotional arousal on learning. Studies in rodents demonstrated that NA exposure strengthened synaptic contacts in the hippocampus11 and that the concentration of NA in the amygdala after encoding predicted memory strength.32 Corticosteroids, however, appear to play an important role as well. For instance, MR-activation rapidly enhanced neural excitability in the amygdala and hippocampus which may further aid successful memory encoding.15,16 Additional evidence for a role of corticosteroids came from human pharmacological studies, demonstrating that the administration of 20 mg cortisol prior to learning boosted later memory, especially for emotionally arousing pictures.33 Notably, this memory advantage for emotional material depends on NA, as it can be blocked by the beta-blocker propranolol.34 Human neuroimaging studies then set out to elucidate the neural mechanism underlying the stress-induced learning enhancement. The immediate release of NA under stress activated a network of brain regions known as the salience network encompassing the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula.35,36 This rapid upregulation of the salience network allowed enhanced vigilance and better processing of threat-related information which may improve memory encoding in stressful situations. Some minutes later, the release of cortisol reduced global signal in the electroencephalogram (EEG), which was interpreted as a reduction in background processing in order to allow efficient processing of relevant information by enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio.37 In line with an enhanced processing of important information, the stress-induced increase in processing and encoding of study items in the brain was related to better memory performance for these items at test.38,39 Several studies also investigated the interplay of NA and cortisol in memory encoding. Supporting evidence for such an interaction came, for instance, from a study showing that emotional learning material activated the amygdala, an effect that depended on NA availability as it was abolished by propranolol.40 Importantly, this amygdala response to emotional stimuli was particularly prominent in those individuals with higher cortisol levels during encoding.41 Moreover, the combined administration of cortisol and yohimbine, a drug increasing NA stimulation, switched neural activity towards a strong deactivation of prefrontal areas,42 potentially releasing the amygdala from inhibitory top-down control and improving memory encoding.

While stress around the time of learning enhances memory, stress (or cortisol administration of 25 mg) long before learning or in a distinctly different context does not promote new learning43 and can even hinder successful encoding of new information.21 For example, while stress directly before learning enhanced later recognition memory, memory was impaired if stress was experienced 30 min before learning.21 This memory impairing effect of stress long before learning has been associated with a decrease in neural excitability in the hippocampus long after cortisol administration,44 which might suggest that genomic actions of cortisol protect the consolidation of information learned during the stressful encounter.2 In line with this finding of decreased hippocampal excitability, cortisol administered more than 1 h before MRI measurements reduced hippocampal and amygdala activity in humans,45,46 possibly impairing the formation of new memories. In the same time period, the activity of the salience network decreased again to pre-stress levels while activity in the executive control network increased,35 allowing the individual to recover from the stressful situation and to re-approach homoeostasis. However, there is evidence that this reversal of heightened salience network activity, which is important for higher cognitive control functions to improve coping in the aftermath of stress, does not occur when the participants remain in the stressful context. For instance, the coupling between the amygdala and the salience network remained enhanced after 1 h if the participants were still in the context of the stress induction procedure,47 again highlighting the role of context as a moderator of stress effects on learning.

When stress is experienced before or during a learning episode, its effects on memory encoding can hardly be dissociated from those on memory consolidation. Also in educational settings, influences of stress on memory encoding can often not be separated from those on memory storage. However, by administering stress or stress mediators shortly after learning, thus excluding an influence on memory encoding, experimental studies were able to isolate stress effects on memory consolidation. Several studies in humans showed that stress or adrenaline injections shortly after learning improved memory consolidation, an effect which was more pronounced for emotionally arousing material,26,48, 49, 50 highlighting the importance of the emotionality of the study material. Studies in rodents also demonstrated that the administration of NA or corticosteroids just after learning improved consolidation,51 and that this enhancing effect (at least on hippocampal memory) required the interaction between NA and GR-mediated cortisol effects in the amygdala.52-55

The effects of stress on memory are, however, not limited to the formation of memories (i.e., memory encoding and consolidation) but extend also to memory retrieval. Given that exams and tests can easily cause stress in students and students are evaluated based on their performance in these tests, it is particularly relevant to understand how stress affects memory recall. In line with seminal findings in rodents,56 many studies in humans demonstrated that acute stress impaired memory retrieval after a stressful encounter (refs 18, 19, 57, 58, 59 but see refs 60, 61). Retrieval in the stressful situation itself seemed not to be affected or even enhanced,18,19 particularly when retrieval performance was directly relevant to the stressful encounter. Retrieval more than 20 min after stress, however, when cortisol levels were already elevated, was impaired by the cortisol response to stress18,19,58 ( Figure 3) and the impairment appeared to be even stronger at a time point when genomic cortisol actions had developed,18 suggesting that the impairing effects of stress can last much longer than previously known. This retrieval deficit after stress was not only found in adults but was also observed in 8-10-year-old children, highlighting the relevance of these findings for educational settings.59 The disrupting effect of stress on retrieval was stronger for emotional material26,62 and also the context appeared to play a moderating role on the effects of stress on retrieval. For instance, if the retrieval test was relevant for the stressful situation or if both learning and test took place in the same context, so that the context served as a retrieval cue, recall was spared from the impairing effects of stress.19,63

Stress impairs memory retrieval. Participants learned a two-dimensional object location task similar to the game 'concentration' (note that for illustrative purposes encoding is depicted by a book, similar to studying in class). One day later, participants either underwent a mild stress induction procedure (indicated by the red flash) or a non-stressful control procedure before recalling the card pair locations learned on day 1. Participants in the stress group recalled significantly fewer card pair locations on day 2 than participants in the control group (relative to their performance on day 1), indicating that stress before retention testing reduced memory performance. Adjusted, with permission, from ref. 63.

The negative effect of stress on retrieval could be mimicked by administering a GR agonist and blocked by the cortisol synthesis inhibitor metyrapone in rodents, which suggests a GR-dependent pathway43,56,64,65 reducing blood flow in the medial temporal lobe.66 However, the interaction with NA appears to be crucial as the impairing effects of cortisol depended on noradrenergic activation of the amygdala.52 For instance, blocking the action of NA pharmacologically with propranolol abolished the impairing effect of cortisol on emotional memory retrieval.67 Thus, similar to memory consolidation, the interaction between GR-mediated cortisol action and NA appears to be crucial for stress-induced effects on memory retrieval.67

To summarise, stress affects memory in a time-dependent manner, often enhancing memory formation around the time of the stressful encounter but impairing memory retrieval and the acquisition of information encoded long after the stressful event. These effects depend on interactions between NA and cortisol in the amygdala and are thus often stronger for emotional than for neutral learning material. In the next paragraph, we will move beyond stress-induced changes in memory performance and describe how stress may also affect the integration of new information into existing memories, i.e., knowledge updating.

Very often, students are not only required to recall study material, but to integrate new information into existing knowledge structures. In fact, integrating new information into existing memories is a key process in education (as well as in life in general where we are constantly required to update our knowledge). Such updating implicates that memories remain malleable even long time after they have been formed initially and research over the past 15 years shows that this is indeed the case (for review, see ref. 68). There is compelling evidence that consolidated, seemingly stable memories return to a labile state when they are reactivated,68-71 which requires the re-stabilization of those memories in a process called reconsolidation. During reconsolidation, the reactivated memory can be weakened, strengthened or altered.69,71 In other words, reconsolidation most likely represents the mechanism underlying memory updating processes.72 As reconsolidation involves the hippocampus71 and the PFC,73 areas that are main targets of stress modulators, it seems reasonable to assume that stress would also affect reconsolidation. First evidence for such stress effects on reconsolidation came from rodent studies showing that stress or cortisol injections after memory reactivation impaired subsequent memory expression, suggesting that stress impaired reconsolidation.74,75 For instance, stress after reactivation of a memory trace interfered with performance at a later memory test, an effect which depended on GR-mediated cortisol activity in the amygdala.75 Several studies in humans support the hypothesis that stress can affect memory reconsolidation and thus memory updating, yet the specific conditions leading to impairing or enhancing effects of stress on reconsolidation are still under investigation.76-78

Further evidence for a critical role of stress in the updating of memories comes from studies on the so-called misinformation effect. This effect describes the incorporation of misleading information presented after encoding the original event into the memory for this event.79 Although this effect mainly concerns the biasing influence of misinformation on memory, it provides important insights into memory updating in general and studying how stress affects the misinformation effect may allow a deeper understanding of how stress affects the updating of memories. For instance, it was shown that if highly arousing information is learned during stress, this resulted in more robust memories that were less vulnerable to being 'updated' by subsequent (mis)information.80 Similarly, misinformation was less often incorporated into existing memories if the participants were stressed before the presentation of misinformation, thus indicating that stress interferes with the updating of the existing memory trace81 ( Figure 4). As the mechanism underlying the misinformation effect is assumed to be reconsolidation,72 this finding is in line with reports showing an impairing effect of stress on memory reconsolidation.74,75,78 In sum, there is accumulating evidence that stress may interfere with the updating of memories, which may have negative implications for education where new information often has to be incorporated into existing knowledge.

Stress reduces the integration of new information into existing memories. On day 1, participants were instructed to memorise different stories presented in short movie clips (note that encoding is illustrated by a book for illustrative purposes). On day two, participants either underwent a mild stress induction procedure (indicated by the red flash) or a non-stressful control procedure before they were presented with a questionnaire regarding the study material from day 1. Importantly, some items of this questionnaire included wrong information about the study material (misinformation, shown in orange). On day 3, forced choice questions were used to test whether the misinformation had been integrated into the memory trace of the study material. In the memory test, possible answers were the correct original information, the misinformation presented the day before and other incorrect answers (lures) that were not referred to on day 2. Overall, participants endorsed misinformation more often than lures, thus demonstrating a misinformation effect. Critically, stressed participants endorsed fewer misinformation items than participants of the control group, suggesting that stress reduced the modification of the original memory on day 2. Adjusted, with permission, from ref. 81. * P<0.005

Most studies investigating the effects of stress on memory encoding, retrieval or updating focused on memories encoded by the hippocampus. However, experiences can be encoded by multiple memory systems operating in parallel, differing in their neural substrate and in the information processed.82,83 Several studies demonstrated that stress has a critical impact on which of these memory systems is used to form and retrieve memories, implicating that stress changes the nature or quality of memories84,85 (see Figure 5). Early studies in rodents demonstrated that stress or amygdala activation through anxiogenic drugs at encoding induced a shift from a flexible 'cognitive' memory system depending on the hippocampus towards a more rigid, 'habit'-like memory system based on the dorsal striatum.82,86,87 Thus, under stress, more rigid stimulus-response associations are learned rather than complex representations of our environment including the relationship between stimuli or task requirements. This shift in the system that controls memory could be blocked by an MR-antagonist, suggesting that the shift is due to MR-mediated cortisol action.88,89 Importantly, stress itself did not disrupt learning, but blocking the shift towards habit memories markedly impaired performance,88 suggesting that the shift towards the striatum-based habit system is adaptive and beneficial for performance under stress. So far, only one study investigated whether this stress-induced shift also affects memory retrieval, and indeed anxiogenic drugs injected into the amygdala before retrieval biased rats towards an increased use of their dorsal striatum at the expense of the hippocampal memory system.90 To summarise, these studies in rodents suggest that stress induces a qualitative shift in the systems guiding learning (and, most likely, retrieval), from a cognitive, hippocampus-dependent memory system towards a habit-like memory system based on the striatum.

Stress shifts the balance between multiple systems underlying learning and memory. At rest, this balance is tilted towards the 'cognitive' memory system depending on the hippocampus, allowing for the formation and recall of flexible memories. Stress, however, is thought to alter the system domination learning and memory. Under stress (indicated by a red flash), the balance tips towards more rigid 'habit' memories encoded by the dorsal striatum. Thus, stress affects not only how much is learned (memory quantity) but also what is encoded and how memories are built (memory quality).

In line with these rodent findings, stress shifts the systems dominating memory encoding also in humans towards an increased use of striatal habit-like memory, at the expense of hippocampal memory.91-93 For example, stressed participants often used a habit-like striatal learning strategy instead of a hippocampal strategy to solve a learning task.93 Similar to the findings in rodents, stress did not affect learning performance per se if participants switched to the striatal memory system,91 yet performance was impaired when participants tried to recruit the hippocampal memory system despite stress.93 Accordingly, task performance was positively correlated with hippocampal activity in non-stressed control participants, whereas performance correlated positively with striatal activity and even negatively with hippocampal activity in stressed participants.93 The amygdala appeared to orchestrate this stress-induced shift by rapidly increasing functional connectivity with the dorsal striatum and decreasing its coupling with the hippocampus.94,95 Importantly, an MR-antagonist blocked the stress-induced shift both at the behavioural and neural level,94,95 demonstrating that the stress-induced shift appears to depend on cortisol acting via the MR.89

In addition to the shift from hippocampal to striatal memory, stress affects the balance between memory systems underlying instrumental behaviour, i.e., behaviour aimed at obtaining rewards or avoiding punishments. Learning and performing these actions can be controlled by a 'habitual' system relying on the dorsolateral striatum which acts largely independently of the current value of the action-outcome, or a 'goal-directed' system depending on the PFC, dorsomedial striatum, and dorsomedial thalamus which is sensitive to changes in outcome value.96 Under stress, human and rodent behaviour is rendered more habitual and based on stimulus-response associations rather than action-outcome associations which underlie goal-directed actions.97-101 Moreover, the behaviour of stressed individuals was more resistant against extinction procedures,92 further highlighting the rigid, rather habitual behaviour of stressed individuals. For example, stressed infants continued to use habit actions even though the behaviour was not reinforced anymore, whereas non-stressed infants stopped showing the behaviour when the reinforcement ended.100 The stress-induced modulation of instrumental behaviour can be abolished by beta blockers, suggesting that NA plays a crucial role in this shift towards habit behaviour.98 Again, NA appears to interact with the effects of cortisol as the stress-induced shift towards habits can be mimicked by the combined administration of cortisol and yohimbine,97 and beta-adrenergic blockade by propranolol prevents the stress-induced bias towards habits.98 In the brain, this shift has been associated with a reduced sensitivity of the orbitofrontal and medial PFC to changes in outcome value, whereas brain regions implicated in habit learning were not affected.99

To summarise, stress cannot only affect how much information we learn and remember, but stress also flips the balance between the systems dominating learning and memory, which has considerable consequences for the nature and flexibility of memories and the goal-directedness of behaviour.

School children often encounter stressful events inside and outside of their school environment102 and nearly 70% of primary school children report symptoms of stress such as worries, anxiety or sadness.103 In the preceding chapters, we argued that situations appraised as stressful have strong and diverse effects on human memory. While learning during or immediately after stress is often enhanced, stress disrupts memory retrieval and updating, and these effects are most pronounced for emotionally arousing material. Finally, we argued that stress shifts the balance between multiple systems underlying memories and instrumental behaviours towards the formation and recall of rather rigid habit-like memories. Together, these findings highlight that stress may critically shape our memories, which is of utmost importance in all educational contexts.

In the classroom, these stress effects on memory may have far-reaching consequences for students. For instance, emotions or light to moderate forms of stress (i.e., cognitive challenges without excessive demands or moderate emotional arousal that results, e.g., from hearing something that is unexpected) may increase memory formation, which may have positive effects on memories for study material. Yet, these effects likely follow an inverted u-shape and can revert with too high levels of stress.28,104 Moreover, stress may lead to stronger memories for negative events happening in the classroom, such as failed exams, embarrassing experiences or interpersonal conflicts (e.g., bullying) and these strong negative memories may induce long-lasting frustration and a negative attitude towards school and the individual's abilities. These negative consequences of stress on students may be intensified by the deleterious effects of stress on memory retrieval. Moderate or high levels of stress before exams will most likely hinder memory retrieval and lead to an underestimation of the students' knowledge, putatively resulting in bad grades. Furthermore, stress may hinder the integration of new information into existing knowledge structures, which may prevent the updating of knowledge by new facts or a deep multidisciplinary understanding of concepts which is often required in education. Finally, by altering the balance between memory systems, stress may lead to strong, rigid memories and the retrieval of habits rather than creative and complex solutions to new problems, which may again lead to an underestimation of the students' abilities.

Although the effects of stress on memory are highly relevant to students, also teachers frequently encounter stressful events and >40% report high levels of work stress.105 Also for teachers, appraising events as stressful may lead to strong negative memories of unpleasant situations in the classroom with implications for their work attitude and potentially their mental health. Moreover, stress may impair the quality of teaching if the teacher's flexibility is decreased, which might hamper adaptive responding to the individual needs and resources of students. Instead, habitual procedures may be supported by stress, leading to a more repetitive teaching style, which may in turn lead to more problems in class.

Considering this wide range of possible stress effects in educational settings, strategies to deal with stress and its consequences are needed. First and foremost, teachers should be aware of the impact stress may have on memory formation, retrieval and updating. Moreover, students should be educated about the influence of stress on memory to raise awareness for the powerful effects stress may exert and the need for efficient coping strategies. It is important to note that potentially stressful events do not necessarily lead to a stress response, but that the individual appraisal of the situation and the available coping strategies determine whether a situation results in the activation of stress systems or not. This dependence on appraisal and coping can explain why some individuals suffer much less from potentially stressful circumstances than others. Thus, next to changing potentially stressful situations, students should be educated about effective coping strategies.8,106

Furthermore, based on findings demonstrating that emotional material is typically better remembered than neutral material, an emotional component (mainly positive) may be added while students learn new information to enhance later memory.21,23,24,33,49,107,108 For example, this could be achieved by explicit positive verbal reinforcement of students during learning in class. Furthermore, movie clips might be used which do not only focus on the learning material itself, but place it into an emotional context, e.g., by making the links to the student and his or her everyday life explicit.

To counteract the strong negative effects of stress on memory retrieval and updating, strong stressors before exams or before new information is presented to update students' knowledge should be avoided as far as possible. To reduce stress, practice exams may familiarise the students with the exam situation and trainings in stress reduction techniques or other coping strategies might help students to alleviate stress symptoms. Teachers should also be aware that different forms of retrieval may be differentially affected by stress. Free recall seems to be disrupted more easily by stress than cued recall,62 suggesting that recall cues may enhance the chance that students can actually retrieve the information they have learned. It is important to note that the impairing effects of stress on retrieval are quite long-lasting, such that stressors long before the exam (e.g., at home) may still affect performance in the test situation. Therefore, children with trouble at home or frequent stressful life events may need special attention before exams to reduce the effects of stress.

Stress does not only induce a deficit in memory retrieval and memory updating, it also changes the way information is stored and retrieved by multiple memory systems. Stress before learning may bias students towards rigid forms of learning, which may hinder the successful transfer of knowledge and reduce cognitive flexibility in problem solving. However, the negative effects of stress on memory retrieval may be counteracted to some extent by thoroughly and repeatedly practicing useful routines which can be recalled rather automatically. This may be especially relevant for the training of correct actions during emergency situations. For instance, given that flexible memory recall and knowledge application is hindered under stress, pilots or physicians should be trained extensively in the correct routines they should apply in stressful emergency situations. If these procedures are automatised, it is much more likely that they can actually be retrieved and translated to behaviour.

Last, students and teachers should be aware of the powerful effects of context. It has been shown repeatedly that memory is enhanced when learning and recall take place in the same context as the context serves as a strong retrieval cue.109 Moreover, although stress often impairs retrieval, this effect seems to be alleviated if learning and retrieval context match, indicating that the effect of context might counteract stress-induced memory impairments.63

Stress has far-reaching consequences on our ability to learn and remember, with major implications for educational settings. Considering that stress is ubiquitous in education and even primary school children often report stress symptoms, understanding the effects of stress on memory is very important. For one, an optimised education is of utmost importance for the individual, laying the foundation of later career success and socioeconomic status. In addition, our educational system is highly relevant for society as a whole by building and instructing the next generation.

Despite the striking advances the field has seen in our understanding of how stress changes learning and memory processes, several questions remain to be answered, e.g., concerning interindividual differences in the effects of stress on memory. While some studies suggested that differences in personality, gender or stress system reactivity may moderate how stress affects learning,28 the findings are not conclusive yet and the involved mechanisms are not understood sufficiently well to derive recommendations for teachers. Understanding these interindividual differences is a key to personalised approaches or training programmes directed at preventing stress-induced impairments. In addition, more research is necessary to understand the precise development of stress effects on memories over time as it is currently unclear when exactly the enhancing and impairing effects of stress on memory formation arise and how long they last. Likewise, it is currently not well-understood whether different types110 or intensities104 of stressors have different effects on memory. Furthermore, most studies did not explicitly distinguish between stress effects on different types of declarative memory, i.e., semantic and declarative memories. Future studies are required to assess whether stress has differential effects on these memory systems, which would provide important insights into how stress changes different forms of learning and memory. Finally, the exposure to prolonged or repeated stress, as well as stress during critical periods of brain development may also have strong effects on learning and memory in children which need to be better understood to counteract the impairments they may cause.111 Thus, different intensities of stress at different time points during development may induce different effects which remain to be further investigated. Future research on the effects of stress on learning and memory will hopefully answer these and related questions and thus further deepen our understanding of how stress affects memory and why individuals differ in response to stress. Answering these questions may help to personalise learning settings to the specific needs of the individual, to make optimal use of the beneficial effects of emotions on memory, and to alleviate the cognitive impairments stress and strong emotional responses may cause.

This work was supported by the University of Hamburg. Both authors are supported by the University of Hamburg.

Authors and Affiliations

Department of Cognitive Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Susanne Vogel & Lars Schwabe

Contributions

S.V. drafted the manuscript and L.S. provided critical revisions. Both authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lars Schwabe.

Competing interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Learning and memory under stress: implications for the classroom - npj Science of Learning

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Exams, tight deadlines and interpersonal conflicts are just a few examples of the many events that may result in high levels of stress in both students and teachers. Research over the past two decades identified stress and the hormones and neurotransmitters released during and after a stressful event as major modulators of human learning and memory processes, with critical implications for educational contexts.

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#study skills #sleep #wellness

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A good night's sleep is remarkably powerful. It restores mind and body, preparing both for the challenges that lie ahead. Without restful sleep, mood, concentration, and mental performance suffer. Sleep deprivation is a major cause of car crashes and other accidents, and it has been linked to important medical problems ranging from hypertension, obesity, and diabetes to heart disease, erectile dysfunction, and possibly even prostate cancer.

Health-conscious men don't take sleep for granted, and scientists don't either. In fact, research suggests that even a brief nap may help boost learning, memory, and creative problem solving - all while your head is on the pillow.

Setting the stage

Four reports suggest that sleep may improve cognitive function. To understand the results, though, it's important to review the stages of sleep.

Sleep is divided into two major phases, rapid-eye-movement (REM) and non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep. Sleep begins with the NREM state. In turn, NREM sleep passes through four stages: onset (Stage 1), light sleep (Stage 2), and deep sleep (Stages 3 and 4). After about 60 to 90 minutes, REM sleep kicks in; it lasts some 20 to 30 minutes, and then NREM sleep returns to start a new sleep cycle. During the course of a normal night, a healthy adult will experience four to six consecutive sleep cycles.

NREM and REM sleep follow on each other's heels; both are important for health, but they are vastly different. During NREM sleep, body movements continue, but eye movements are quiet or absent. Breathing slows and the heart rate and blood pressure fall. Blood flow to the brain decreases, and electroencephalograms (EEGs) show slowing of the brain's activity.

In many ways, REM sleep is the opposite of NREM sleep. The body is immobile, but although the lids remain closed, the eyes dart rapidly in all directions. The blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate swing up and down, and healthy men develop erections. Blood flow to the brain increases sharply, and EEGs show spiking activity. Dreaming is most common during REM sleep, but it may also occur during the early stages of NREM sleep.

To dream, perhaps to learn

A 2010 Harvard study suggested that dreaming may reactivate and reorganize recently learned material, improving memory and boosting performance. The subjects were 99 healthy college students who agreed to avoid alcohol, caffeine, and drugs for at least 24 hours prior to the experiment. All the volunteers demonstrated normal sleep patterns before enrolling in the study.

Each of the subjects spent an hour learning how to navigate through a complex three-dimensional maze-like puzzle. After the training period, half of the students were allowed to nap for 90 minutes, while the others read or relaxed. Following a lunch break, all the volunteers tackled the virtual maze again. The only students whose performance substantially improved were the few who dreamed about the maze during their naps. Although the dreams didn't actually depict solutions to the puzzle, the researchers believe they show how the dreaming brain can reorganize and consolidate memories, resulting in better performance on learned tasks. And all the amazing dreams occurred early in NREM sleep.

Shorter naps

Another Harvard study tested the effects of a 45-minute daytime nap. The subjects were 33 college students; each spent 30 minutes working on the computer to master one verbal and two spatial tasks: memorizing 60 pairs of unrelated words, solving a maze puzzle, and copying an intricate figure. All the students were tested on the tasks, after which half were allowed to nap while the others rested quietly. Researchers repeated all the tests later in the afternoon. They found that NREM napping - sleeping for less than 90 minutes - further boosted performance for the students whose initial tests demonstrated good learning, but napping did not help the students who scored poorly on their first tests.

Micro naps

Busy men may not be able to set aside 45 minutes for a nap - but in 2008, German scientists reported that even a six-minute snooze may help improve memory. The subjects were 44 university students who were given two minutes to memorize a list of 30 words. Recall was tested an hour later, but during that hour, some of the subjects remained awake, another group napped for six minutes, and a third group took longer naps that averaged 36 minutes. The subjects who did not nap recalled an average of less than seven words; the students who napped for six minutes averaged more than eight words; and those who took longer naps averaged just over nine words. The changes may seem small, but they could come in handy if you have to tell your boss that nodding off at your desk is actually boosting your efficiency.

REM sleep and creativity

The studies from Harvard and Germany suggest that NREM napping may improve memory and learning. A 2009 report from California indicates that REM sleep may be even better, at least for creative problem solving. In the morning, the researchers gave 77 volunteers a series of creative problems and then asked them to spend the afternoon mulling over solutions before being tested at 5 p.m. One group of subjects rested quietly but stayed awake, while another was allowed to nap. All the nappers were monitored during sleep. Only those who took longer naps entered REM sleep, which occupied about 14 minutes of the 73-minute naps. NREM napping did not boost creative problem solving, but people who entered REM sleep enhanced their performance by nearly 40%, as compared with both non-nappers and NREM nappers. The improvement was specific for problems that were introduced before napping; rather than simply boosting alertness and attention, REM sleep allowed the brain to work creatively on problems posed before sleep.

Perspectives

Sorry to say, a nap or two won't make you smart or assure success. But doctors know that a good night's sleep is associated with good health, and a 2007 Greek investigation linked napping with a reduced risk of heart disease. Now four studies suggest that naps may boost intellectual performance, at least in the short term. The research shows that NREM sleep can improve memory and that REM sleep can enhance creative problem solving. It's a two-step approach that should give every man something to sleep on.

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Learning while you sleep: Dream or reality? - Harvard Health

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Research suggests that sleep is an important contributor to learning, memory, creativity, and problem solving ability. ...

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#sleep #wellness

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Looking for ways to sleep better? We share the steps you can take to improve sleep hygiene and get more restful sleep each night.

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#Engagement

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Advance Organizer

What is it?

An advance organizer can be used by student to organize and interpret new information.

What are the benefits?

Advance Organizers help guide students through their learning prep prior to attending a lab or class. Alternately, it can be used as a supplemental resource to a lab, textbook, or website. It helps to bridge the gap between what the learner already knows and what he or she needs to know.

What UDL principle does it meet?

Multiple Means of Engagement

Examples and Resources:

Sample Advance Organizer created by Sandy Odrowski, CTL

Sample Advance Organizer created by Jacqueline Towell, CTL

Sample Advance Organizer for a lab course created by Dana Chorney, Durham College

Types and benefits of Advance Organizers by LEARNet

Graphic Organizer

What is it?

Help learners organize ideas and communicate more effectively. Can use to structure writing projects, to help in problem solving, decision making, studying, planning research and brainstorming.

What are the benefits?

Great way to help students generate non-linguistic, spatial, or colourful representation of a topic.

What UDL principle does it meet?

All 3!

Examples and Resources:

Sample Graphic Organizer created by Sandy Odrowski, CTL

Sample Mindmap created by Jacqueline Towell, CTL

Chart with links to 20 different types (story map, timeline, concept map) of organizers by ThinkPort
Spider Graphic Organizer Cornell Note Taking Graphic Organizer

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UDL and Advance and Graphic Organizers | CTL

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An advance organizer can be used by student to organize and interpret new information. Advance Organizers help guide students through their learning prep prior to attending a lab or class. Alternately, it can be used as a supplemental resource to a lab, textbook, or website.

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#Engagement

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Knowing that active participation is key to learning, consider adopting various ways that students can actively participate in class. Active participation strengthens learning and, ultimately, the effectiveness of your instruction.

Take-Away Engagement Strategy: The Pause Procedure

What: Short (4-minute) periodic breaks to review notes and or discuss course content.

Why: Increases accuracy of notes (Ruhl & Suritsky, 1995); higher exam scores and less need for sustained attention (Braun & Simpson, 2004).

How: Pause at natural breaks (15 minutes). Provide clear instructions, signal beginning and end of Pause Procedure, and include time for unresolved questions.

Examples:

Independent review of notes

Short writing assignment (Quick Write)

Group (Think-Pair-Share) discussion of notes or materials

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LibGuides: UDL-Universe: A Comprehensive Faculty Development Guide: UDL Principle: Engagement

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Knowing that active participation is key to learning, consider adopting various ways that students can actively participate in class. Active participation strengthens learning and, ultimately, the effectiveness of your instruction. Take-Away Engagement Strategy: The Pause Procedure What: Short (4-minute) periodic breaks to review notes and or discuss course content.

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#Representation

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#Representation

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What: Graphic Organizers are visual representations of knowledge, concepts, thoughts, or ideas. In addition, GOs have been known to help, relieve learner boredom, enhance recall, provide motivation, create interest, clarify information, assist in organizing thoughts, and promote understanding of content

Professors and instructors can provide completed them to students (learn by viewing), have students construct their own (learn by doing), or have students finalize partially completed Graphic Organizers (scaffolding)

Graphic Organizers entered the realm of education in the late twentieth century as ways of helping students to organize their thoughts (as a sort of pre-writing exercise). For example, a student is asked, "What were the causes of the French Revolution?" The student places the question in the middle of a sheet of paper. Branching off of this, the student jots down her ideas, such as "poor harvests," "unfairness of the Old Regime," etc. Branching off of these are more of the student's thoughts, such as "the nobles paid no taxes" branching from "unfairness of the Old Regime."

Why: Positive effects on higher order knowledge but not on facts (Robinson & Kiewra, 1995); Quiz scores higher using partially complete GO (Robinson et al., 2006).

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LibGuides: UDL-Universe: A Comprehensive Faculty Development Guide: UDL Principle: Representation

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What: Graphic Organizers are visual representations of knowledge, concepts, thoughts, or ideas.

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#Action & Expression

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#Action & Expression

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What is it?

The following two examples show how to create choices in how a student learns about an assignment and choices in how a student completes an assignment. In the first example, the students are given options for how to complete an assignment. In the second example, the assignment is presented to the students in three formats, in class discussion, Word document, and as a descriptive audio file using Audacity.

What are the benefits?

Provides multiple and flexible means of expression to provide diverse students with alternatives for demonstrating what they have learned. By providing audio along with text, students are provided with another modality to increase comprehension of the assignment criteria.

What UDL principle does it meet?

Multiple Means of Expression

Multiple Means of Representation

Example and Resources:
Multiple Means of Expression Assignment Sample - Psych 1000
Multiple Means of Expression Assignment Sample by Erica Baker-Tinsley, Loyalist College

Multiple Means of Representation for an Assignment Outline as a Word document and as a descriptive audio file, by Jacqueline Towell, CTL

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UDL and Assessment and Evaluation on CTL

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#Action & Expression #Syllabus #Rubric

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Skip to main content

It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results.

UDL Syllabus Rubric Files

In order to support faculty on how to frame a course with UDL principles in mind, EnACT~PTD constructed and evaluated a UDL Syllabus Rubric. This rubric and its elements are based on multiple years of research on UDL and course design and delivery. In our development and evaluation efforts, we included extensive input from both instructors and students. As a result, the UDL Syllabus Rubric reflects elements that are considered important to all stakeholders. Faculty are encouraged to use the UDL Syllabus Rubric as a way to reflect upon their current syllabus design and move toward adopting strategies that result in a syllabus that better communicates to and supports all learners.

Visually Enhanced Syllabi

Following is a list of interesting syllabus examples, particularly in terms of creating a visually engaging syllabus. Instructors are always encouraged to maintain accessible versions (e.g., Word, html).

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LibGuides: UDL-Universe: A Comprehensive Faculty Development Guide: UDL Syllabus Rubric

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Skip to main content It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results.

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#Action & Expression

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Fundamentals in Practice: Knowing that students have preferences for how they express themselves, (orally, written, and visually), consider providing multiple ways for students to demonstrate their competency. This increases the likelihood of their success and ultimately, the effectiveness of how you measure their learning.

Take-Away UDL Strategy: UDL Course Rubrics

What: Scoring tool that explicitly represents the performance expectations for an assignment. Divides the assignment into component parts and provides clear descriptions of each component, at varying levels of mastery.

Why: Enhanced achievement and student satisfaction (Robyler & Wiencke, 2003); Reliable formative and summative assessment tool (Montgomery, 2002).

How: Consider major elements embedded in any given assignment. Define components and evaluation parameters.

Ways:

Individual paper, project, or participation grading rubrics

Alternative pathway rubrics

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LibGuides: UDL-Universe: A Comprehensive Faculty Development Guide: UDL Principle: Expression

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Fundamentals in Practice: Knowing that students have preferences for how they express themselves, (orally, written, and visually), consider providing multiple ways for students to demonstrate their competency. This increases the likelihood of their success and ultimately, the effectiveness of how you measure their learning.

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#accessibility

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#accessibility

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What is it?

Creating accessible documents helps all learners by ensuring that they are able to read, hear, and see all the information included in a presentation or document. Creating accessible documents includes using colour contrast appropriately, fonts such as Verdana and Arial, clear language principles, alternate formats, and other methods.

What are the benefits?

Accessible documents help make documents easier to read, view, or listen to (using assistive technology). Creating accessible documents help everyone, not just those with vision, hearing or auditory disabilities. They help make your information more clear, readable, and engaging!

What UDL principle does it meet?

It meets the Principle of Providing Multiple Means of Representation, however, it has the potential to meet all three.

Examples and Resources:

Creating accessible Microsoft Word documents by WebAIM

How to create accessible MS Excel documents by the Accessible Digital Office Document Project

How to create accessible PowerPoint 2010 documents by the Accessible Digital Office Document Project

How to create accessible Word 2007 documents by the Accessible Digital Office Document Project

How to create accessible Word 2010 documents by the Accessible Digital Office Document Project

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Creating Accessible Documents using UDL | CTL

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What is it? Creating accessible documents helps all learners by ensuring that they are able to read, hear, and see all the information included in a presentation or document. Creating accessible...

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#checklist

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#checklist

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Getting Started: Examples of UDL in Practice

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Getting Started: Examples of UDL in Practice

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#UDL Examples

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#checklist

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#Design

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About This Section

This section describes how to plan and design for the variability present in today's postsecondary classrooms. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an educational framework that incorporates flexibility into the curriculum from the outset in order to avoid time-consuming retrofitting after the fact. UDL helps faculty members and instructional designers plan their curriculum in ways that reduce barriers to learning and facilitate meaningful participation by all students.

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This section describes how to plan and design for the variability present in today's postsecondary classrooms. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an educational framework that incorporates flexibility into the curriculum from the outset in order to avoid time-consuming retrofitting after the fact.

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#Design #UDL Examples

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Course Outlines and UDL

What is it?

Course Outlines describe the outcomes, evaluations, and teaching sequence of the course.

Durham College outlines already help meet Universal Design for Learning principles by providing students with a clear expectation of what is expected, how they will be assessed, and resources to help them learn.

What are the benefits?

Reviewing or revising your course outline to meet all UDL guidelines will benefit students by creating multiple options for assessment, engagement, and by providing multiple ways for students to understand what is expected of them to be successful.

What UDL principle does it meet?

It can help you meet all three.

Lesson Plans and UDL

What is it?

Lesson Plans are tools to help educators structure, plan, and organize a lesson. Applying UDL principles to lesson plans includes using active learning strategies, accessible documents and presentations, and providing students with the resources and strategies they need to be successful.

What are the benefits?

Creating a lesson plan using Universal Design for Learning principles helps you meet multiple learning styles, needs, and preferences. It helps you reach more students in your classroom and create an inclusive classroom where all students benefit.

What UDL principle does it meet?

It helps you meet all three.

Examples and Resources:

Sample Lesson Plan created by Kevin Keays, Durham College

Sample Lesson Plan created by Daniel Blomme, Durham College

Sample Lesson Plan created by Mike Longo, Durham College

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Course Outline, Lesson Plans and UDL | CTL

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Course Outline, Lesson Plans and UDL on CTL

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#Design #accessibility

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Office of Distance Education and eLearning

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) involves a proactive process of designing learning in order to achieve the highest level of functionality and positive learner experience for the widest audience possible. In order for UDL to be effective, it requires purposeful consideration and strategy in all areas of course planning and design. The end result will be online learning that allows students to access, interact, and learn in a variety of ways, addressing the learning styles and learning needs of a wide variety of students.

The questions, resources, and checkpoints highlighted serve as a guide for developing a Universally Designed course and are organized by the phases of the course development process as followed by the Office of Distance Education and eLearning Digital Scholarship team. Checkpoints followed by an asterisk (*) should be considered necessary to meet basic accessibility standards.

We are committed to providing equal access to courses, programs, and technologies for all students. ODEE believes accessibility is a critical component for Ohio State to be a land-grant institution to the world - as critical as security of our systems and property rights of our students, faculty, and staff. For more information on the ODEE accessibility plan email ODEEaccessibility@osu.edu .

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) involves a proactive process of designing learning in order to achieve the highest level of functionality and positive learner experience for the widest audience possible. In order for UDL to be effective, it requires purposeful consideration and strategy in all areas of course planning and design.

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#UDL Examples

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Use the Search in the upper right and look for #tagged resources

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Use the Search in the upper right and look for #tagged resources

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#1st Gen

#accessibility

#Action & Expression

#alternatives to

#annotation

#apps

#best practices

#checklist

#communication

#DEIB

#Design

#discussion

#Engagement

#feedback

#graphic organizer

#inclusion activities

#mental health

#OER

#online community

#productivity

#professional development

#read

#Representation

#research

#Rubric

#sleep

#stress

#study skills

#Syllabus

#Templates

#time management

#UDL Examples

#video

#wellness

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#Templates

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A common hassle for many trainers and developers is creating highly interactive and great looking elearning courses without having to program or have any graphic design expertise. Saving time, reducing costs, and having multiple members of a team with different levels of expertise working together are other common worries that affect developers every day. One method that has proven success for all these is the use of templates. You can use these resources to quickly develop interactive and engaging activities for learners.

Designing and developing an eLearning course certainly requires analysis of several factors to make the process successful. Choosing the right template is one of them. This post is on why use elearning templates, their advantages and some other considerations.

What do we mean by e-learning templates? According to the , templates are: "Set of standard screens you can create for a course to provide visual and cognitive continuity. By using a template, all the screens in one course will have some similar features." Therefore, we can say they are a framework for content. Templates can include color schemes or layouts, buttons, icons, navigation bars, and more. They give courses a standard look and feel.

Today, there are several authoring tools that respond to current trends and allow the creation of elearning courses quickly and easily, thanks to the use of templates. These resources vary depending on the authoring system you use to develop the course. If you're using an authoring tool like SHIFT for example, you don't even have to create your templates, just choose the one you like out of over 300 different types and styles.

Here are 10 great reasons you should use templates for eLearning course creation:

Reduce error by exhaustive technical tests: before a template is released to the production process, it goes through several tests in different platforms and conditions in order to eliminate programming bugs.

Are you using eLearning templates? Tell us!

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10 Compelling Reasons You Should Use Templates for eLearning

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Developing an eLearning course requires analysis of several factors to make the process successful. Choosing the right template is one of them.

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#Templates

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Around the world, instruction is increasingly delivered asynchronously online, with educators facing new challenges and searching for ways to maintain rigor and quality content. As online education has emerged across mainstream higher education, an increasing number of MPA programs are offering online courses, hybrid courses and entire degree programs online ( Naylor and Wilson, 2009; Powell, 2007). Today, even face-to-face courses commonly have an online component where readings are posted, assignments are submitted and information is shared.

The following findings are result of research conducted by Pace University students Gina Scutelnicu, Rebecca Tekula, Beth Gordon and Hillary J. Knepper:

"Institutions of higher learning now frequently rely on department-wide or university-wide templates for their online courses to provide a common navigation for students ( Ley and Gannon-Cook, 2014). Online instruction adds another level of cognitive loading if a student must relearn how to access course components as they move through their program of study. This load may be lightened when course components are presented consistently and designed with clarity ( Borgemenke et al., 2013). Such universal course shell templates may benefit learners and instructors in a number of ways. First, course templates facilitate early student engagement with course content because students do not need to relearn the format of the digital interface ( Borgemenke et al., 2013). Second, course templates can improve student learning and satisfaction because they allow the online environment to be well organized and simple to navigate, which, in turn, helps students stay organized ( Jackson and Helms, 2008) and improves student engagement, completion and success ( Miller, 2012). Third, to increase the comfort level further, when all courses in a program or department have a similar look and feel, it improves student and instructor satisfaction ( Dykman and Davis, 2008). An online-course template that balances the technological skills of instructors and students has the potential to lead to high student satisfaction and performance ( Shea et al., 2016). Furthermore, a consistent homepage of a course shell can provide orientation to the course: a good orientation plays a critical role, and a deliberately designed homepage helps students become familiar with the instructional tools and resources ( Chen, 2007). Finally, course templates may contribute to the creation of communities of online learning where a consistent course structure can establish expectations and a familiar space for exchanging ideas between students and instructors ( Shea et al., 2016).

In a traditional classroom setting, a professor has the academic freedom to adjust communication with students immediately and continually, exercising their judgement to guide the student-professor engagement ( Smith and Mitry, 2008). Especially in a recorded online distance education format, instructors are unable to adapt in this way. In some cases, faculty members find online instruction threatening to their academic freedom by prescribing the way of teaching ( Oh and Park, 2009). The potential exists for faculty to perceive efforts to create structure and consistency in course design as an extension of this threat.

However, an online-course design template can create a consistent course structure and support faculty and students. With templates, faculty are able to focus on course content and engagement with students, while students benefit from less anxiety and isolation as online learners ( Burgess et al., 2008). In 2012, Gillingham and Molinari noted that quality of online learning and student satisfaction were dependent upon instructional design. Notably missing from their study was consideration for the course-design template, in other words, how course components were offered across the program. This study is trying to fill in this research gap by examining how an MPA online-course template impacts learner and instructor access and satisfaction. Rather than restricting academic freedom, course templates can free an instructor to focus on content delivery and themes rather than focusing on the physical course structure or layout.

Online templates can have significant benefits to students and instructors and their success depends largely on the way they are designed, implemented and evaluated. While some institutions of higher learning are taking a top-down approach to institutionalizing templates or rubrics (i.e. Quality Matters), the department in this study chose to pursue this process in a highly collaborative bottom-up approach, engaging faculty and academic technology specialists. This, in turn, yielded a high level of satisfaction. The template is now preloaded into every course three months prior to the start of the semester, making it easier for faculty to build courses and easier for students to engage and learn since the courses all follow the same format.

This study found that consistent online-course templates have the potential to minimize transactional distance between students and instructors by increasing teaching presence and student engagement through familiarity with digital interface. Ultimately, this study suggests that technological changes such as consistent online-course templates are beneficial to student learning and faculty teaching experiences, and their success depends on how well graduate programs can balance student and instructor technological preferences and skills."

For more information regarding this research, please visit, ' Consistency Is Key In Online Learning: Evaluating Student And Instructor Perceptions of A Collaborative Online-Course Template '.

We currently have a course shell template available for anyone to request. Take a peak at the Quick Start Course Shell and learn more about it.

If you or your department maybe interested in collaborating with the Instructional Design and Academic Technology team towards developing a course template that would best suit your department offerings, please reach out to IDAT. We look forward to collaborating with you towards making our student learning and faculty teaching experiences more beneficial and engaging!

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Benefits of Implementing Course Templates in Your Department

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Around the world, instruction is increasingly delivered asynchronously online, with educators facing new challenges and searching for ways to maintain rigor and quality content. As online education has emerged across mainstream higher education, an increasing number of MPA programs are offering online courses, hybrid courses and entire degree programs online (Naylor and Wilson, 2009; Powell, 2007)....

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Creating a Culture of Class Participation

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Have you ever felt like Ben Stein in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? Standing awkwardly in front of your silent class and staring at blank faces (or blank Zoom screens)? How can it be tha…

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1. Home

2. How to Teach

3. Help Students Retain, Organize and Integrate Knowledge

Why is it important?

A fundamental goal of education is to promote enduring learning that equips students with the skills, knowledge, and beliefs that can be applied to solve problems in novel settings or explore issues in original ways. To support students' acquisition of concepts and skills, and to develop their understanding of how and when to apply them, there are three key learning processes to reinforce in your teaching:

Retention refers to long-term storage of concepts and skills in memory. Students forget rapidly when concepts and skills are not activated and applied after initial learning (Fisher & Radvansky, 2018). By integrating learning activities that promote long-term retention, you can help make concepts available for students to apply later in the semester, outside of the class context, and beyond.

Organization refers to developing a rich, interconnected, cognitive network of concepts that allows us to connect new learning to prior knowledge, categorize similar pieces of information, and access relevant concepts when needed. By including learning activities that promote organization in memory, you increase the likelihood that students will access and recall relevant information from long-term memory when it is needed.

Integration refers to the application, interpretation, and/or synthesis of information from disparate contexts and perspectives (Barber, 2012) to reveal new insights, clarified meanings, or broader perspectives (AAC&U, 2009). Designing learning activities that promote integration enables interdisciplinary learning and supports students' development of innovative solutions to problems or perspectives on complex issues.

To promote enduring learning, we should design teaching practices and learning activities to help students retain, organize, and integrate key concepts and skills identified in the intended learning outcomes to endure and extend beyond the class context.

Teaching Practices That Support Students' Enduring Learning

Learning strategies that promote long-term retention, organization, and integration require students to actively engage with concepts and skills through deliberate practice of relevant tasks. Each learning strategy below involves students in the construction of knowledge, sometimes in collaboration with peers, and falls into the category of active learning (Freeman et al., 2014).

Ascertain and leverage students' prior knowledge

Prior knowledge can bolster retention, organization, and integration of new learning by enabling connections to robust, interconnected networks of concepts in memory. By adopting teaching practices that activate accurate prior knowledge, you not only bolster student learning but also gather key information that helps you to adapt your teaching to leverage students' knowledge more effectively. However, prior knowledge can also get in the way of new learning if it is inaccurate, insufficient, or inappropriate (Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro, Lovett, & Norman, 2010). See Caveats and Misconceptions (and how to address them).

The following activities offer a purposeful route into learning for students as they transition into or out of the classroom context and inform how you can adapt class sessions to meet students where they are, address gaps or misconceptions in their knowledge, and guide their practice to help them reach intended learning outcomes. You can also analyze common errors to discuss with the class, correct misconceptions, and normalize students' struggles with confusing concepts.

Prior Knowledge

Engage students in retrieval of previously learned information

When you pose a question about a recently learned concept to students in a class session or on a quiz, students engage in retrieval practice whenever they pull information out of long-term memory to produce an answer. Robust research demonstrates that actively retrieving information, compared to simply restudying or reviewing it, improves students' long-term retention (i.e., the testing effect; Roediger & Karpicke, 2006; Carpenter, Pan, & Butler, 2022) and their ability to apply information in novel contexts (i.e., transfer of learning; Carpenter, 2012). Retrieval practice also helps students evaluate what they do and don't know, which can guide their studying or help-seeking behaviors (e.g., asking clarification questions in office hours).

Retrieval Practice

To help students get the most learning benefits from retrieval practice, prompt students to call to mind previously learned concepts and skills through frequent, "low stakes" opportunities (i.e., as formative assessments). By including opportunities for students to practice retrieval without a grade, you emphasize retrieval as a learning opportunity, reduce pressure and student anxiety (Khanna, 2015), and encourage them to attempt retrieval even when they don't think they know the answer.

Promote deep understanding through self-explanation

Self-explanation practices deepen conceptual understanding by making connections with related concepts and elaborating on learned concepts by asking why or how questions. For example, when learning about a circuit model of a neuron, a student could deepen their understanding by going beyond solving a problem to consider the meaning of one part of the equation for the biological system, as illustrated in this video of an MIT student describing how they study.

Research by Smith, Holliday, and Austin (2010) demonstrated that engaging with explanatory questioning (e.g., after learning the fact, "Saliva must mix with food to initiate digestion," students explained why it was true) improved retention of both learned concepts as well as related ideas. Moreover, Wong, Lawson, and Keeves (2002) found that prompting students to explain concepts to themselves during initial learning also helped them apply their learning to new problems (see also Chi, Bassok, Lewis, Reimann, & Glaser, 1989). Explanatory questions also encourage students to retrieve relevant prior knowledge, thereby allowing for more effective organization and integration of new learning with previously learned concepts.

Self-Explanation

When students consider these questions, they build connections among concepts and/or elaborate on concepts with everyday examples to support organization and integration of knowledge.

When to Implement These Strategies

The teaching practices above focus on how students practice with concepts and skills in the course. Another key consideration in how you support students' retention, organization, and integration of key concepts and skills concerns when students practice with them.

Space out students' engagement with concepts across the semester

Spacing out repeated exposure and engagement with concepts, practice problems, or skills over time bolsters retention, especially when compared to reviewing concepts (i.e., cramming) or repeatedly working on the same types of problems in succession (Carpenter et al., 2022; Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted, & Rohrer, 2006). The standard practice in many college courses of not revisiting concepts once they are covered in class undermines the benefits of spacing. When you space out students' engagement with concepts across the semester, you intentionally revisit concepts for problems from previous units and signal that the information continues to be useful and relevant.

Interleave students' engagement with different concepts

Mixing up or interleaving different types of material (e.g., distinct concepts, types of problem sets, or content from different units or disciplines) goes a step further than spacing to improve retention, organization, and integration of concepts (Rohrer & Taylor, 2007).

Spacing and interleaving often co-occur. For example, in a math course, a student might work on various types of problems all mixed up, so that practice with any one type of problem is spaced out (an example of spacing), with other types of problems occurring between examples of the same type (an example of interleaving). Rohrer and Taylor (2007) argue that interleaving helps students not only to recognize how to solve a problem but also to determine which type of strategy is appropriate for each kind of problem.

Spaced & Interleave Practice

MIT Worked Examples

Caveats and Misconceptions (and how to address them)

Robust research in cognitive and educational psychology supports the powerful benefits to students when active learning strategies draw on retrieval and explanatory questioning, and are spaced out and/or interleaved with other topics (Agarwal & Bain, 2019; Brown, Roediger, & McDaniel, 2014; Roediger & Pyc, 2012). However, the effectiveness of these strategies depends on how they are implemented to engage all students with the concepts and skills at the appropriate level of difficulty. Two key implementation strategies are introduced below.

How to design learning activities to engage all students

The benefits of these learning activities depend on students' active engagement with concepts; accordingly, these learning activities should be designed to encourage and demand participation from all students, not just those who readily raise their hands.

Integrating opportunities for all students to share their responses with the class through polling software (e.g., Poll Everywhere or Slido) or with neighboring students by working in pairs or small groups (e.g., think-pair-share) can encourage equitable participation.

Structuring active learning activities to broaden participation by encouraging, demanding, and actively managing who participates rather than relying on student volunteers. One such strategy involves asking for multiple hands and multiple voices to respond to any posed question by saying that you will begin calling on students when there are at least five hands in the air. This approach works particularly well to invite a range of different ideas and perspectives on an open-ended question and to broaden participation beyond the most frequent contributors. Tanner (2013).

How to design learning activities for the appropriate level of difficulty

The difficulty of learning activities through retrieval, explanatory questioning, or interleaving may be undesirable if the questions are too challenging. Vygotsky (1978) described the ideal level of difficulty as the skills or concepts that students can master but only with guidance and support from a skilled partner.

There are several key strategies that can be used to inform the design of learning tasks that are appropriately difficult:

Ascertain students' prior knowledge (as described in implementation strategies),

Design learning tasks that align with intended learning outcomes.

Scaffold learning activities by breaking down large tasks into smaller chunks and deliberately drawing on skills and concepts that students already know.

How to Address Common Concerns and Misconceptions

There are several common concerns and misconceptions about these learning activities, which can be addressed through deliberate design and transparent framing of the learning activities.

Students might generate errors during learning activities that may result in retention of incorrect information.

One common concern is that retrieval of inaccurate prior knowledge, an incorrect response, or problematic explanations of processes may actually harm learning by strengthening the retention of incorrect information. In contrast, much of the cognitive research suggests that generating errors during retrieval practice and explanatory questioning improves learning of correct information (for a review, see Metcalfe, 2017), particularly when corrective feedback is provided (Roediger & Butler, 2011). Accordingly, learning activities that activate prior knowledge, engage retrieval, or encourage elaboration should be consistently followed by feedback with the correct response and, ideally, an explanation of why the answer is correct. Finn, Thomas, and Rawson (2018) found that elaborating on correct answer feedback by providing concrete examples of concepts enhanced the retention and application of key concepts.

Feedback can take many different forms, as long as student misconceptions are addressed. With multiple-choice or short-answer questions, a correct response and brief explanation could be provided either by the instructor or by a student after polling the class. For more open-ended questions (e.g., what are two things you recall from last class?), the instructor can share the outline or learning outcomes from the prior class, prompt students to review their notes, or have students pair up with a classmate to provide feedback (see also, How to Give Feedback).

In sum, research suggests that learning activities improve retention (and, in some cases, application) of concepts even when students generate incorrect responses and underscores the importance of providing feedback with the correct answer or elaborated explanations.

Students may be less likely to engage in challenging learning activities with a risk of failure.

Many of the learning strategies that promote enduring learning also introduce challenges that can make learning feel slow and frustrating for students. Indeed, students overwhelmingly choose more passive (and less effective) learning strategies, such as cramming over spacing (Kornell & Bjork, 2007) or re-reading over retrieval practice (Karpicke, Butler, & Roediger, 2009). As a result, students may resist or disengage from challenging learning activities implemented in class.

Bjork (1994) describes challenging learning activities such as spacing, interleaving, and retrieval practice as "desirable difficulties" because they often produce superior long-term retention and application of learning compared to more passive learning activities, such as rereading. Zepeda, Martin, and Butler (2020) proposed motivational strategies to engage students in desirable difficulties by helping them recognize the value of learning and by reducing the cost of engaging.

Help students see the value of the learning activities

Clearly communicate the value of the learning activities in the class (e.g., how they help students reach intended learning outcomes), in the discipline or major, and, as relevant, in life and career contexts (Canning & Harackiewicz, 2015).

Explain the benefits of these strategies, drawing on the research explained in this post to help students recognize that the difficulties are desirable for learning and to encourage them to adapt similar strategies to their own studying. You can draw on supporting resources developed by learning scientists from retrievalpractice.org or learningscientists.org. See supporting resources below for more information.

Make it easier for students to engage in learning activities

Explain all instructions verbally AND display them written visually to clarify instructions and to minimize confusion about the task.

Direct students to supporting resources and invite students to ask for help (e.g., raising hand to ask an instructor or TA, visiting office hours, or hyperlinks to relevant information or supporting resources).

Encourage students to take risks and make mistakes, emphasizing the value of errors for learning (Metcalfe, 2017), to support a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006).

Acknowledge that learning activities may feel challenging and express confidence that students will be able to succeed (Yaeger et al., 2016).

Supporting Resources

Agarwal, Roediger, McDaniel, & McDermott (2020). How to use retrieval practice to improve learning. (See other guides on Metacognition, Spaced Retrieval, and Applying Knowledge)

Carpenter, Pan, & Butler, 2022 https://www.nature.com/articles/s44159-022-00089-1

Dunlosky (2013). Strengthening the student toolbox: Study strategies to boost learning.

Weinstein, Smith, & Caviglioli. Six Strategies for Effective Learning: Materials for teachers and students. Free downloads of bookmarks, posters, and presentation slides summarizing six strategies for effective learning.

References

Agarwal, P. & P. Bain. (2019). Powerful teaching: Unleash the science of learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works. John Wiley & Sons.

Association of American Colleges and Universities. (2009). Integrative and Applied Learning VALUE rubric. https://www.aacu.org/initiatives/value-initiative/value-rubrics/value-rubrics-integrative-and-applied-learning

Barber, J. P. (2012). Integration of learning: A grounded theory analysis of college students' learning. American Educational Research Journal, 49 (3) 590-617. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831212437854

Bjork, R.A. (1994). Memory and metamemory considerations in the training of human beings. In J. Metcalfe & A. Shimamura (Eds.), Metacognition: Knowing about knowing (pp. 185- 205). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Canning, E. A., & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2015). Teach it, don't preach it: The differential effects of directly-communicated and self-generated utility-value information. Motivation Science, 1(1), 47 - 71. https://doi.org/10.1037/mot0000015

Carpenter, S. K. (2012). Testing enhances the transfer of learning. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21, 279 - 283. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721412452728

Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354-380. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354

Chi, M. T. H., Bassok, M., Lewis, M. W., Reimann, P. & Glaser, R. (1989). Self-explanations: How students study and use examples in learning to solve problems. Cognitive Science, 13 (2), 148-182. https://doi.org/10.1016/0364-0213(89)90002-5

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New psychology of success. Random House.

Finn, B., Thomas, R., & Rawson, K. A. (2018). Learning more from feedback: Elaborating feedback with examples enhances concept learning. Learning and Instruction, 54, 104-113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2017.08.007

Fisher, J. S., & Radvansky, G. A. (2018). Patterns of forgetting. Journal of Memory and Language, 102, 130-141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2018.05.008

Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(23), 8410-8415. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.131903011

Karpicke, J. D., Butler, A. C., & Roediger III, H. L. (2009). Metacognitive strategies in student learning: do students practise retrieval when they study on their own? Memory, 17(4), 471-479. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658210802647009

Khanna, M. M. (2015). Ungraded Pop Quizzes: Test-Enhanced Learning Without All the Anxiety. Teaching of Psychology, 42(2), 174-178. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628315573144

Kornell, N., & Bjork, R. A. (2007). The promise and perils of self-regulated study. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14(2), 219-224. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194055

Lang, J. M. (Feb. 8, 2016). Small changes in teaching: Making connections. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/Small-Changes-in-Teaching-/235230

Metcalfe, J. (2017). Learning from errors. Annual Review of Psychology, 68(6), 1 - 25. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010416-044022

Roediger III, H. L., & Butler, A. C. (2011). The critical role of retrieval practice in long-term retention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(1), 20-27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.09.003

Roediger, H. L. III, & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249-255. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x

Rohrer, D., & Taylor, K. (2007). The shuffling of mathematics practice problems boosts learning. Instructional Science, 35, 481-498.

Smith, B. L., Holliday, W. G., & Austin, H. W. (2010). Students' comprehension of science textbooks using a question-based reading strategy. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 47, 363-379.

Tanner, K. D. (2013). Structure matters: twenty-one teaching strategies to promote student engagement and cultivate classroom equity. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 12(3), 322-331.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wong, R. M. F., Lawson, M. J., & Keeves, J. (2002). The effects of self-explanation training on students' problem solving in high-school mathematics. Learning and Instruction, 12, 233-262.

Yeager, D. S., Walton, G. M., Brady, S. T., Akcinar, E. N., Paunesku, D., Keane, L., et al. (2016). Teaching a lay theory before college narrows achievement gaps at scale. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(24), E3341-8. http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1524360113

Zepeda, C. D., Martin, R. S., & Butler, A. C. (2020). Motivational strategies to engage learners in desirable difficulties. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 9(4), 468-474. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2020.08.007

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Help Students Retain, Organize and Integrate Knowledge

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Home How to Teach Help Students Retain, Organize and Integrate Knowledge A fundamental goal of education is to promote enduring learning that equips students with the skills, knowledge, and beliefs that can be applied to solve problems in novel settings or explore issues in original ways.