Category Archives: Psychology

Treasure Trove #5: A Cognitive Science Crash Course

Posted on January 22, 2022 by Joe Kirby

Time is short in schools.  Fast, free CPD is key.  Here’s a free, 2-hour self-study crash course to help teachers, school leaders, teaching assistants and support staff to grasp the science of learning.  Memory and overload Peps McCrae 1 min … Continue reading →

Posted in Psychology | 2 Comments

The red pill of moral psychology

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Joe Kirby

Reading moral psychology, in particular Jonathan Haidt’s works The Righteous Mind, The Happiness Hypothesis and Heterodox Academy, is mind-opening. In The Matrix, Neo has a choice: take a red pill, disconnect from the Matrix and dissolve the illusion, or take … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Psychology | 11 Comments

Three Applications of Cognitive Science

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Joe Kirby

Here’s the second part of what I said yesterday at the ResearchEd event near Birmingham. From a hundred years of research, there are three deceptively simple insights that when applied well in the classroom, have very powerful effects. They are not … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Psychology | 18 Comments

Cheat codes to intelligence

Posted on January 25, 2014 by Joe Kirby

I’ve asked before why students don’t remember what they’ve learned: how we design instruction, the curriculum and assessment plays a large part. On first discovering cognitive science, Kris Boulton said it was “like being given the cheat codes to intelligence”. … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Psychology | 12 Comments

What can science tell us about how pupils learn best?

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Joe Kirby

 “The mind is at last yielding its secrets to persistent scientific investigation. We have learned more in the last 25 years about how the mind works than we did in the preceding 2500”. Daniel Willingham, 2009. The more we learn … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Psychology | 37 Comments

What we can learn from Cognitive Science and Dan Willingham?

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Joe Kirby

Cognitive science shows us what makes instruction effective. Long ago, primitive peoples attempted to fly by strapping feathered wings to their arms and leaping off cliffs from great heights, flapping with all their might. Despite their dreams and hard work, they … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Psychology | 27 Comments