Psychology in the Classroom Lucinda Powell

The teaching profession is in crisis and whilst it can be an extraordinarily rewarding and it is also an exhausting profession so self-care is essential. As a regular diary keeper I was curious to find out just how this might be helping my own wellbeing. Dr Lucy Kelly  is an Associate Professor in Education in the School of Education whose main research interest is reflective practice as a positive tool for educator wellbeing, and she is Principal Investigator for the 'Reimagining the Diary' project. Lucy talks about how our narrow concept of what diary keeping is could be a barrier to engaging with it, how it can many benefits and how we can engage with a broader and more creative concept of diary keeping.
 
If you want to find out more about Lucy’s work here are the links:
The Diary Toolkit: https://thediarytoolkit.com/
Reimagining the Diary (Book): https://www.johncattbookshop.com/products/reimagining-the-diary-reflective-practice-as-a-positive-tool-for-educator-wellbeing
More about the project itself: https://reimaginingthediary.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/

In this episode Dr Hannah Wilkinson talks about her doctoral research which focused on re-evaluating teachers’ use of test-taking practices from a psychological lens; unpicking how students appraised these types of communications and how it affects their engagement in the classroom. Essentially we will consider the messages that we, as teachers, give to students when we talk about exam preparation specifically and the different ways that students might interpret these communications and how, hopefully we can make them more impactful. We talk about threat and efficacy appeals.
 
Papers Hannah Mentioned:
Wilkinson, H. (2024). Efficacy Appeals in the High-Stakes Classroom: Re-Examining Teachers' use of Test Preparation Strategies (Doctoral dissertation, Liverpool John Moores University):
 
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215091920300018?casa_token=DxwxBEbesPIAAAAA:TUTqZCb43dZAokxGby9v6k2sfGKV9FosFhbi7Lhux0xjlYsgtYw8Hk_U_GeQjJsdkmWQ13Gw
 
Putwain, D. W., Symes, W., Nicholson, L. J., & Remedios, R. (2021). Teacher motivational messages used prior to examinations: What are they, how are they evaluated, and what are their educational outcomes?. In Advances in motivation science (Vol. 8, pp. 63-103). Elsevier:
 
https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/22471/2/2024wilkinsonphd.pdf

In this episode, and as we fast approach exams, we look at how to help student manage their nerves. There are lots of strategies that can be employed but learning to sit comfortably with the uncomfortable feeling of exam anxiety can be challenging. This episode looks at one way we can help our students to learn to bring their thoughts and feelings under control using a technique stolen from sports psychology, but equally effective for high pressure exam performance situations: visualisation. It allows students to practise their coping skills and to understand that they can manage any exam scenario however terrifying!
For further tips of Exam anxiety strategies do also listen to these two podcasts:
https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/control-the-controllables
https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/exam-preparation-exam-anxiety
 

This week we look at why exam technique matters - the more working memory students can free up to write good answers, rather than figuring out what they need to do and how long they have got left, the better. This episode covers 5 things that students should practice to help make an exam go smoothly: 
Knowing the rubric
Overall plan of attack
Managing timing (including extra time)
Breaking down the question
Spotting traps
If you want to know more about working memory and cognitive load there are a couple of good episodes you can listen to here:
Working Memory: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/long-term-and-short-term-memory
Cognitive Load: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/cognitive-load-finding-the-sweet-spot-with-bradley-busch
 
 
 

Despite all our efforts to teach students to revise using effective methods they often revert back to less effective methods such as copying and reading and rereading notes. Why is this, when we have told them that these techniques are less effective in the long term? This week's episode looks at 4 common reasons why students revision fails:
Planning Fallacy Illusion of Fluency Misinterpreted-effort hypothesis Failure to reflect The link to the episode about Roediger and Karpicke's research is https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/recall-or-re-read-the-research-into-retrieval-practice
The references for Misinterpreted-effort hypothesis is:
Afton Kirk-Johnson, Brian M. Galla, Scott H. Fraundorf, (2019) Perceiving effort as poor learning: The misinterpreted-effort hypothesis of how experienced effort and perceived learning relate to study strategy choice, Cognitive Psychology, Volume 115, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2019.101237.
 
 

This week the episode will be based around retrieval practice - a concept most of you will be familiar with, and if you aren’t then do take a listen to this episode which delves into the research underpinning the concept.
Many students when learning, make the error of being passive recipients of information, reading, listening, watching or copying. Whilst a few bits may stick, more information will stick if they actively reconstruct the information through some sort of recall activity. 
Today we will cover 4 retrieval concepts you will know but thinking about the why.  My hope is that this episode will perhaps reframe some of these basic ideas so that students use them even more effectively.
Just in case the link above doesn't work here it is in full to copy and paste: 
https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/recall-or-re-read-the-research-into-retrieval-practice