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Education Bookcast

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  2. 82. Memorable Teaching by Peps McCrea

Feb 29, 2020

Continuing with our information processing model theme (i.e. seeing the mind as made up of long-term memory and limited working memory), we now have a book on teaching practices that is based on this very model. The title of this book comes from the idea that as teachers, our aim is to make long-lasting, high-quality additions to students' long-term memories.

After an introduction to this model of the mind, Peps McCrea goes on to elucidate 9 principles of memorable teaching:

  1. Manage information (information is always in competition for students' attention)
  2. Streamline communications (consider the way you communicate ideas to maximise clarity and conciseness)
  3. Orient attention
  4. Regulate load (overloaded students can't learn; underloaded students get bored)
  5. Expedite elaboration (ways of making new ideas stick)
  6. Refine structures (going from a vague sense of an idea to a deep understanding)
  7. Stabilise changes (making knowledge last)
  8. Align pedagogies (don't teach badly?)
  9. Embed metacognition

Something that I am quite impressed by, and I mention several times in the episode, is how succinct and clear the author's writing is. It really looks like he has been using the principles in the book to expound the principles in the book (which is a bit of a mind-bending mouthful to say or think). In other words, he takes his own advice.

This is a great book. I recommend it.

Enjoy the episode.