Title: Motivating durable learning: focused attention through instructional design
Description: Most of the undergraduates at McMaster University take introductory psychology in their academic programs. How do you deliver a high-quality educational experience to 6000+ students and maintain an academically rigorous program that motivates deep learning? Research from cognitive psychology on attention, memory and learning has informed our pedagogical decisions to develop evidence-based interventions in education. A key focus has been to promote learning that is durable – extending beyond short-term testing into long-term retention of information that remains with the student after the final exam. In this presentation, I will discuss how academic performance is significantly improved with effective learning strategies that have been established in controlled lab studies and translated to the classroom. These practices work by strengthening long-term retention and depend on instructors to implement effective instructional design and students to take an active role in their own learning.
Bio:
Learning Specialists Association of Canada © 2015
