To borrow from James Carville: It’s the Content, Stupid. Before you design for retrieval practice, you need to decide which knowledge needs to be cemented into long-term memory. Random Acts of Retrieval aren’t the goal. As soon as you understand all of this, you become a

"Early data on the effects of school phone bans confirm what teachers and administrators have long suspected—that phones in the classroom were the primary culprit behind bad behavior and low engagement." From @juliejargon at @WSJ https://t.co/RDeHkjuKB6

"A new study reveals that young children learn letters and word structures more effectively through handwriting than typing. Researchers taught 5- to 6-year-olds unfamiliar letters and pseudowords using either manual writing or keyboards. Those who practiced by hand performed

Fantastic read from @natwexler on the importance of whole books in the curriculum. Because of course there is evidence for this. "Reading whole novels can boost both students’ interest in reading and their reading comprehension scores. One study, which took place in England,

Content Quality FTW!

Most Education Apps Fail Because They Don't Understand Instructional Invariants. Link in reply ⬇️

AMEN. An important nudge to everyone in K-12, including those in the Science of Learning community, from @MaryMyatt. 👉 The Curriculum Matters.

Brilliant piece from @C_Hendrick! This quote applies to so many education products, not just apps: "If a task can be completed without using the skill you are teaching, some learners will find that other path." Humans will nearly always seek the path of least resistance.

You can’t be a change maker and a peacemaker.

I’m not sure I agree with this statement… Would we tell our illiterate parents that there’s “zero excuse not to read to your child every day”?? Would we tell our New Arrival immigrant families with minimal English that there’s “zero excuse not to read to your child every

A word about That Sloppy Paper on Mississippi: What struck me most was its arrogance. A smug tone and talk of “facts of arithmetic” accompanied a paper that badly misstated Mississippi’s math outcomes. Accurate outcomes on left, sample of their paper on right. Really, check

Louisiana and Tennessee brought book-rich, knowledge-building curriculum into statewide use. And they are the states with the gains on the NAEP. Contrast that with all the states allowing basals to march into districts via weak state lists (hello, @georgiadeptofed). Excerpt

Schools have been adopting passage popcorn curricula for a number of reasons, incl. mediocre products from major publishers. But many point to high-stakes testing. It created an incentive to do test prep-like ELA work, and some believe passage-heavy programs are the way.

The plot thickens in the Curious Case of @ReadingShanahan. In a generally-good podcast with @dperkinsed @Eduventuring04, he reiterates a straw man about knowledge-building curriculum advocates: that they want to “get rid of reading instruction” and only teach science and social

The more closely I look at these curriculum lists, the more baffled I become!! Georgia is no exception. I have so many genuine (and frustrated) questions about this chart, in particular:

Many US districts are using reading curriculum with no books. The two states bucking that trend, LA + TN, have gains on the NAEP to show for it. I'm certain we need to give this more attention.

Side note: 1) we need to improve math instruction 2) there was not some math instruction hey day

The resistance to knowledge-building curriculum has always lacked a strong argument. Well-put in this thread:

While we were sleeping…. Kids stopped reading whole books and this became “normal”. We must reverse this. Bravo @C_Hendrick

This is such a great example* of why context-clue guessing so often misfires in vocabulary instruction. “Talking with your mouth full” is perfectly a logical guess here given the prompt. The problem isn’t the child, it’s the ambiguity of the strategy itself. A clear explanation