Two weeks in a row! Am I getting back into the swing of TOTs weekly? I guess we’ll find out! Habits, literacy, flashcards, mini whiteboards, and heaps more below!

Enjoy!

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One pager summarising how to use Mini Whiteboards, via @MrThorntonTeach

Genius!

The role of habits in teaching, and some research on how to break them, via @mikehobbiss (ht @ProfCoe)

There are definitely better ways to teach reading, via @DrKatedeBruin, @PamelaSnow2, and colleagues

Colleagues: @drlindagraham, @tserry2504, and @JacintaOHagan

My favourite bit from this article was the introduction of the Cognitive Foundations Framework for reading instruction. But note, the paper cited for the Cognitive Foundations Framework is behind a paywall, so it’s best to email the article’s authors for a copy (rather than using websites like Sci-hub which provide access to almost all academic papers available).

Four reasons flashcards help students remember what we teach, via @Brad_Nguyen_

This good introductory post by Brad Nguyen highlights four benefits of flashcards for retrieval: immediate feedback, multiple exposures, metacognition, and differentiation.

A good point is made by Brad about flashcards and Recite, Recall, Apply in particular:

When you are asked to recall a fact you have just recited, you are not really practising retrieval from long-term memory. But if you remove the Recite step, you have a similar problem to the worksheet with lots of problems: not so helpful for kids who aren’t successful.

Coupled with the Lietner system, or something similar, physical flashcards like this can be super effective for boosting learning.

Zotero: how I manage and file my academic papers, with @EminaMcLean

I struggled with the Mac citations app Papers, Endnote, and Mendeley for years before settling on Zotero.

If you’re looking for a free and powerful academic paper management system, look no further! (And if you don’t have one yet, you definitely need one if you’re into reading papers!!!)

Here are some of the things that you can do with Zotero:

    • Auto-download citations and pdfs (when available) from Google Scholar
    • Auto rename PDFs during import so they’re kept in a single folder and perfectly named
    • Cite quickly and efficiently in Word, Google docs, and more with a few keystrokes
    • Auto-generate your whole reference list at the end of writing after doing your in-line citations as above
    • Customise the citation keys (see here)
    • Extract annotations into plain text (see here)

Good overview by Bryan Jenks here.

And Emina McLean just let me know that there’s now an exciting new feature too!

Feed All The Kids, and Let Them Go To School for Free, via @JustinSandefur

This is a clear and concise blog post summarising findings from a recent Centre for Global Development report entitled Schooling for All: Feasible Strategies to Achieve Universal Education. In short, feed all the kids, and let them go to school for free! Many more great insights to promote effective universal education in here too.

Themed blog collection on physics, heaps of resources, via @emcandallthat (ht @teacherhead)

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