Sharing thoughts on education & resources for learning psychology
Austin, TX
Joined August 2015
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Any teachers who want to understand the issue of reading proficiency (which should be all of them, regardless of subject) should read this book. E.D. Hirsch Jr. laid out the problem and its solution nearly 20 years ago.
He convincingly argues that reading comprehension will not develop naturally (because it is not a natural human behavior) & it is not an independent skill that can taught directly but a reflection of broad background knowledge of what one is reading about. A focus on broad content knowledge will accomplish far more in improving reading proficiency than attempts to teach detached reading strategies. – at Austin, TX
Nagy et al (2025) published an excellent "bestiary" of Questionable Research Practices but it was really a table, not a bestiary. So I used AI to generate a visual bestiary, with a beast for each stage of the research process and mnemonic imagery to recall the QRPs
🤖 Made with AI
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The original paper can be found here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful…
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Michael Corayer retweeted
It's not just phonics: Schools have failed to teach reading because they ignore 50+ years of findings in cognitive psychology that reading depends on general knowledge. ED Hirsch has been banging this drum for a long time but Ed Schools shut their ears because the whole idea was unromantic & had a vaguely right-wing aroma. Now he joins with Dan Willingham to make a strong case that kids can't read if they don't have the background knowledge that makes sense of the rarer vocabulary, allusions, and understandings that allow us to read between the lines - which all reading requires. educationnext.org/rediscover…
Michael Corayer retweeted
New blog post: Evaluating Dr. Cuddy’s Claim that the Debunking of Power Posing is a Myth.
daniellakens.blogspot.com/20…
On an AI generated description of a non-existent study, incorrectly citing findings from studies, and the importance of scientific criticism.
Michael Corayer retweeted
The science of learning is a social justice issue and moral imperative.
Listen to @NickGibbUK on the new episode of The Science of Learning podcast. 🎧
👉 Listen now: linktr.ee/innerdrive_edu
Opportunity for undergraduates (any field) who are interested in education research: apply for the Science of Learning & Metacognition Summer Fellows Program at UT Austin! (link in reply)
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Michael Corayer retweeted
Bombshell: Oliver Sacks (a humane man & a fine essayist) made up many of the details in his famous case studies, deluding neuroscientists, psychologists, & general readers for decades. The man who mistook his wife for a hat? The autistic twins who generated multi-digit prime numbers? The institutionalized, paralyzed man who tapped out allusions to Rilke? Made up to embellish the stories. Probably also: the aphasic patients who detected lies better than neurologically intact people, including Ronald Reagan's insincerity. newyorker.com/magazine/2025/…
Michael Corayer retweeted
My latest Substack: AI "offers the illusion of mastery without the work of learning. It allows both students and teachers to skip the hard part—the thinking."
thenext30years.substack.com/…
Michael Corayer retweeted
In Search of Vygotsky: How the Zone of Proximal Development Became Education's Most Misunderstood Idea.
link in reply👇
Hopefully awareness and application of cognitive principles of learning in the US will continue to grow!
the74million.org/article/cog… – at Austin, TX
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The progressive critique of rote memory as "filling minds with random facts" is persuasive because it's true: the goal isn't random facts; it's a network of interconnected knowledge to solve problems. But, like it or not, building that network is going to require a lot of facts.
Michael Corayer retweeted
A recent article claimed that the Science of Learning and Direct Instruction is "neoliberal dogma that is working to de-skill the teaching profession". This is my response. Link in reply ⬇️
Some people would be delighted to hear that most of a child's football/baseball/basketball practice was spent "drilling fundamentals" but would be absolutely horrified to hear the same about the child's math class.
Great example of what effective teaching looks like: breaking down complex concepts & terminology for novices and guiding them through the steps with examples they can understand
In science, students often feel overwhelmed when they have to understand science concepts and perform calculations at the same time. To prevent cognitive overload, I used the Teach FAST framework @GTavernetti to teach molarity (concentration of a solution). 🧵
One of the problems with the explicit vs. inquiry debate is that both are true, depending on where someone is in a discipline. As people gain competency their knowledge base becomes invisible to them, so they give bad advice to novices, like "memorizing facts isn't important".
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