When administering an in-class exam, a common decision that confronts every instructor is whether the exam format should be closed book or open book. The present review synthesizes research examining the effect of administering closed-book or open-book assessments on long-term learning. Although the overall effect of assessment format on learning…

Graduate anatomy courses should be designed based on several needs. These include preparation for how to study in medical school and other healthcare programs, integrating multiple ways of engaging with the material, including repetition for long-term retention, and training of anatomy educators. Our graduate anatomy course presents an example of…

Being able to comprehend informal arguments in scientific texts is important for scientific literacy in higher education. Successful intervention studies demonstrating that these skills can be trained in university students have not yet provided evidence that gains of explicit training can be maintained beyond immediate post-training assessment.…

Distraction embedded in working memory tasks leads to impaired performance. This impairment is mitigated when targets and distractors that follow them share common features--a signature effect of interference by superposition. Here we propose that target-distractor similarity modulates not only forgetting from working memory but also encoding into…

Past work has shown that eye movements are affected by long-term memory across different tasks and instructional manipulations. In the current study, we tested whether these memory-based eye movements persist when memory retrieval is under intentional control. Participants encoded multiple scenes with six objects (three faces; three tools). Next,…

Performance on homework questions was compared with performance on related exam questions querying the same fact or principle, was used to assess the effect of answering online homework questions on subsequent exam performance. A distinctive pattern of performance was found for some students in which superior performance on online homework…

Peer-led team learning is a socially mediated pedagogy where trained peer leaders, students who have completed a course, return to lead students in groups within a targeted course. The effect of peer-led team learning to improve student success in chemistry has been extensively documented but it is unclear if it is just as effective at…

Laboratory research has demonstrated that when students are instructed to use retrieval (i.e., recalling from memory information to be learned) rather than rereading (i.e., reading the material repeatedly) they learn better. However, little is known about spontaneous use of retrieval. In the present studies, we designed a scale to measure…

The retention of foundational knowledge is crucial in learning and teaching mathematics. However, a significant part of university students do not achieve long-term knowledge and problem-solving skills. A possible tool to increase further retention is testing, the strategic use of retrieval to enhance memory. In this study, the effect of a special…

This article aims to study and implement a deep learning algorithm-based information literacy assistance system for college students to solve the problems of insufficient personalization and untimely feedback in the existing information literacy education methods, so as to improve the information literacy level of college students. This article…

This paper describes applying a new brain-based instructional approach called "Tailored Instructions and Engineered Delivery using Protocols" (TIED UP) in an engineering classroom. Brain-based strategies leverage our knowledge about the functioning of the human brain to deliver the course information effectively. Although brain-based…

This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of the experiential learning cycle (ELC) and self-regulated learning (SRL), both implemented through a game-based approach (AI 2 Robot City board game), in fostering computational thinking (CT) and understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) applications in university level. The sample consisted of…

It is well documented that exercise plays a critical role in maintaining physical health. More recently, a growing body of research has begun to focus on the mental benefits of exercise ranging from reducing depression to enhancing various cognitive abilities like memory and attention. These abilities are paramount for learning to occur, and thus,…

It is generally assumed that the storage capacity of visual working memory (VWM) is limited, holding about 3-4 items. Recent work with real-world objects, however, has challenged this view by providing evidence that the VWM capacity for real-world objects is not fixed but instead increases with prolonged encoding time (Brady, Störmer, &…

The Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) aims to foster learning productively under optimal cognitive loads. Students across all ages and stages of learning have limited capacity due to the human brain's functionality. Therefore, an effective learning design allows for knowledge acquisition that will minimize the loading effect on the working memory and…