Joan Vandertie's Profile

You're doing a nice job" doesn't help that person's brain explore and apply
modifications to behavior that might lead to continued success

A better example of positive feedback might be, "Your students seemed engaged
when you had them create graphs using data from their online survey."

Specific, positive feedback stimulates the prefrontal cortex to reflect on ways
to improve performance

Use instruction modalities other than "telling." Participants need to see the
strategy modeled and then apply it themselves soon thereafter. When teachers
actively participate in a demonstration of the primacy-recency effect, for
example, they more clearly recognize that the brain remembers best the first and
last items presented in a learning episode—and they are more likely to sequence
instruction with this phenomenon in mind

Promote in-school study groups around the topic. As group members exchange new
research and share in-class experiences, they can analyze why—and under what
conditions—a strategy is effective. Participating in study groups helps teachers
who are reluctant to try out new ideas gain confidence

The field of education is strewn with the corpses of well-intentioned programs
that failed to lead to action because developers failed to give teachers
motivating feedback; connect new learning to relevant past teaching; establish
long-term supports (such as peer coaching or action research); or consider how
the program's approach might interact with teachers' emotions. In