In this week’s episode Purvi (Vi) Gandhi shares her knowledge about implementing effective and evidence based strategies to improve mental health or mental fitness in schools. Vi has recently published a book 'A little guide for teachers: Student Mental Health' with lots of ideas of how teachers can support the mental health and fitness of the young people in schools. In this interview we discuss the language we use around mental health, why mental health is so important in school and how we can support our pupils to thrive and much more.  If you would like to find out more about her book here is the link: uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/author/purvi-gandhi If you want to hear more podcasts on mental health from Psychology in the classroom here is the link: https://changingstatesofmind.com/mental-health-%26-wellbeing

On World Mental Health day 2024 Psychology in the Classroom discusses Mindfulness. We eschew the ‘Crystals and Muesli’ version and reframe it to ask how to be more attentive, calmer, more grounded, more aware, more responsive, less anxious. Willem Kuyken and Maggie Farrar join me to discuss, how we can make moments in our day to be mindful and how this can help us align ourselves better with our personal values.  You can find the podcasts on the Myriad Trial into Mindfulness in schools via this link: https://changingstatesofmind.com/mindfulness-miniseries This is the link to Willem’s website and book: https://mindfulnessforlife.uk/ This is the link to Maggie’s website and book: https://www.empoweringleadership.co.uk/  

In this final summary interview with Prof. Dr. Suzanne Narciss, we review all our learning about failure over the last few months. There is much we can do to encourage our students to learn from errors, including interactive formative assessment and feedback strategies, prompting reflection and adaptive strategies for dealing with errors and using other people’s errors. As teachers we need to help students overcome their fear of failure by creating a positive error climate and supporting students to develop a more positive error mindset. But this is an area that is challenging to research and we still have much to learn. 

More than one in 10 children ‘almost always’ or ‘often’ fear failure. But where do they learn this from? This fear can often pass from parents to children. Parental communication about failures and setbacks plays a critical role in shaping a child's perception of mistakes. In her research Dr Elizabeth Peterson found that: Clear action plans without discussion of collaborative resources increased children's fear of making mistakes.  When mothers acknowledged their child's emotions and discussed collaborative problem-solving, there was a notable decrease in the child's fear of mistakes. Many mothers minimally acknowledged or dismissed their child's emotions (40%), rarely discussed action plans (55%), or collaborative resources (79%). Effective parental communication involving emotional acknowledgment and collaborative problem-solving can help reduce children's fear of making mistakes. In this interview we discuss the consequences of this research for the classroom and how we as teachers can have positive conversations with our students about failure. You can find Elizabeth’s paper here: Peterson, E. R., Sharma, T., Bird, A., Henderson, A. M. E., Ramgopal, V., Reese, E., & Morton, S. M. B. (2024). How mothers talk to their children about failure, mistakes and setbacks is related to their children's fear of failure. British Journal of Educational Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12685 https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjep.12685  

Today's discussion focuses on our perceptions, as teachers, of failure. When as a teacher we watch our lessons back on film where do we see failure and how do we respond? Reflecting on our own relationship with failure could be important in informing our practice in the classroom. For example our personal relationship with failure will inform how we respond to student failure and this in turn could hinder or facilitate student growth and learning. In this episode Dr Amber Simpson and Dr Alice Anderson discuss their paper 'Identifying and shifting educators' failure pedagogical mindsets through reflective practices'. The details and link to the paper is here: Simpson A, Anderson A, Goeke M, Caruana D, Maltese AV. Identifying and shifting educators' failure pedagogical mindsets through reflective practices. Br J Educ Psychol. 2023 Dec 23. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12658. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38140824.  Informalscience.org Failure in Making: https://sites.google.com/binghamton.edu/failureinmaking/home?pli=1

How students and teachers navigate and prioritise different learning processes after encountering impasses during learning can be complex. Recognising that failure moments can be multifaceted, today’s episode explores how classroom discourse reveals varied valued learning processes, such as problem-solving, preventing future issues, and developing troubleshooting skills. The research being discussed identifies five valued learning processes in debugging: resolving the immediate issue, preventing future bugs, developing skills for novel problems, engaging with authority, and calibrating self and collective efficacy. It explores the tensions between pursuing different learning outcomes and how these decisions are negotiated between teachers and students. It also addresses the classroom culture, including fostering growth mindsets and addressing racial inequities in learning environments. DeLiema D, Hufnagle A, Ovies-Bocanegra M. Contrasting stances at the crossroads of debugging learning opportunities. Br J Educ Psychol. 2024 Feb 16. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12666. 

How errors are handled in the classroom is an important aspect of teaching and has a variety of consequences for students' own dealing with errors, their learning and their performance. In classrooms with a negative error climate, students are more likely to experience fear of making mistakes and feel alienated from their teachers. Teachers' unsupportive behaviours, such as negative reactions to errors, may increase students' alienation. Unsupportive teacher behaviours may also indirectly contribute to the development of fear of failure by influencing students' self-beliefs and motivation to do well in school. Positive and supportive student–teacher relationships have been shown to alleviate school alienation, suggesting that student–teacher interactions have a strong impact on academic as well as social learning experiences. In this episode we will learn how to ensure we create a positive error climate where students feel safe and that reduces the chances of alienation. Steuer G, Grecu AL, Mori J. Error climate and alienation from teachers: A longitudinal analysis in primary school. Br J Educ Psychol. 2024 Jan 2. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12659.  https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bjep.12659 If you would like to learn more about alienation please do take a listen to my podcast with Dr Ben Looker (20th June 2022) about student-teacher relationships.

In order to learn from errors it is important that pupils regulate their emotions. The emotions that they feel when they make an error is underpinned by their Error Learning Orientation - whether they see errors as positive and an opportunity to learn or as a negative thing that brings shame. In this interview Rahel Schmid discusses her paper about emotions pupils feel when they make errors and how this may be linked to error learning orientation. This episode includes lots of great tips to help teachers develop a positive error learning orientation in their pupils. Schmid R, Smit R, Robin N, Strahl A. The role of momentary emotions in promoting error learning orientation among lower secondary school students: An intervention study embedded in a short visual programming course. Br J Educ Psychol. 2024 Mar 19. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12681. Available : https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bjep.12681

This week find out how you can encourage students to persist with learning and engage with metacognitive strategies when they make mistakes.  Dr Maria Tulis talks about her experiments that aimed to find a causal link between beliefs about errors, how these beliefs maintain motivation and how students then adapt their actions to effectively analyse and correct errors. In study two during learning students were given encouragement to persist and prompts about what action to take immediately after they had made the error. Might this increase persistence, metacognitive control and effort? What are the implications for our classrooms?  Paper and link: Tulis M, Dresel M. Effects on and consequences of responses to errors: Results from two experimental studies. Br J Educ Psychol. 2024 May 8. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12686 https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bjep.12686

This is the 3rd episode in the failure series of podcasts this term. We are staying with the theme of feedback to errors this week. Professor Janet Metcalfe discusses her paper on learning from errors and in particular how one teacher uses an interactive approach, encouraging students to work out why they made an error rather than simply correcting them, and the impact it had on the students’ learning. But as always there is discussion plenty of wide ranging discussion on this topic. If you wish to access the paper here is the link: Metcalfe J, Xu J, Vuorre M, Siegler R, Wiliam D, Bjork RA. Learning from errors versus explicit instruction in preparation for a test that counts. Br J Educ Psychol. 2024 Jan 11. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12651. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38212139.  

When students receive error feedback it usually causes a negative emotional response, this in turn can impact learning.  If we could somehow elicit a positive emotional response to error feedback, research suggests that this will increase motivation, enhance the desire to continue on a learning task and promote the use of efficient metacognitive strategies.  In today’s podcast with Dr Annalisa Soncini we discuss how using a simple smiley in written error feedback can nuance the feedback so that the emotional reaction is more positive and the surprising impact this has on a student’s learning experience.  Annalisa’s paper ‘Supportive error feedback fosters students' adaptive reactions towards errors: Evidence from a targeted online intervention with Italian middle school students’ is open source and can be found on this link: https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bjep.12679 You can find out more about Hattie’s Visible Learning here: https://visible-learning.org/

Failure - a word that is taboo in education and yet is part and parcel of the learning experience. As teachers, dealing with errors in the classroom can fundamentally change so much of the learning experience. The beliefs teachers and students hold about failure and errors changes behaviour and can cause students to persist and grow or to avoid risk and challenge. This term Psychology in the Classroom will be exploring Failure with the help of researchers and the British Journal of Educational Psychology(BJEP). This first episode introduces several key concepts with the editors of the BJEP Special Issue on failure: Gabriele Steuer, Elizabeth Peterson and Maria Tulis

Exam season is now in full swing and we are all really trying to encourage students to move away from the comfortable passive revision strategies such as reading and highlighting notes and get them to engage in more retrieval practice with flashcards and mindmaps. This week I talk to psychology teacher, Jonny Wainman about how he teaches his students study skills, we cover a wide range of topics and if you want do dive a bit deeper into the different concepts he mentioned you can find much more on the links below: Cognition & Learning: https://changingstatesofmind.com/cognition-and-learning-1 Exam prep mini series: https://changingstatesofmind.com/mini-series  

My guest this week is Dr Michelle Tytherleigh author of Positive Education at all Levels: Learning to Flourish, and we are talking about how we can use positive psychology in the classroom to students to flourish. Martin Seligman asked two questions: In two words or less what do you want for your children? In two words or less what do most schools teach? To answer these questions so that the responses are not contradictory or incompatible Positive Education recognises the need to incorporate wellbeing into education, into the everyday learning experience and needs to involve the whole community - teachers, leaders, parents and student. In this podcast we look at how we can do just this. Link to Michelle's book: https://books.emeraldinsight.com/download_pdf.php?k=9781837531578 Link to Worthit: https://www.worthit.org.uk/  

Dr Charl Emmerson is an Organisational Psychologist who has worked in schools and researches wellbeing in schools. In this interview we are discussing teacher wellbeing at both an individual level and an organisational level. WIth top tips of teachers and leadership on creating a supportive culture. In addition we discuss how SEND impacts teacher wellbeing  Key papers/links: NASUWT study findings on pupil behaviour: https://edexec.co.uk/verbal-and-physical-pupil-abuse-skyrockets-in-the-past-year-says-nasuwt-report/ Importance of teacher-pupil relationship: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10648-011-9170-y  Pupil wellbeing - teacher wellbeing: https://www.sueroffey.com/wp-content/uploads/import/32-Roffey%20ECP29-4.pdf  Charl’s research with University of Sheffield: EU-funded project looking at developing compassionate workplaces https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/iwp/research-projects/eu-cowork Education Support Partnership: https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/  

This week I am joined by Professor David Daley from Nottingham Trent University to talk about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. ADHD is something that most teachers will come across at some point and managing it well in the classroom can make a huge difference to outcomes for young people with ADHD. In this episode we cover the main psychological underpinnings of the disorder and how these manifest in the classroom as behaviour. David also offers some really useful tips on how to help young people with ADHD manage in the classroom. You can find more on executive function, working memory and cognitive psychology here: https://changingstatesofmind.com/cognition-and-learning-3 You can learn even more about ADHD here: https://changingstatesofmind.com/send-and-inclusion  

The teaching profession is in crisis and whilst it can be an extraordinarily rewarding and it is also an exhausting profession so self-care is essential. As a regular diary keeper I was curious to find out just how this might be helping my own wellbeing. Dr Lucy Kelly  is an Associate Professor in Education in the School of Education whose main research interest is reflective practice as a positive tool for educator wellbeing, and she is Principal Investigator for the 'Reimagining the Diary' project. Lucy talks about how our narrow concept of what diary keeping is could be a barrier to engaging with it, how it can many benefits and how we can engage with a broader and more creative concept of diary keeping.   If you want to find out more about Lucy’s work here are the links: The Diary Toolkit: https://thediarytoolkit.com/ Reimagining the Diary (Book): https://www.johncattbookshop.com/products/reimagining-the-diary-reflective-practice-as-a-positive-tool-for-educator-wellbeing More about the project itself: https://reimaginingthediary.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/

In this episode Dr Hannah Wilkinson talks about her doctoral research which focused on re-evaluating teachers’ use of test-taking practices from a psychological lens; unpicking how students appraised these types of communications and how it affects their engagement in the classroom. Essentially we will consider the messages that we, as teachers, give to students when we talk about exam preparation specifically and the different ways that students might interpret these communications and how, hopefully we can make them more impactful. We talk about threat and efficacy appeals.   Papers Hannah Mentioned: Wilkinson, H. (2024). Efficacy Appeals in the High-Stakes Classroom: Re-Examining Teachers' use of Test Preparation Strategies (Doctoral dissertation, Liverpool John Moores University):   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215091920300018?casa_token=DxwxBEbesPIAAAAA:TUTqZCb43dZAokxGby9v6k2sfGKV9FosFhbi7Lhux0xjlYsgtYw8Hk_U_GeQjJsdkmWQ13Gw   Putwain, D. W., Symes, W., Nicholson, L. J., & Remedios, R. (2021). Teacher motivational messages used prior to examinations: What are they, how are they evaluated, and what are their educational outcomes?. In Advances in motivation science (Vol. 8, pp. 63-103). Elsevier:   https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/22471/2/2024wilkinsonphd.pdf

In this episode, and as we fast approach exams, we look at how to help student manage their nerves. There are lots of strategies that can be employed but learning to sit comfortably with the uncomfortable feeling of exam anxiety can be challenging. This episode looks at one way we can help our students to learn to bring their thoughts and feelings under control using a technique stolen from sports psychology, but equally effective for high pressure exam performance situations: visualisation. It allows students to practise their coping skills and to understand that they can manage any exam scenario however terrifying! For further tips of Exam anxiety strategies do also listen to these two podcasts: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/control-the-controllables https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/exam-preparation-exam-anxiety  

This week we look at why exam technique matters - the more working memory students can free up to write good answers, rather than figuring out what they need to do and how long they have got left, the better. This episode covers 5 things that students should practice to help make an exam go smoothly:  Knowing the rubric Overall plan of attack Managing timing (including extra time) Breaking down the question Spotting traps If you want to know more about working memory and cognitive load there are a couple of good episodes you can listen to here: Working Memory: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/long-term-and-short-term-memory Cognitive Load: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/cognitive-load-finding-the-sweet-spot-with-bradley-busch      

Despite all our efforts to teach students to revise using effective methods they often revert back to less effective methods such as copying and reading and rereading notes. Why is this, when we have told them that these techniques are less effective in the long term? This week's episode looks at 4 common reasons why students revision fails: Planning Fallacy Illusion of Fluency Misinterpreted-effort hypothesis Failure to reflect The link to the episode about Roediger and Karpicke's research is https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/recall-or-re-read-the-research-into-retrieval-practice The references for Misinterpreted-effort hypothesis is: Afton Kirk-Johnson, Brian M. Galla, Scott H. Fraundorf, (2019) Perceiving effort as poor learning: The misinterpreted-effort hypothesis of how experienced effort and perceived learning relate to study strategy choice, Cognitive Psychology, Volume 115, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2019.101237.    

This week the episode will be based around retrieval practice - a concept most of you will be familiar with, and if you aren’t then do take a listen to this episode which delves into the research underpinning the concept. Many students when learning, make the error of being passive recipients of information, reading, listening, watching or copying. Whilst a few bits may stick, more information will stick if they actively reconstruct the information through some sort of recall activity.  Today we will cover 4 retrieval concepts you will know but thinking about the why.  My hope is that this episode will perhaps reframe some of these basic ideas so that students use them even more effectively. Just in case the link above doesn't work here it is in full to copy and paste:  https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/recall-or-re-read-the-research-into-retrieval-practice  

You know that thing, you're listening to the radio and minding your own business and a song comes on the radio and memories flood back (possibly embarrassing teenage ones!). That song is a cue to unlocking your memory - all sorts of things can be cues - smells, images, letters, words. In an exam the main cues are going to be words - specifically those in the question. If we understand that cues help us remember and that they are important at the time of learning then we can ensure that when we learn information we learn it with specific cues at the forefront of our mind. This week we consider how to leverage the theory of 'cue dependent forgetting' during revision to help us recall more when we are in an exam. If you want to watch my very embarrassing 'Mind Palace' video here you go: https://youtu.be/l4kPShjm9mM?si=0rkcOEa4PXrLJYKv As I mention too in the podcast I am really seeking listener feedback so please spare 2 minutes to complete this form: https://forms.gle/d3ehS8citt2NvsSy7 Finally you can find out more on this podcast: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/cues-to-recall-0  

This week we move from the practialities of starting and planning revision to the learning itself.  The focus is on how we can help students to build learning so that it is retained in long term memory. Whilst there are lots of ways to approach this today's episode focused on 3 key concepts: Levels of processing, spacing and interleaving. I mentioned that there are several podcasts that delve into these concepts in more depth. Further information can be found here: Levels of processing: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/getting-stuff-to-stick-in-long-term-memory Interleaving: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/interleaving-a-useful-learning-strategy Finally please do fill in the podcast feedback form so I can make the content even better! https://forms.gle/jJzpJwWDNovwAPez5    

I would argue that good planning is an art or at the very least a skill that needs to learned and perfected and yet we often cut our planning teeth on a revision timetable just before we do exams. How many student's plans turn out to be too vague, over ambitious or too rigid? This week's episode explores this skill and how we can best encourage students to become effective planners: understanding what they need to get done, what the time frame is in which they need to do it and how best they can plan to suit their own context.  If you want to watch the youtube video I made you can take a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UuJiwvfppg

What is it that motivates students to study? A few lucky people may genuinely enjoy the process of memorising facts and preparing for exams, but this is probably rare. For most people studying requires effort and despite the high stakes, the reward of good exam results (or fear of bad ones) in the distant future is not enough of a motivation when there are far more exciting and immediately rewarding things to do instead. So this week we consider how we can motivate students to engage in independent study by bringing in short term, tangible rewards. If you want to learn more about planning the link I mention is here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1177/237946151500100205

In this second episode we explore why study habits may help students with independent study and how we as teachers can support students to build effective study habits. Behavioural change is really hard, as anyone who had already forgotten their new year's resolution, can attest to! There are a few key things that we can help students with if they want to build in independent learning to their schedule. We consider the role of homework in building habits, habit stacking, cueing habits and reducing friction. Finally we think about how we can help students embed behaviour change when it needs to happen outside of the classroom context. These behavioural change tips are equally applicable to other behaviours such as exercise, sleep and work, so worth a listen if you want to change your habits too!  The two books for further reading are Wendy Wood's Good Habits, Bad Habits and James Clear's Atomic Habits.

Inherent in our educational system is the expectation that students will study independently to achieve at the higher levels.  Some students are lucky and hit on strategies that work, others flounder whilst motivated to do well they don’t know how to learn. As educators why leave the effectiveness of independent study largely up to chance when we have a whole host of excellent tools at our disposal, we need to share them with our students in a strategic and coherent way to give students the confidence to use these tools effectively in a wide range of different scenarios and ultimately to take control of their own educational success.  

Welcome back to the new term of podcasts. We are starting off with an episode about wellbeing with Dr Ros McLellan from Cambridge University. We take a deep dive into exactly what wellbeing means and its impact on educational attainment. Rather than taking wellbeing as a homogenous concept this discussion considers the difference between eudaimonic and hedonic wellbeing and how they have differing impacts on educational outcomes. You can find the original paper here: Tania Clarke, Ros McLellan & Gordon Harold (2023) Beyond Life Satisfaction: Wellbeing Correlates of Adolescents’ Academic Attainment, School Psychology Review: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2372966X.2023.2217980 Companion Paper: https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rev3.3393 Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory posits that an individual’s development is influenced by a series of interconnected environmental systems, ranging from the immediate surroundings (e.g., family) to broad societal structures (e.g., culture).

In this second 'takeover' Niamh and Summer, from Bootham School, ask you to think about autism and some common misconceptions - which peice of research is real and which is fake. Test your understanding in this fun podcast.

It's Christmas Takeover time and today's episode is hosted by Oliver Sherratt, a year 12 student at Abingdon school studying A level psychology. He delves into the intricate and fascinating world of psychology approaches. These six approaches will lay a base for your understanding of what we know psychology to be as well as igniting a flame within you which will spur you onwards to learn more about the great subject. Today's episode will be a brief and concise whistle stop tour and thus I encourage listeners to read more in depth after listening to fully cement their understanding. Come along for the journey! A great taster for those thinking of choosing psychology A level.

There are many things that make this time of year special, one of which is music - whether that is carols or corny Christmas songs, they can prompt memories and get us together to sing as a community in ways that we simply don’t at any other time of year. But there is strong evidence to suggest that singing has physiological, psychological and social benefits and we should not just relegate community singing to Christmas.  Today I am speaking to two psychologists who believe that schools can and should be a place where singing is embraced everyday - Dr Yoon Irons and Natasha Hendry.   Links from this week’s episode: Sing Up: https://www.singup.org/ You are the Music by Victoria Williamson Why we sing by Julia Hollander Singing by Yoon Irons and Grenville Hancox Links to Natasha’s research can be found here: Hendry, Natasha (2023), ‘Fitting in and sticking out: An exploratory study of the Whiteness of the school music curriculum and its effects on Global Majority musicians’, Journal of Popular Music Education, 7:1, pp. 25–45, https://doi.org/10.1386/jpme_00107_1 Hendry, N., Lynam, D. S., & Lafarge, C. (2022). Singing for wellbeing: formulating a model for community group singing interventions. Qualitative Health Research, 32(8-9), 1399-1414. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323221104718  

We know that many neurodivergent young people such as those with ADHD or autism traits develop depression during adolescence – but we currently don’t know which individuals are at risk, what underlying processes increase that risk or, perhaps most importantly, the best way to intervene to increase resilience to reduce that risk.  RE-STAR aims to address this by exploring the interplay between autism and/or ADHD traits, exposure to environmental stressors, and emotional responding in neurodivergent young people (NYP), in driving developmental pathways to depression. My Guests this week are Dr. Steve lukito, Eloise Funnell and Tiegan Boyens from the Re-Star team who are heading up work package 2: My Brain, Emotions and me or BE ME.  If you would like to find out more about RE-STAR in general here is the website: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/re-star The BE ME Website is: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/my-brain-emotions-and-me Maciej's Blog: https://kingsengagedresearchblog.wordpress.com/2023/10/04/enhancing-participatory-neuroscience-research-the-re-star-project-perspectives/  

As we come to the end of a very long term a few of you might well be considering which lessons you might be able to put on a film.  So to ensure that this is a justifiable educational tool Dr Sheila Thomas talks about her use of film in the classroom: how to make it a really valuable experience for the students and get them thinking more deeply and in a cross curricular way about films.   To get Sheila’s website and get hold of the list of films and how to use them you can follow this link: https://www.thepsychologyschool.com/ The previous podcast I did on videos and learning is here: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/making-the-most-of-videos-as-a-teaching-resource The AI question generator for Youtube videos is Quizizz.  

'Smart' or 'Study' drugs are usually prescribed for people with ADHD to help them concentrate. However many people without ADHD take them, in theory, to focus on studying - e.g. writing an essay or revising for an exam.  The estimates of how many people have taken them vary between about 16-20%, and the use of these drugs is on the rise.  So the question is do these drugs actually help complex cognitive processes that are required for study?  Recent research done by Elizaeth Bowman and her colleagues aimed to find out and in this episode Elizabeth joins me to talk about their research and most importantly their findings. You can read the orginal paper in Science Advances here: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add4165 You can read a summary (or share it with your students) here: https://theconversation.com/smart-drugs-make-you-worse-at-solving-complex-problems-new-study-finds-207711 You can find out more about the Centre here:  https://www.unimelb.edu.au/cbmm

Here is the next installment of the ‘Talking to psychology teachers series’ with guest teacher Sophia Afsar. We are going to be talking about how to create the perfect multiple choice question (with and without the help of ChatGPT), the importance of student-teacher relationships and how using concrete examples that students can relate to helps them understand more abstract concepts.  The links to the episodes mentioned are: Dual Coding: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/working-memory-and-dual-coding Interleaving: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/interleaving-a-useful-learning-strategy Student-Teacher Relationships with Dr Ben Looker: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/the-pupil-teacher-relationship-with-dr-ben-looker Metacognition: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/an-introduction-to-metacognition Desirable difficulties: https://changingstatesofmind.libsyn.com/powerful-learning-with-patrice-bain    

“Be the best you can be, now.” This is the overriding message to self and others which aligns to my personal values and fuels my being! Joshi Jariwala During, the Covid era, there was a will to be kind to students who were overwhelmed with endless unpredictable lists to survive, completely unrelated to study. Though committed, they could not jump start their drive to learn. Joshi Jariwala shares with you her journey of turning that kindness into a practical tool to softly help her students unfreeze their state of mind and guide them towards their study in bitesize chunks. The journey culminated into a six-step bite size learning cycle to help form new habits in a simple and easy to follow manner. The basis of the model resides in positive psychology, neuroscience, and mindfulness, which are her interests particularly the latter which she enjoys and in which she has completed the eight-week course. Although honestly, the model was borne through reflection, practise, and an urge to help! With nearly 30 years in the fields of youth and community work, accountancy, human resource management, and teaching initially on a sessional basis and on a full-time basis for the last six years, she is happy learning and contributing to make a difference where she can!  To get in touch with Joshi email: [email protected] 

This episode is the 4th in the ‘Talking to Psychology Teachers’ Series and Paramjeet Moon, psychology teacher with 24 years experience, talks about her love of psychology and the myriad of ways in which it has influenced her teaching practice, from cognitive psychology, working memory, interleaving, relationships, the teenage brain, seating arrangements and much more this conversation is full of great tips for any teacher wishing to tweak their practice to make it just a little better.   If you want to watch the ‘Kevin becomes a teenager’ it is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLuEY6jN6gY And an example of a PLC can be found on this link if you go to the show notes via the podcast page of my website (if you are listening via an app such as Spotify or Amazon): www.changingstatesofmind.com/podcast      

In this episode Dr Brooke Macnamara shares details of her research about mindset.  Her research is a fascinating insight into the interventions around mindsets including growth mindset - a concept which I am sure you are familiar.  If you, like me, have read Carol Dweck’s work it is compelling, but can we really change mindset?  The concept itself is quite vague and is a belief or set of beliefs that then impact behaviour.  The challenge for research is to show that we can firstly change the belief (and only the belief) and this will ultimately result in improved academic ourcomes.  The interventions though rarely just focus on the beliefs as we shall hear. You can find the Twitter/X thread here or search @BrookeMacnamara on X to find the thread which is pinned to her profile. The paper we are discussing can be read via open source here: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/ba7pe

This week Evie Bentley talks about how her knowledge of psychology helped her understand and manage what could have been a very frightening experience.  As teachers we are often asked ‘what is the point of learning this’ whatever this might be.  But you never know when knowledge may come in handy and sometimes it is at the moments you least expect, something Evie discovered in the early hours of the morning.

Alessia Evans developed a love of makeup from a young age and started working in the cosmetics industry at 19 where she climbed the ranks as a makeup artist, trainer and manager for L'Oreal. Fast forward 10+ years, and Alessia has bowed out of the beauty industry to study Psychology, undertaking a dissertation investigating whether applying makeup makes us smarter... what she discovered was remarkable! Since being awarded the British Psychological Prize for Best Dissertation 2020, Alessia has gone on to write for a magazine on the psychology of beauty and currently lectures at the University of South Wales where she also recently completed her Masters in Psychology Research.  This week she joins Psychology in the Classroom to talk about the impact that make up can have on social interaction, mental health and cognitive function.  We discuss schools’ general aversion to make-up and ask the question ‘Is this rule appropriate?’ The answer may not be what you expect, whatever you think about make-up, Alessia provides some really fascinating insights into the reasons why we wear make-up and why we should perhaps open up the conversation around make-up in schools. You can get in touch with Alessia Here: https://staffdirectory.southwales.ac.uk/users/alessia.evans.html You can find details of Nancy Etcoff’s book here - Survival of the Prettiest, or just search her name online.

This week is the third in the ‘talking to psychology teachers’ series and Ed King shares some insights into expectancy-value theory and how it drives motivation as well as some practical tips on how to work on both expectancy and value to increase student (and our own) motivation in the classroom. Student’s Achievement can be determined by two factors: Expectancy & value - These two interact to predict outcomes such as engagement, continuing interest, and academic achievement.  For more information this is the link: https://education.okstate.edu/site-files/documents/motivation-classrooms/motivation-minute-expectancy-value-theory.pdf To find out about the diary project: https://www.standandstare.com/reimagining-the-diary

This week Felicitas Biwer talks about how students can study smarter with better self-regulation, effort regulation, planning and reflection.  Packed with top tips on independent learning this is the episode I want all my students to listen too, but can also help teachers understand how and why we need to teach these skills to our students.  If you would like to listen to the original podcast about Felicitas's research the link is here. If you would like to find out more about the study smart programme this is the website: https://www.studysmartpbl.com/

This week Lyndsey Hayes talks about how she has learned to support learners who don't have English as their first language, the challenges this poses and some really practical tips to help them learn.  This is the second podcast introducing psychology teachers talking about how psychology has influenced their practice. Below are the links to some useful resources that Lyndsey mentions: International House, London: https://www.ihlondon.com/course/content-and-language-integrated-learning-clil/ Some Ideas on encorporating CLIL into your lesson: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/teachers/knowing-subject/articles/clil-lesson-framework Link to the ATP Article

...with Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou and Dr Myrto Kakoulidou. How do neurodiverse individuals experience emotions?  Is it different to neurotypical people?  If not then should schools be relying on interventions based on neurotypical (adult) experiences?  The team at RE-STAR (Regulating Emotions - Strengthening Adolescent Resilience) are part way through a huge 4 year project to understand emotional experiences of young neurodiverse people with Autism and Attention Deficit Hyper activity disorder or ADHD   In this episode Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou and Dr Myrto Kakoulidou talk about their work on understanding emotional experiences of young people with Autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD and how schools (in particular) could better understand and support these young people with their emotions and we get a sneak peek at some of the results! To find out more follow the link: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/re-star The link for families to find out more about the My Emotions and Me-part 2 study and take part: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/my-emotions-and-me The link for teachers/schools to register an interest and get involved in the RE-STAR programme more generally: Microsoft form

This week sees the first of the ‘talking to psychology teachers’ series, Dani Bryton discusses how the psychology of motivation has influenced her to think carefully about the social dynamics in the classroom: from seating plans to making a cuppa for your colleague, managing the relationships and building a sense of belonging in your classroom can have a clear and visible impact on academic outcomes.

As we start a new academic year how can we ensure that we manage our own wellbeing? This week my guest, Gemma Drinkall, a qualified coach, trainer and supervisor shares her top tips on setting boundaries, managing expectations and learning how to look after your own wellbeing, after all you can’t pour from an empty cup.     If you would like to learn more about Gemma’s work you can find it on these links: Website: https://headsphere.co.uk/ Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/teacherswithboundaries/ Twitter: @Gemma_Drinkall  

It's the holidays - but just how can we make the most of the summer break and ensure we go back to school rested and recharged, ready for another year.  In this week's episode, the final one for the 2022-23 academic year, Dr Jill Dunbar and Dr Nicola Cann, part of the team behing the Travel Psychologist blog talk about their top tips for getting the most out of your holidays.  And if you happen to be moving abroad next year to teach in a foreign country they have some really good tips for managing the transition.  If you would like to find out more you can read their blog at thetravelpsychologist.co.uk Happy Holidays!