Using the Science of Learning to Teach Economics & Social Studies
As educators, we want our students’ learning to be enduring and transferable. Fortunately, we can use ‘the science of learning’, insight into how our brains learn, remember, and make connections, to ensure that our students’ learning lasts.
This post will highlight four simple, yet effective techniques based on the science of learning that increase the likelihood of transferable and enduring learning:
spaced repetition
metacognition
analogizing, and
interleaving.
We will explore each in more detail with some examples for how you can transfer the ideas to the social studies classroom. I’ll share four activities based on these science of learning techniques, briefly explain why they work, and provide some additional resources you can use to engage students. These activities are powerful because they are easy to implement and applicable across most disciplines and topics!
Brain Dump
What is it: Brain Dump is a timed exercise in which you ask students to write down everything they know about a topic they’ve learned earlier in the semester.
Example: Write down everything you’ve learned about opportunity cost in 2 minutes.
Relevant Arkansas standard: EDM.1.E.1 Evaluate the roles of scarcity, incentives, trade-offs, and opportunity cost in decision making
Why it works: Brain Dump is an example of retrieval practice, which is when Learners recall and apply examples of previously learned knowledge or skills after a period of forgetting. Research has shown that long-term learning comes from actively generating knowledge from memory as opposed to simply reading.
Additional resource: MRU has a supply and demand unit plan that incorporates retrieval practice and other science of learning techniques.
Metacognition Assignment
What is it: Ask students to assess how confident they are for each question before answering any questions. For questions for which they are not sure, students are instructed to look up the answer first.
Example: Here is a metacognition worksheet related to supply and demand concepts
Relevant Arkansas standard: EM.2.E.2 Demonstrate changes in supply and demand (e.g., shifts, shortages, surpluses, availability) that influence equilibrium price and quantity using a supply and demand model
Why it works: This worksheet is helping students in metacognition, the process of reflecting on your learning and the process of using your reflections to guide subsequent behaviors. Metacognition teaches students to identify their knowledge gaps and take control of their learning process.
Additional resources: MRU’s interactive practice provides real-time feedback, another useful tool to encourage metacognition. Crucially, it provides elaborative feedback as well as feedback on incorrect answers.
Analogizing
What is it? Have students compare and contrast an educational concept to some familiar object or concept.
Example: How is Gross Domestic Product like a supermarket? How is it not like a supermarket?
Relevant Arkansas Standard: NE.5.E.1 Analyze economic indicators used to measure economic performance including, but not limited to, unemployment, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and Consumer Price Index (CPI)
Why it works: Analogizing is creating an explicit, nonliteral comparison between two objects or sets of objects that describe their structural, functional, and/or causal similarities. Research shows that analogizing improves a student’s ability to transfer and apply knowledge to different topics and domains.
Additional resource: MRU has a GDP unit plan that incorporates analogizing and other science of learning techniques.
Mixing Questions
What is it? Mix questions from different chapters.
Example: Mix questions related to monopoly, oligopoly, and perfect competition with questions related to economic growth and standards of living.
Relevant economics standards:
EM.4.E.2 Explain how differences in the extent of competition in various markets can affect price, quantity, and variety
NE.5.E.2 Evaluate the impact of advancements in technology, investments in capital goods, and investments in human capital on economic growth and standards of living
Why it works: Mixing problems or questions from different topics in a certain way is interleaving. Interleaving has been shown to help students retain new information and recall prior knowledge.
Additional resources: Powerful Teaching’s website has wonderful guidance on interleaving. And additional resources on other science of learning techniques.
MRU provides weeklys email of media and activities tailored to what you’re teaching! Sign up here: https://www.econinbox.com/
Remember, you can incorporate these techniques into almost any lesson and these do not require additional grading. These strategies assist students in organizing and recalling information and can help to meet the needs of each individual learner. By embedding the science of learning into your activities and assessments, you can set your students up for success all year long.
