Last month, MSET invited two members of the Employee Induction and Professional Learning Department in Frederick County Schools to present The Science of Learning: Using Technology to Reduce Cognitive Load.  Maureen Corio and Tammy Sander led a 30 minute presentation packed full of strategies on how teachers can use tech tools to reduce the stress of the classroom.  The learning leaders from FCPS explained how frequent check-ins to provide feedback allow students to review their progress on their work and get proper guidance on how to meet their learning goal.  Tools from Google Workspace for Education provide easy ways to comment in real time or asynchronously on work being done.  Chunking larger or long-term assignments into smaller tasks can help students focus on segments of the assignment instead of being overwhelmed with the many components of the project.  The built in tools of an LMS to use completion rules as work is completed or publish dates to reveal the next part of the project can do this nicely.  Due dates on Google Calendar help students manage their time and stay aware of due dates.

When there is a large amount of work to be done, teaching students to prioritize the work to be done using apps such as Trello or Google Keep allows the learner to know what the important work is to be done first, second, and so on.

On March 9th, Maureen and Tammy will again be presenting the Science of Learning to our MSET audience.  The topic this time will be the Mindset of Belonging and Retrieval Practice.  In this webinar, attendees will learn how technology enhances and builds the mindset of belonging, making sure every student's voice is heard.  When students feel they have a voice in their learning, they are more likely to persist through challenging tasks and be successful.  They will also explore how technology can enhance and revolutionize the art of retrieval practice and feedback-driven metacognition. These are two of the four “Power Tools” presented in the book, Powerful Teaching, authored by Pooja Agarwal and Patrice Bain.

This short learning opportunity will be sure to power up your classroom with research informed strategies you can use immediately.  To register, sign up on the MSET web site.