Education Bookcast

There one major, well-documented factor that effects what the best kind of instruction is for different people: expertise. This episode's article is The expertise reversal effect by John Sweller et al. (2003). The effect is so called because certain changes in instructional materials and practices that have repeatedly been found to enhance learning in novices, have actually been found to reduce learning in more advanced students. Hence there is a "reversal" in effectiveness. The effect can easily be understood by considering the information processing model of the human mind (i.e. the idea of the thinking mind being made up of long-term memory and a limited working memory). Thus, this episode makes up part of a series on the podcast about this model of the mind and its implications. Enjoy the episode.