Jenny G. Rankin, PhD
@jennygrankin
Author of 14 books, 2 doctorates, @PsychToday columnist, #KeynoteSpeaker, taught Columbia & Cambridge Universities, lectured Oxford University & TED, Mensan, #data #education #researchcom, nerd
🧠LEARNING FACT: Mixing problem types can improve later problem solving. Interleaving makes practice feel harder, but it can help learners choose the right strategy when problems are no longer labeled. #AcWri #HigherED #SciComm #educational
🧠BRAIN FACT: The brain treats human voices as a special sound category. Functional imaging studies have found voice-selective regions along the upper bank of the superior temporal sulcus. #knowledge #funfacts #sciencefacts
🧠LEARNING FACT: Refuting a misconception can help replace it. Refutation texts can improve science learning by explicitly naming a false belief and then explaining why it is wrong. #AcademicTwitter #EdResearch #information
🧠BRAIN FACT: Face blindness shows that seeing and recognizing are different jobs. People with prosopagnosia may see faces clearly but struggle to recognize whose face they are seeing. #facts #didyouknow #Knowledge4Policy
🧠LEARNING FACT: Misconceptions are not erased like chalk. Conceptual change often requires reorganizing prior beliefs, not merely adding correct facts on top of wrong ones. #AcademicLife #EdData #PhDchat
🧠BRAIN FACT: The brain has face-sensitive real estate. The fusiform face area responds more strongly to faces than to many other visual categories, helping explain why faces feel so instantly meaningful. #ResearchComm #KnowledgeDiss
🧠LEARNING FACT: Context can transform confusion into comprehension. Background knowledge and framing can determine whether the same passage feels meaningless or understandable. #AcademicChatter #EdChat
🧠BRAIN FACT: Your two eyes can compete for consciousness. In binocular rivalry, different images shown to each eye can make perception flip back and forth rather than blend into one stable picture. #MindChange #education #DataComm
🧠LEARNING FACT: Advance organizers give new facts a place to land. A clear conceptual framework before a lesson can help learners attach new material to existing knowledge. #logic #psychology #PhDchat
🧠LEARNING FACT: Words plus visuals can create two memory routes. Dual coding theory proposes that verbal and nonverbal systems can support one another during learning. #MindChange #education #DataComm
🧠BRAIN FACT: Attention can “blink.” When two targets appear rapidly one after another, people often miss the second one because attention is still processing the first. #Science4Policy #learning #Polarization
🧠LEARNING FACT: Multiple representations help only when learners can connect them. Graphs, equations, diagrams, and words support learning best when students understand how each representation maps onto the others. #ResearchComm #KnowledgeDiss
🧠BRAIN FACT: Your pupils can reveal mental effort. In memory-load experiments, pupils dilated as the amount of information being actively processed increased. #AcWri #HigherED #SciComm #educational
🧠BRAIN FACT: Your brain may replay the day while you sleep. In rat studies, hippocampal place-cell patterns active during spatial behavior were re-expressed during later sleep, supporting the idea that sleep helps memory consolidation. #AcademicTwitter #EdResearch #information
🧠LEARNING FACT: Math learning needs both procedures and concepts. Students benefit from knowing how to solve problems and why the procedures work. #Science4Policy #learning #Polarization
🧠BRAIN FACT: White matter is not just “wiring.” Myelin helps regulate the speed and timing of signals between brain regions, and evidence suggests it can be modified by experience. #AcademicLife #EdData #PhDchat
🧠LEARNING FACT: Strategy lessons work better when students learn when to use the strategy. Self-regulation interventions are stronger when they teach not only techniques but also how, when, and why to apply them. #MindChange #education #DataComm
🧠BRAIN FACT: Some brain cells act like tiny sculptors. Microglia, often described as the brain’s immune cells, help prune synapses during development, shaping neural circuits rather than merely defending them. #AcademicChatter #EdChat
🧠BRAIN FACT: The adult brain is not completely finished making neurons. A classic human study reported evidence of new neurons in the adult hippocampus, though later research continues to debate how much adult neurogenesis persists across the lifespan. #logic #psychology #PhDchat
🧠LEARNING FACT: Self-regulated learners run a feedback loop. Effective learners set goals, monitor progress, choose strategies, and adjust when those strategies are not working. #Science4Policy #learning #Polarization
🧠BRAIN FACT: Learning to juggle can change the adult brain. In a classic study, adults who learned a three-ball juggling routine showed training-related gray-matter changes in visual-motion areas. #ScholarSunday #Metacognition
🧠LEARNING FACT: Overconfidence can reduce achievement. Students who overestimate how well they know material may stop studying too soon and remember less later. #AcWri #HigherED #SciComm #educational
🧠BRAIN FACT: Music can reward the brain before the best part even arrives. In one study, pleasurable music triggered dopamine release during both anticipation and peak emotional response. #knowledgeispower #learn #research
🧠LEARNING FACT: Familiarity is not mastery. Learners can mistake recognition during rereading for durable knowledge they will be able to use later. #AcademicTwitter #EdResearch #information
🧠BRAIN FACT: Watching an action can partly activate action systems in your own brain. Mirror-neuron research supports the idea that observing and doing are linked, though it should not be stretched into a claim that we can “read minds.” #didyouknowfacts #generalknowledge
🧠LEARNING FACT: Easy learning can fool learners. People often judge learning by how fluent something feels in the moment, even when that feeling does not predict later recall well. #AcademicLife #EdData #PhDchat