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Wrong answers, right learning: Using errors to deepen understanding

This systematic review examines how instructional materials that embed errors (so-called “erroneous examples”) or juxtapose incorrect and correct solutions (“contrasting erroneous examples”) can influence student learning across a variety of domains (mathematics, medicine, science). The authors reviewed 40 studies and found that these approaches can enhance learning — especially by helping students grasp both what not to do (negative knowledge) and what to do (positive knowledge) — but the benefits depend strongly on how the errors are used, what scaffolding (prompts, feedback) is provided, how complex the task is, and how much prior knowledge the learner has.

Don’t Just Learn It, Apply It.

Why should you care about a 1980 study on analogies? Because it still explains why students don’t always transfer what they’ve learned to new situations—and what we can do about it.

In this classic paper, Mary Gick and Keith Holyoak showed that people often fail to apply a known solution from one context (like a military story) to another (a medical problem) unless they’re cued to see the connection.

New Meta-Analysis Probes Technology’s Link to Cognitive Aging

In this meta-analysis, researchers found that use of digital technologies was associated with a reduced risk of cognitive impairment and reduced rates of cognitive decline, even when controlling for demographics, SES, and health. Of course, correlation is not causation, so there may be other underlying factors. However, the good news is that technology does not rot your brain! Those that had the best outcomes used technology for more cognitively demanding tasks versus scrolling through social media. It’s not the tool; it’s how you use it.

Improve Learning

Did you know that asking students to intentionally make a mistake and correct it can actually improve their learning? A recent study had students either restudy material by underlining key information, write down what they remember after a lesson, or create and correct plausible conceptual errors.