Today’s the day! We’re releasing the first episode of “Literacy and the Science of Learning”—the start of the the Knowledge Matters Podcast Season 3.
Check out episode 1: “Dylan Wiliam on How the Brain Learns”!
Led by hosts Dylan Wiliam, Doug Lemov, and Natalie Wexler, this season is shaping up to be an absolute blockbuster. It features more than a dozen well-known experts in cognitive science and educational psychology, along with teachers and school leaders using science-informed approaches in their schools. New episodes of Season 3 will be released every Tuesday for the next five weeks.
Across six 30-minute weekly episodes, “Literacy and the Science of Learning” wrestles with two big questions: What happens in the brain when we read and write? And, how does that matter for teaching and learning?
The hosts—all of whom have written new books on the topic—flip the script when it comes to learning. In accessible conversations and detailed, real-world examples, they show that learning is not the result of applying general “thinking” skills and just Googling information. Rather, it is generated from specific knowledge stored in long-term memory and accessed efficiently when needed.
In Episodes 1 and 2, Dylan Wiliam goes deep on cognitive load and how strategies like interleaving and spacing can boost long-term memory and student learning. Episode 1 is out today!
In Episodes 3 and 4, Doug Lemov discusses fluency and the value in reading whole books, with a focus on fostering empathy and connectedness by reading books together.
And in Episodes 5 and 6, Natalie Wexler dives into the power of writing to support comprehension, knowledge retention, and critical thinking, including specific strategies that support students in thinking and communicating clearly about what they’re learning.
Understanding how students learn, remember, and access what they’ve learned has broad implications—both for K–12 education and individual teachers’ daily decision-making. These curriculum and literacy experts bring cognitive science to the fore in concrete conversations with actionable insights for policymakers, education leaders, and classroom instruction.