Oct 29, 2026 · 58 min · 14 segments
Technology promised to revolutionise education. But what if it's doing the opposite?In this provocative conversation, Danny Jaber sits down with neuroscientist, educator and author Dr Jared Cooney…
Danny JaberHost
Okay, I'll tell you what, we've delved into cognitive science already, so let's start there.
And as a system, Max, we've made a lot of headway over the last couple of years with a really broad general understanding of the science of learning, of the memory model, how cognition works.
So all those layers, I feel like we've made a lot of progress in a very short amount of time as well.
From your perspective then... what does it actually mean for us to be considerate of cognitive sciences in the classroom? And kind of a jumping question to that is, how as schools can we ensure that we are not only being protective of cognition in the classroom, but also being mindful of other interactive kind of elements that might get in the way?
And so if we start at just the beginning, how can we be mindful, aware of what cognition is and how it kind of works? I think that's the big why is...
There's a mistake of taking science of learning and assuming that that is the craft of teaching without realizing that, no, it's the underlying why things work the way they do without being dictatorial.
So the more we focus, I think there's a tendency to take something like retrieval practice and say, do this, do this, do this, do this.
And you'll see some teachers are like, okay, and some teachers are like, don't tell me what to do.
But if you just take the next step underneath and say, here's how memory works.
then they are more likely to say, well, would that mean that when I teach, should maybe I do this? You go, I don't know.
It's very tempting to just take science of learning and say, therefore, teach like this.
Why do things work the way they do? What is executive functioning? How does that kind of work? That's going to give you much more freedom within structure to start making decisions relevant to you and your class, your context, your unique school.
But beyond that, then recognize, yeah, there are patterns to learning, which means there are gonna be negative patterns to learning.
And if you are making decisions that go against learning, We got to stop making those decisions.
Okay, I'll tell you what, we've delved into cognitive science already, so let's start there.
And as a system, Max, we've made a lot of headway over the last couple of years with a really broad general understanding of the science of learning, of the memory model, how cognition works.
So all those layers, I feel like we've made a lot of progress in a very short amount of time as well.
From your perspective then... what does it actually mean for us to be considerate of cognitive sciences in the classroom? And kind of a jumping question to that is, how as schools can we ensure that we are not only being protective of cognition in the classroom, but also being mindful of other interactive kind of elements that might get in the way?
And so if we start at just the beginning, how can we be mindful, aware of what cognition is and how it kind of works? I think that's the big why is...
There's a mistake of taking science of learning and assuming that that is the craft of teaching without realizing that, no, it's the underlying why things work the way they do without being dictatorial.
So the more we focus, I think there's a tendency to take something like retrieval practice and say, do this, do this, do this, do this.
And you'll see some teachers are like, okay, and some teachers are like, don't tell me what to do.
But if you just take the next step underneath and say, here's how memory works.
then they are more likely to say, well, would that mean that when I teach, should maybe I do this? You go, I don't know.
It's very tempting to just take science of learning and say, therefore, teach like this.
Why do things work the way they do? What is executive functioning? How does that kind of work? That's going to give you much more freedom within structure to start making decisions relevant to you and your class, your context, your unique school.
But beyond that, then recognize, yeah, there are patterns to learning, which means there are gonna be negative patterns to learning.
And if you are making decisions that go against learning, We got to stop making those decisions.
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