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ASK THE COGNITIVE SCIENTIST What Is Developmentally Appropriate Practice? How does the mind work—and especially how does it learn?

Teachers’ instructional decisions are based on a mix of theories learned in teacher education, trial and error, craft knowledge, and gut instinct.

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Such gut knowledge often serves us well, but is there anything sturdier to rely on? Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field of researchers from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, and anthropology who seek to understand the mind.

In this regular American Educator column, we consider findings from this field that are strong and clear enough to merit classroom application. By Daniel T. Willingham W ILLUSTRATED BY NENAD JAKESEVIC hat is “developmentally appropriate practice”?

For many teachers, I think the definition is that school activities should be matched to children’s abilities—they should be neither too difficult nor too easy, g