Gwinn Science Lecture

Dr. Pooja Agarwal served as the speaker for the 2025 William Edward Gwinn ’86 Memorial Science Lecture in February. Dr. Agarwal serves as a professor of psychological science at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass., and is a cognitive scientist focusing on how people learn. She is the author of Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning, which was read by a faculty book club ahead of Dr. Agarwal’s visit to Haverford. 

Dr. Agarwal spoke to faculty in Ball Auditorium, sharing ways to augment classroom teaching practices to ensure students retain content long after assessments are complete. She then spoke to Upper School students in Centennial Hall, focusing on effective and efficient studying strategies.

Throughout her visit, she relied on her extensive research and in-classroom experience to provide the community with new ways to teach and learn. 

Her discussion about retrieval practice, in particular, provided strategies for holding information for longer periods. For example, she said, many students spend time re-reading notes or cramming the night before big exams, but this doesn’t facilitate long-term memory of course concepts. This produces the ‘illusion of confidence,’ or short-term recall for the exam, but without fully learning the material. 

She encouraged the boys to use strategies such as spacing, or splitting up studying time over a few days, and more effective flashcard practice to ensure the material is understood. 

These strategies help with truly learning concepts and mentally preparing for exams. Dr. Agarwal’s research has shown that 72% of students say retrieval practices such as these reduce test anxiety. 

Dr. Agarwal offered easy ways to encourage retrieval practices in classrooms. She encouraged teachers to ask their students ‘what did we learn yesterday?’ or ‘write down two things you learned during class today,” with no grading or assessment attached. This offers a low-stakes, but highly effective way of ensuring students are using their retrieval skills. 

Teachers were familiar with Dr. Agarwal’s research after spending the first half of the school year reading her book and joining cross-divisional discussion groups to discuss her work.

View photos from her visit