How Learning Works: 8 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching
Our teaching is only as good as the learning it produces. As experts in our respective
fields, we already possess deep content knowledge, but that is only half of the story.
What we try to pass on to students has to be interpreted and processed through their
filters, often with unpredictable and surprising results. Therefore, the biggest investment
we can make to enhance our teaching is to understand the learning process in order
to tailor our efforts to produce maximal learning. Learning science is a very interdisciplinary
field, drawing from cognitive, motivational, and developmental psychology; education;
organizational and group learning; diversity and inclusion studies; and several other
disciplinary perspectives. Lovett, Bridges, DiPietro, Ambrose, and Norman (2023) reviewed
the literature on learning published over the course of the past 60+ years and organized
it into eight principles that can guide us in our teaching.