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Students learn best when…
1. They have opportunities
to learn important principles, methodologies, concepts, and theories
in diverse contexts and through multiple approaches.
Students acquire and process
information in a variety of ways. Diverse approaches and contexts
reinforce student learning.
2. A principle, skill, or
fact is retrieved or rehearsed repeatedly.
Future performance is stronger
if those episodes are spread over time and interwoven with the
retrieval of other items. The more often we rehearse, practice,
review, or use something that we've learned, the more easily
it will be retrieved.
3. They undergo frequent
and varied forms of evaluation.
These might include examinations,
papers, class discussion, comments on course Web sites, independent
projects, team projects, and supervised research. Even when taking
exams, students learn most when they encounter a variety of formats.
4. They generate the material
to be learned rather than passively receiving it.
Doing independent projects
or supervised research, writing papers, giving presentations,
framing issues anew, and meeting professors outside class are
more active than listening to teachers and taking tests.
The characteristics associated
with subject mastery include:
- small classes or small group
work;
- the encouragement of class
participation, original thought, and intellectual risk-taking;
- supervised research and written
assignments; and
- the freedom to challenge accepted
wisdom.
What works less well is:
- rote memorization,
- last-minute studying before
exams,
- little or no written and oral
communication, and
- subservience to accepted authority.
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