Learning Principles
The following principles are drawn from How Learning Works, a compendium of current, well-supported research on what we know about learning. These principles are applicable across all disciplines and learning contexts, and are intended to illuminate why certain approaches to teaching support student learning.
- Students’ prior knowledge can help or hinder learning.
- How students organize knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know.
- Students’ motivation determines, directs, and sustains what they do to learn.
- To develop mastery, students must acquire component skills, practice integrating them, and know when to apply what they have learned.
- Goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback enhances the quality of students’ learning.
- Students’ current level of development interacts with the social, emotional, and intellectual climate of the course to impact learning.
- To become self-directed learners, students must learn to monitor and adjust their approaches to learning.
For a succinct but more detailed summary of these principles, read more here, or borrow the book from the DCAL Lending Library.
Citation: Ambrose, S. A. et al. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.