Start here for critical topics to build up your learning experience
Assessments that include the role of critical thinking and self-regulation
Covering inquiry-based and mastery learning techniques
Encourage students to work together using peer tutoring and collaboration
Diving deeper into the spaces our students learn including personalized learning, simulations, and mobile learning
These include tactics to help instructors succeed using proven methods
Instructional alignment is an essential characteristic of any effective learning experience. The presence of instructional alignment positively impacts learning. Instructional alignment is also a significant and necessary prerequi...
Sound assessment item or instrument design, including their development, administration, and ongoing validation practices, are essential to yielding accurate information regarding what learners know, think, and can do at various t...
Learning object design is integral to effective digital learning environments, especially adaptive learning environments. From a learning design perspective, a learning object is the smallest independent structural experience that...
Formative assessment is a critical component of a comprehensive assessment strategy as it supports student learning by providing timely, specific feedback to learners and instructors at meaningful points during the learning experi...
Feedback is “information provided [as ‘a consequence of performance’] by an agent (e.g., teacher, peer, book, parent, self, experience) regarding aspects of one’s performance and understanding” (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Research...
Learner attributes are the various pieces of data that inform us about who our learners are. These attributes may provide valuable insights about how learners learn and how we can individualize their instruction to better suit tho...
Metacognition is “...thinking about the contents and processes of one’s mind.” (Winne & Azevedo, 2014, p. 126). Metacognitive awareness as a function of metacognitive regulation is a strong predictor of academic performance and ac...
Scaffolding enables not only the performance of a task more complex than the learner could handle alone, but enables learning to come from that experience (Reiser & Tabak, 2014). It also facilitates critical thinking skills, metac...
Self regulated learning (SRL) is made up of instructional processes and learning strategies aligned to supporting both the will and skill elements of students’ abilities to manage and improve their own learning process....
Critical thinking is “...purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of...the considerations upon which that judgment is based...” (Facione, 199...
Digital videos can be used for both instruction and at various points in the assessment process. The following areas are well-supported by educational research: ...
Sequencing is the efficient ordering of content in such a way as to help the learner achieve the objectives. Sequencing of instruction is important because it directly impacts how we learn and how we feel about learning. It affect...
“Memory is the means by which we draw on our past experiences in order to use this information in the present.” (Sternberg, 1999). “Human memory is the continuously active system that receives, modifies, stores, retrieves, and act...
Creative thinking can be defined as a metacognitive process of thinking about and generating novel or useful associations or ideas with the purpose of producing a plan, generating a solution, or identifying a model, pattern, proce...
Competency-based education (CBE) is an education model that “focuses on the demonstration and application of learning, rather than on the time spent taking courses” or generally any approach that “substitutes the [direct] assessme...
Exploratory data visualizations can be used to identify curves, lines, trends, and outliers, to reveal new information about the data. Explanatory data visualizations can be used to present information visually from data that coul...
Information literacy (IL) is the ability to recognize when information is needed and having the ability to locate, evaluate, and effectively use the needed information. ”The availability of information is extensive and offered thr...
Transfer refers to how past learning influences current and future learning, and how past or current learning is applied or adapted to similar or novel situations (Haskell, 2001). Transfer is the ultimate aim of education, as ensu...
Cognitive load theory relates to the capacity of working memory and its effect on long-term memory schema acquisition. Cognitive load is divided into three categories: intrinsic load, extraneous load, and germane load. Intrinsic ...
Cognitive load theory relates to the capacity of working memory and its effect on long-term memory schema acquisition. Cognitive load is divided into three categories: intrinsic load, extraneous load, and germane load. Extraneous ...
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a set of guidelines for developing need meeting goals, methods, materials, and assessments in learning, customizing and adjusting to individual learner needs, reducing barriers to learning, a...
Readability involves much more than a grade level. When designed and implemented correctly, readability can increase learners’ comprehension, increase learners’ level of engagement, and decrease learners’ extraneous cognitive load...
Goal setting has been shown to have a strong impact on successful performance in learning environments. Through creating challenging goals for learners and allowing learners to incorporate their own goals into the learning process...
Worked examples provide novice learners with an expert’s solution to a problem. Typically, the solution is presented as a step-by-step problem-solving process that can be applied to similar future problems. Worked examples consist...
Mastery refers to the ability of a learner to demonstrate understanding in a domain as well as the process of incorporating corrective scaffolds such as feedback into the learning environment to help bring about that understanding...
Problem-based learning is the active approach to learning in which learners collaborate in understanding and solving complex, ill-structured problems (Barrows, 2000; Savery, 2006)....
Grit is “perseverance and passion for long-term goals” that occurs in a person at the trait level (i.e. a relatively stable characteristic rather than a temporary mood) (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009, p. 166). Although research on grit ...
“Inquiry-based learning describes an environment in which learning is driven by a process of inquiry owned by the student. Starting with a scenario and with the guidance of a facilitator, students identify their own issues and que...
Writing to learn encompasses an instructional method for evoking self-regulated learning, critical thinking, and, depending on the implementation, collaborative learning. Writing to learn essentially involves a well-constructed wr...
Research clearly demonstrates that the outcomes of collaborative learning are superior to cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning (Goodyear, Jones, & Thompson, 2014; Hattie, 2008; Johnson & Johnson, 1999, 2008; Slav...
Peer tutoring refers to the act of a learner or learners engaging in prescribed role taking as tutor or tutee to facilitate peer learning (Salkind, 2008). Upon appropriate implementation, there is evidence to suggest peer tutoring...
Pedagogical agents are life-like animated characters that are embedded in instructional applications to support learning. Agents may be used to help stimulate social interactions with learners in a way that facilitates learning th...
Argumentation is the means by which we rationally resolve questions, issues, and disputes, and solve problems. Embedding and fostering argumentative activities in learning environments promotes productive ways of thinking, concept...
SCL is an “environment that allows learners to take some real control over their educational experience and encourages them to make important choices about what and how they will learn” (Doyle, 2008. p. xv)....
Research into adaptive learning has shown positive impact on learning, especially within micro-adaptive systems which have been demonstrated to be almost as effective as a human tutor (VanLehn, 2011). Adaptive learning technologie...
Mobile learning is defined as supports for people learning on the move in personal learning settings, such as on a phone or tablets, as well as in public learning settings, such as museums. The mobile context permits deeper constr...
Learner motivation can impact multiple dimensions of a learning experience, including the quality of learning, academic performance, involvement in activities, task choices, and persistence (Eccles, 1983; Pintrich, 2003). Thus, le...
Over the past 25 years the use of simulations has been found to be engaging as learning and assessment tools (Behrens, DiCerbo, & Ferrara, 2012; Gegenfurtner, Quesada-Pallarès, & Knogler, 2014; Mitchell & Savell-Smith, 2004; Pai-H...
Well-designed games include features that make them intrinsically motivating and thus engaging (Fullerton, 2008; Malone & Lepper, 1987; Shute, Rieber, & Van Eck, 2011). Some of the features of good games include adaptive challenge...
Authentic learning involves using real-world problems to encourage open-ended inquiry, and social and self-directed learning. It results in something that can stand alone as a valuable product in its own right. Authentic learning ...
The near ubiquity of mobile devices in the general population has provided the technological tools to support seamless, just-in-time, lifelong learning applications. Mobile learning is a response to the proliferation of these devi...
As products developed in one locale get used in another, we have to carefully think through how this impacts the learning experience. Global learning design ensures products are built on well-researched learning principles, links ...
According to Fullan & Langworthy (2014), “the foundation of [instructor] quality is [an instructor’s] pedagogical capacity—their repertoire of teaching strategies and their ability to form partnerships with students in mastering t...
Learning strategies are the intentional use of one or more cognitive processes to accomplish a particular learning task. Tools and capabilities can be used to apply learning strategies appropriately and consistently. Research indi...
21st century learning is focused on helping learners develop the broad set of knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits necessary to succeed in the 21st century. A 2013 Pearson Foundation study found that students with ...