Volume IV: What works, what matters, what lasts

Considering how students learn

January 9

A letter to students about learning styles
Read over the following descriptions and try to identify your learning style, and consider the suggestions of ways you can help yourself when mismatches occur, so that you can make the most of your educational experiences.
A perspective: Linking insights about how people learn to curricular reform
After participating in the PKAL 2003 Assembly, Linking Insights About How People Learn to Curricular Reform, I offer some characteristics of an institution (college or university) that is having demonstrable success in linking insights about how people learn into the work of curricular transformation.
Addressing one American Psychological Association goal for student learning
A report of departmental efforts to implement a curriculum assessment strategy.
Characteristics of successful STEM education innovators
Millar suggests that the habits of designing courses with a "we're in this together" attitude is one key personality feature of successful STEM innovators.
How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School
This seminal NRC report explores "how learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain, how existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn; ...and the relationship of classroom learning and everyday settings of community and workplace.
Realizing a Learner-Centered Environment
An Essay
Research from the field of cognitive science provides one answer to two fundamental questions facing today's leaders intent on creating a learner-centered environment: 1) why is such an environment needed; 2) how can such an environment be realized?
Using the principles of cognitive science and learning theories to enhance learning and teaching
"We have powerful models of human learning that we can use as a guide for the redesign of higher education– and higher education needs to be redesigned because, like it or not, virtually every variable in the higher education equation is changing at a rapidly accelerating rate."