Putting Learning First: How Students Learn and How Technology Can Help
April 2013
This year’s series of reports on teaching and technology has compared face-to-face, hybrid, and online learning formats and the pros and cons of each. The March 2013 report, “Innovators Among Us,” featured faculty experimenting with teaching techniques that employ technology to support student learning. Those 16 faculty members, as well as a number of those who responded to the reports through edtrends@uw.edu, stressed that technology is a tool for teaching, not an end in itself. “I have to figure out what is best to do via video and what is best to do face-toface. The answer depends on the goals of the class,” says Doug Wills, Associate Professor at the UW Tacoma Milgard School of Business. Even though students expect technology in the classroom, skilled instructors don’t select a tool and then decide how to use it. Instead, they focus on learning goals and then choose the best tool or technique for a specific situation, regardless of whether they teach fully online, without technology, or somewhere in between.
This final report focuses on research-based principles of how people learn and how technology can help. UW faculty, students, librarians, and academic technology experts recommend ways technology can support pedagogy-based teaching choices, and share resources that can help instructors select techniques and tools for face-to-face, hybrid, and online courses.
Research on how people learn and which conditions lead to deep understanding can help faculty choose the best tools, techniques, and approaches for teaching. This research has resulted in a number of ways to frame learning principles that, while different, share common elements. For this report, the UW Center for Teaching and Learning staff suggest using the following research-based principles adapted from How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching (Ambrose et al. 2010) and How People Learn (Bransford et al. 2000).2
Instructors can improve learning when they:
Make thinking visible because…
- Prior knowledge affects learning.
- How people organize their knowledge affects learning.
Motivate students because…
- Students need to be engaged in the subject to learn.
- Metacognition deepens learning and cultivates self-directed, lifelong learning.
Design the learning experience thoughtfully because…
- Students need scaffolding and deliberate practice to develop mastery.
- Students need a climate that fosters learning and inquiry.
- Feedback from instructors to students and students to instructors can enhance and support learning.
While these principles are familiar to experienced instructors and people interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning, applying these principles well within the context of emerging technologies, tools, and techniques is the work of a lifetime. There are always new ideas to discover and new techniques or technologies to try. As highlighted in the last report, UW faculty are continually experimenting to improve their teaching and student learning.3 Some faculty may focus on trying a single technique while others may choose an “informed eclectic” approach, incorporating a variety of methods in their teaching. Some experiment with a small change while others revamp an entire course. Regardless, these instructors have a common goal: to use research-based approaches to make thinking visible and motivate students through thoughtfully designed instruction.
April 2015 Feature Stories
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the UW faculty, students and staff who contributed their stories, and to the UW subject matter experts who lent their advice to this report series, including the CTL’s Beth Kalikoff, Theresa Ronquillo, and Karen Freisem; UW-IT’s Tom Lewis, Cara Giacomini, Cindy Brown, Kay Pilcher, and Alexis Raphael; UW Bothell’s David Goldstein and Andreas Brockhaus; and UW Tacoma’s Colleen Carmean and Darcy Janzen.
SERIES EDITORS
Gerald J. Baldasty, Senior Vice Provost for Academic and Student Affairs, Office of the Provost; Professor, Department of Communication
Marisa Nickle, Project Manager, Office of the Provost
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Brigid Nulty, Public Information Specialist, Office of the Provost
Elizabeth Barrett, Research Assistant, Office of the Provost
Kris Freeman, Public Information Specialist, Office of the Provost
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Kris Freeman, Public Information Specialist, Office of the Provost
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Filiz Efe, Multimedia Producer, Office of the Provost
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