Quick actionable summaries from the research on teaching and learning.
Why should you care about a 1980 study on analogies? Because it still explains why students don鈥檛 always transfer what they鈥檝e learned to new situations鈥攁nd what we can do about it.
In this classic paper, Mary Gick and Keith Holyoak showed that people often fail to apply a known solution from one context (like a military story) to another (a medical problem) unless they鈥檙e cued to see the connection.
This is a piece of my own research I conducted with Teri St. Pierre and others that is very relevant to designing YourPace courses. To understand the experience of academically high achieving working mothers in distance education, we interviewed and … Read More
In this meta-analysis, researchers found that use of digital technologies was associated with a reduced risk of cognitive impairment and reduced rates of cognitive decline, even when controlling for demographics, SES, and health. Of course, correlation is not causation, so there may be other underlying factors. However, the good news is that technology does not rot your brain! Those that had the best outcomes used technology for more cognitively demanding tasks versus scrolling through social media. It’s not the tool; it’s how you use it.
Every year, Quality Matters and EDUCAUSE collaborate on a survey and research report called The Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE). Some key findings in the latest report released in August 2025:
Did you know that asking students to intentionally make a mistake and correct it can actually improve their learning? A recent study had students either restudy material by underlining key information, write down what they remember after a lesson, or create and correct plausible conceptual errors.