A student prepares for tomorrow's big test by rereading a chapter on the War of 1812 and by highlighting every name, date, and passage that strikes her. The next day she remembers her facts, and she gets the B she was aiming for. But the following week, she can't tell you much about the war—except that she thinks it happened in 1812.
A teacher helps a struggling reader with the words he misses by stopping him every time he stumbles. She's trying to guide him to look more closely and hear the sounds in his head. But other than recognizing a few more words, the student doesn't improve much and is beginning to hate reading.
Most teachers recognize these practices—and have most likely engaged in them at some point. Cramming and hovering do work—if only for the short term. They are based on commonsense ways of thinking, but they don't actually take into consideration some of the more fundamental principles of learning and teaching.
This issue of Educational Leadership addresses the question, How do students learn for the long term? Our authors' research-based answers, although familiar enough, also pack some surprises.
Ultimately, learning is personal. As our lead author Daniel T. Willingham writes, much of what we learn depends upon ourselves. The act of highlighting text does help us remember because we must choose what to focus on. But if we go further and think deeply about the meaning of what we read, see, or experience, that understanding is more likely to stay with us for a longer time. If we puzzle over something enough and get corrective but supportive feedback, that learning may stick with us for a lifetime. Getting all students into a state of active engagement with the content is what makes teaching so complex.
Learning must make sense to the learner. In examining the most effective ways of teaching reading, Richard Allington notes that good readers pay attention to making sense. Thus, the more effective teaching practices involve asking higher-order questions, engaging students in discussion, and asking students to respond in writing to high-level questions. Instead of trivial, low-level interrogation techniques, effective teachers make literate conversations the aim.
Learning goals must be transparent. Knowing what and why you are learning something can make the difference in long-term learning. "If the teacher is the only one who understands where learning should be headed, students are flying blind," Susan Brookhart and Connie Moss note. They outline how to line up a "parade of learning targets" that shows how today's lesson builds on yesterday's and leads to tomorrow's.
See Robert Slavin's update on cooperative learning to learn how important it is for students to know both their group's goal and their own. Having study buddies is important, and so is knowing that your role in the group is vital to its success.
Learning involves "desirable difficulty." In the struggle to make something our own, we learn. Thus, as Henry L. Roediger III tells us, practicing a set of mixed problems is preferable to working many similar problems together because mixed practice requires more thinking. Comparing works by Degas, Cassatt, and Renoir makes you think harder about the art of each than does memorizing lists of characteristics of Impressionist paintings. And tests don't have to be the enemy of learning. In fact, frequent low-stakes quizzes and self-testing can enhance the process of learning. We've all been in the position of feeling we've understood what we've read only to realize we are stuck when we attempt to explain something out loud.
Timing matters. As Bryan Goodwin reminds us, the answer to the question of which strategy works best at any given moment depends on where the student is in the learning process and what the teacher and learner are trying to accomplish. The teacher still has to engage in do-it-yourself learning about what is working in his or her own classroom.
The strategies in this issue are not the only solutions—and they're certainly not the simplest ones. If all learning is do-it-yourself, another adage also holds true: The best teachers are learners. We hope the insights from these authors guide you in your long-term understanding of how students learn—and how you can better teach them.
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