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Did I actually learn something, or do I just feel like I did?

Deslauriers et al. (2019) compared traditional lecture with active learning in an introductory physics course. Although students in the active sections learned more—as shown by higher performance on objective tests—they felt like they learned less. The authors argue that active learning requires more cognitive effort, which students may interpret as poor learning, while smooth lectures create an illusion of learning. This mismatch suggests that student perceptions alone (e.g., course evaluations) can be misleading when judging teaching effectiveness.

Feedback in your voice

Rubrics are handy tools for providing clear expectations and consistent feedback to learners, but students also welcome authentic feedback that sounds like it came from you. You can add your own “voice” through the commenting tool on the rubric in Brightspace or by adding multimedia feedback.

Choose your Assessment

The University of Kansas has a fantastic team supporting their CBE program, including a psychometrician (an expert in the measurement of mental capacities and processes) who developed a taxonomy of assessment types. While it is still in development, you can find the verb used in your learning outcome in the list in this database (such as Apply) and see helpful related information. This includes:

The Cognitive Challenges of Effective Teaching

Chew & Cerbin propose a research-based framework of nine interacting cognitive challenges that teachers must address in order to promote “optimal learning” rather than merely acceptable performance. They emphasize that teaching is not just delivering content but creating the conditions in which students learn. Each of the nine challenges represents a characteristic of how students think, learn, or struggle — the idea being that failure to address any one of these can undermine learning. The authors describe each challenge, provide examples, and suggest instructional strategies for mitigation.

The Science of Meaning

I had the pleasure of attending a session on the Science of Meaning with Dr. Todd Kashan from the Well-Being Lab at George Mason University. According to his research, the three primary drivers of meaning in life are: (1) coherence, (2) significance, and (3) purpose. How can you use this in your teaching?

Wrong answers, right learning: Using errors to deepen understanding

This systematic review examines how instructional materials that embed errors (so-called “erroneous examples”) or juxtapose incorrect and correct solutions (“contrasting erroneous examples”) can influence student learning across a variety of domains (mathematics, medicine, science). The authors reviewed 40 studies and found that these approaches can enhance learning — especially by helping students grasp both what not to do (negative knowledge) and what to do (positive knowledge) — but the benefits depend strongly on how the errors are used, what scaffolding (prompts, feedback) is provided, how complex the task is, and how much prior knowledge the learner has.