How Learning Works: Eight Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching

As educators in the ever-evolving landscape of higher education, we are continuously challenged to keep our courses effective, engaging, relevant, and inclusive. The updated and expanded second edition of How Learning Works can help! It incorporates the latest research, provides a wider range of strategies, and adds a new principle to your toolkit.

Readers will find eight essential learning principles that distill the overwhelming research literature into:

• Real-world teaching and learning scenarios
• Examples that reflect a diverse set of teaching environments and learner populations
• 150 practical strategies you can apply to your teaching context

With these practical, broadly applicable insights, you can:

• Understand why your successful teaching approaches work
• Solve common teaching and learning problems
• Adapt your teaching to new modalities (e.g., online, hybrid) and challenges
• Ground your innovations in evidence-based practice

Based on research from cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, education, anthropology, and more―this book makes learning work…for you and your students.

Marsha C. Lovett, PhD, is Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning Innovation and a Teaching Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University.

Michael W. Bridges, PhD, is Executive Director of the University Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Pittsburgh.

Michele DiPietro, PhD, is Executive Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and a Professor in the School of Data Science and Analytics at Kennesaw State University.

Susan A. Ambrose, DA, is retired from Northeastern University, where she was Senior Vice Chancellor for Educational Innovation and a Professor of Education and History.

Marie K. Norman, PhD, is Director of the Innovative Design for Education and Assessment (IDEA) Lab and Associate Professor of Medicine and Clinical and Translational Science at the University of Pittsburgh.