How Learning Works: Learning Science for Digital Teaching

Translate durable findings from learning science into practical digital-teaching choices around prior knowledge, retrieval, spacing, explanation, metacognition, motivation and transfer.

• Start from what learners already know — New learning is interpreted through existing knowledge, which can support understanding or create misconceptions.
• Retrieve important learning and space it over time — Re-reading can feel fluent, while effortful retrieval reveals what can actually be produced from memory and strengthens future access.
• Move between examples, explanation and independent problem solving — Novices often learn more effectively when examples make hidden reasoning visible before they are expected to solve complex problems independently.
• Help learners monitor understanding with evidence — Learners can feel confident because material looks familiar; metacognition improves when they use evidence to plan, monitor and evaluate learning.
• Design for motivation, context and transfer — Learning is more likely to transfer when learners understand relationships deeply, encounter varied contexts and see meaningful reasons to use the knowledge.