When faced with challenging thinking tasks accompanied by a feeling of uncertainty, people often prefer to opt out (e.g., replying "I don't know", seeking advice) over giving low-confidence responses. In professions with high-stakes decisions (e.g., judges, medical practitioners), opting out is generally seen as preferable to making…

The authors describe a research-based conceptual framework of how students learn that can guide the design, implementation, and troubleshooting of teaching practice. The framework consists of nine interacting cognitive challenges that teachers need to address to enhance student learning. These challenges include student mental mindset,…

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated unprecedented changes to teaching and learning in higher education. SoTL-active faculty were uniquely positioned to leverage their knowledge and expertise to improve teaching and learning during the pandemic not only in their own courses, but through a knowledge mobilization approach also in broader contexts…

The target articles in the special issue address a timely and important question concerning whether practice tests enhance learning of complex materials. The consensus conclusion from these articles is that the testing effect does not obtain for complex materials. In this commentary, I discuss why this conclusion is not warranted either by the…

The testing effect is a finding from cognitive psychology with relevance for education. It shows that after an initial study period, taking a practice test improves long-term retention compared to not taking a test and--more interestingly--compared to restudying the learning material. Boundary conditions of the effect that have received attention…

Problem solving, resilience, and self-reflection remain buzzwords in education. These skills and attributes--along with others that are often referred to as "deeper learning" skills--are key to students' college, career, and civic success. Yet the barriers to deeper learning in schools serving large numbers of diverse and high-poverty…

Monitoring and control over the process of studying the distance learning course are based on solving the problem of making out an adequate integral mark to the educatee for mastering entire study course, by testing results. It is suggested to use the degree of correspondence between educatee's thesaurus and the study course thesaurus as an…

Background: Language treatment for children with specific language impairment (SLI) often takes months to achieve moderate results. Interventions often do not incorporate the principles that are known to affect learning in unimpaired learners. Aims: To outline some key findings about learning in typical populations and to suggest a model of how…

The Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS) promotes standards to enhance opportunities for student learning and development from higher education programs and services. Responding to the increased shift in attention being paid by educators and their stakeholders from higher education inputs (i.e., standards and…