The science of reading is trending. In the past few years, more than 40 states passed new laws mandating evidence-based curriculum and instruction, more than half a million American schoolteachers participated in LETRS professional development, and Google searches for the term grew nearly fivefold.
This widespread embrace of research-backed curriculum and instruction—by policymakers, education leaders, and practitioners in schools and classrooms—is great news. It has sharpened our focus as a country on what students need to become strong readers, writers, and thinkers, and helped more teachers have access to high-quality instructional materials aligned with grade-level expectations and evidence-based practice.
But access isn’t enough. Implementing new materials and evidence-based instructional practices is the challenge educators now face. That’s where another “science” comes in: the science of learning, a broad base of evidence grounded in decades of cognitive science research exploring how our minds work and how students learn. As states, systems, and schools implement new literacy materials and deepen a still-early conversation about math instruction, learning science should be at the core, serving as a unifying framework to support teacher instructional decision-making and accelerate student progress across all content areas.
While many educators have had some exposure to key ideas from the science of learning, connecting those principles to sound classroom practice is not obvious, or easy. My organization, Deans for Impact, has worked with nearly 300 teacher-preparation programs to ground new teachers’ instruction in the science of learning. Based on that work, and on countless classroom observations and conversations with educators, we recently updated our foundational 2015 report The Science of Learning. We aim to help educators ground instructional decisions in our best scientific understanding of how students learn—including by identifying potential pitfalls where well-intentioned teachers may stumble.
Pitfall #1: Motivation, encouragement, and care guarantee learning
“If I could just motivate them, I know my students can learn this! Don’t they know I care? Can’t they see me trying to make this relevant!?” rings in my ears like the rallying cry of Braveheart, if he were an aspiring teacher reflecting on their lessons for the week. Now, this isn’t all wrong—learning science tells us that motivation can drive effort. But effort does not necessarily equate to learning. Learning depends on acquiring and practicing knowledge and skills.
To effectively motivate students, teachers must understand that cheerleading isn’t enough. Motivation grows when students experience success, and it can fade if students aren’t actually getting better. Teachers can build and sustain motivation by breaking complex tasks into manageable steps, providing models and guided practice, and sequencing tasks so success is likely early on.
That means more than just fostering environments defined by encouragement and care—though that is an important first step in supporting student learning. Teachers can provide students with appropriate practice, resources, and effective strategies to engage meaningfully with the content. This benefits students in two ways: first, they feel motivated and encouraged to succeed initially; and second, they also develop the knowledge and skills they need to deeply understand a concept and sustain their motivation to learn over time.
Pitfall #2: Assuming that retrieval practice is all about implementing good routines
Over the last few years, I have seen a positive shift in aspiring teachers’ understanding of the importance of having their students engage in more practice to build durable learning, through practices like entry tickets, where students write down what they remember from the previous lesson, or think-pair-share, where students discuss what they recall from a lesson with a partner. When done well, retrieval practice can provide students with essential opportunities to access knowledge from their memory, connect it to new ideas, and strengthen those connections to support deeper learning.
But all too often, I observe aspiring teachers and those that support them relying on a strong routine in the name of “retrieval practice” that doesn’t actually include effective practice. In fact, I have asked several aspiring teachers how they think about retrieval practice and many respond simply that they know practice is important so they use routines like Do Nows at the start of each class. When pushed to tell me what makes these retrieval opportunities effective, they struggle, providing responses that focus on the importance of the routine and using it consistently, rather than the substance of what is being practiced within that routine.
Teachers should not rely on routines for the sake of routines, or assume that having a routine practice opportunity is enough. Learning science research identifies what makes practice effective: it is varied and spaced out over time, requires students to explicitly recall knowledge from memory, and prompts students to think effortfully about the focus content.
Such practice is taught through multiple modalities, builds on itself, and adds practice with new skills to previously learned content. When it comes to retrieval practice, teachers should leverage routines that ensure retrieval practice is a protected and regular part of their practice. But the thinking students are asked to do in the context of that routine must be effortful, focused on recall rather than recognition, spaced over time, paired with feedback, and connected to meaningful content if that practice is going to support learning.
The science of learning is not a slogan, a checklist, or a new vocabulary set. It is a tool for sharpening instructional judgment; and just like anything in education, the devil is in the details. As educators work to ground their instruction in the science of learning, we want them to have a clear mental model of what it both does and does not look like. The potential for positive change inspires us—along with the hardworking, committed, and caring teachers who can help put the “sciences” to their best use.
Tracey Weinstein is Vice President for Growth and Impact at Deans for Impact.