Learning is a Skill: Why do we keep it a secret? An Interview with Mark McDaniel.

Teaching for Student Success

Dr. Mark McDaniel of Washington University, author of “Make It Stick”, discusses learning and the importance of recognizing that learning is a skill. A skill that can and should be learned, a skill that can and should be taught.

A variety of researchers study how people learn. There are reams of data about the effectiveness of various learning strategies. We have evidence about which strategies are more effective than others. We certainly don’t know everything there is to know about learning, but we know quite a bit and this knowledge can and should help students succeed.

Yet We enroll students in schools and we expect students to learn without ever teaching them effective strategies for learning.
Why are we keeping these strategies a secret? Why do we expect our students, our children, to discover effective strategies for learning on their own?

In this episode, Dr. McDaniel will discuss a new proposal, a new framework for how we might teach students to learn and how to apply this knowledge about learning, giving our students, all students, our children, all children, the skills they need to learn efficiently and effectively.

If you are interested in how you can really help your students succeed, how you can help your students become life-long learners, how you can help your students learn the SKILLS needed for learning, then please, listen to this episode.