21 Evidence‑Based Conclusions on How People Learn

The teaching theory is based on learning theory; without understanding how to learn well, it is hard to teach well. What are the scientific learning theories? Below are the important learning conclusions presented in the authoritative book Understanding How to Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Culture (edited by experts from the U.S. National Academies), totaling 21 items.

To help readers accurately grasp the conclusions, the author also located the English version to aid understanding (e.g., how to interpret the Chinese term “境脉”).

The 21 conclusions are classified into seven categories: cultural complexity, learning types and processes, knowledge and reasoning, learning motivation, implications for school learning, learning technologies, and lifelong learning .

文化的复杂影响

Conclusion 1: 每个学习者都会在生命进程中发展出独一无二的知识序列和认知资源，它们由学习者的文化、社会、认知及生物等境脉的相互作用所塑造。理解“人如何学习”，其核心在于 理解学习者在发展、文化、境脉和历史上的多样性 。

CONCLUSION 1: Each learner develops a unique array of knowledge and cognitive resources in the course of life that are molded by the interplay of that learner's cultural, social, cognitive, and biological contexts. Understanding the developmental, cultural, contextual, and historical diversity of learners is central to understanding how people learn.

学习的类型与过程

Conclusion 2: 个体学习者不断有意或无意地 整合多种类型的学习 ，以应对其遇到的情况和挑战。学习者整合学习功能的方式尤其所处的社会和物理环境所塑造，同时这也塑造了其未来的学习。

CONCLUSION 2: The individual learner constantly integrates many types of learning, both deliberately and unconsciously, in response to the challenges and circumstances he encounters. The way a learner integrates learning functions is shaped by his social and physical environment but also shapes his future learning.

Conclusion 3: 脑的发展贯穿于人的整个生命过程，遵循一条 人类大体一致的轨迹 ，但也会由于每个学习者的环境和经验而富于个性化。脑逐渐成熟，能够产生大量的复杂的认知功能，并且在面对挑战的适应中表现出神经学层面的可塑性。

CONCLUSION 3: The brain develops throughout life, following a trajectory that is broadly consistent for humans but is also individualized by every learner's environment and experiences. It gradually matures to become capable of a vast array of complex cognitive functions and is also malleable in adapting to challenges at a neurological level.

Conclusion 4: 脑发展与学习之间是互惠关系：学习是通过相互依赖的神经网络进行的，同时，学习与发展会涉及神经联结的持续塑造与重塑，以影响外界的刺激和需求。脑的发展影响个体的行为与学习，反过来，学习也影响脑的发展与健康。

CONCLUSION 4: The relationship between brain development and learning is reciprocal: learning occurs through interdependent neural networks, and at the same time learning and development involves the continuous shaping and reshaping of neural connections in response to stimuli and demands. Development of the brain influences behavior and learning, and in turn, learning influences brain development and brain health.

Conclusion 5: 成功的学习需要协调多种认知过程，这些过程涉及大脑中的不同网络。为了协调这些过程， 个体需要能够监控和调节自身的学习 。监控和调节学习的能力在人的一生中都是不断发展变化的，并可通过干预措施加以改进。

CONCLUSION 5: Successful learning requires coordination of multiple cognitive processes that involve different networks in the brain. In order to coordinate these processes, an individual needs to be able to monitor and regulate his own learning. The ability to monitor and regulate learning changes over the life span and can be improved through interventions.

Conclusion 6: 记忆是大多数类型学习的重要基础。记忆涉及重建，而不单纯是提取经过编码的心智表征的精确副本。学习者所在的环境中的可用的线索对于其能够回忆的内容至关重要；这些线索也在学习者开始将新信息整合为知识的过程中发挥作用。

CONCLUSION 6: Memory is an important foundation for most types of learning. Memory involves reconstruction rather than retrieval of exact copies of encoded mental representations. The cues available in a learner's environment are critical for what she will be able to recall; they also play a role in the way the learner begins to integrate new information as knowledge.

知识与推理

Conclusion 7: 从事比较熟悉的活动时， 先前知识可以减少注意力需求 ，并且可以促进新的学习。然而， 先前知识也可能带来偏向 ，导致人们注意不到新的信息并依赖现有模式解决新问题。这些偏向只有通过有意识的努力才能被克服。

CONCLUSION 7: Prior knowledge can reduce the attentional demands associated with engaging in well-learned activities, and it can facilitate new learning. However, prior knowledge can also lead to bias by causing people to not attend to new information and to rely on existing schema to solve new problems. These biases can be overcome but only through conscious effort.

Conclusion 8: 学习者通常会 对他们正在积累的信息生成自己的新理解 ，并通过在片段之间建立逻辑联系来有效地扩展他们的知识。这种产生新理解的能力让学习者的意识用他们的知识来概括、分类、解决问题。

CONCLUSION 8: Learners routinely generate their own novel understanding of the information they are accumulating and productively extend their knowledge by making logical connections between pieces of information. This capacity to generate novel understanding allows learners to use their knowledge to generalize, categorize, and solve problems.

Conclusion 9: 有效学习策略包括帮助学生提取信息、 鼓励他们总结和解释正在学习的材料 ，以及对学习材料的呈现进行间隔安排和结构化。创建有组织的独特知识结构的有效策略是，鼓励学习者通过 精制 来超越显性材料本身，并通过在各种境脉中 调集和应用信息来 丰富他们对信息的理解。

CONCLUSION 9: The learning strategies for which there is evidence of effectiveness include ways to help students retrieve information and encourage them to summarize and explain material they are learning, as well as ways to space and structure the presentation of material. Effective strategies to create organized and distinctive knowledge structures encourage learners to go beyond the explicit material by elaborating and to enrich their mental representation of information by calling up and applying it in various contexts.

Conclusion 10: 学习策略的有效性受到学习者现有技能和先前知识、学习材料的性质及学习目标等境脉性因素的影响。因此，为了有效地应用这些策略，需要仔细考虑它们的特定机制如何对特定的学习者、场境和学习目标起到有利的作用。

CONCLUSION 10: The effectiveness of learning strategies is influenced by such contextual factors as the learner's existing skills and prior knowledge, the nature of the material, and the goals for learning. Applying these approaches effectively therefore requires careful thought about how their specific mechanisms could be beneficial for particular learners, settings, and learning objectives.

学习动机

Conclusion 11: 学习动机受个体为自己构建的多重目标的影响，这些目标源自于个体的生活与学校经历及学习发生的社会文化境脉。如果学校或学习环境能让学习者感受到“归属感”，并且当环境可以提升学习者的能动性和目标感时，各个年龄段的学习者的学习动机都能得到促进。

CONCLUSION 11: Motivation to learn is influenced by the multiple goals that individuals construct for themselves as a result of their life and school experiences and the sociocultural context in which learning takes place. Motivation to learn is fostered for learners of all ages when they perceive the school or learning environment is a place where they "belong" and when the environment promotes their sense of agency and purpose.

Conclusion 12: 教育工作者可以通过以下方式关注学习者的参与、坚持和表现，从而支持学习者的动机：

帮助他们根据表现来设定 理想的学习目标和适当的挑战性目标 ；

创造他们 所看重的学习经验 ；

支持他们的控制感和 自主性 ；

通过帮助他们认识、监控自己的学习过程并对学习过程进行策略制定来培养他们的胜任感；

创建有情感支持和 无威胁的学习环境 ，让学习者感到安全和受到重视。

CONCLUSION 12: Educators may support learners' motivation by attending to their engagement, persistence, and performance by:

helping them to set desired learning goals and appropriately challenging goals for performance;

creating learning experiences that they value;

supporting their sense of control and autonomy;

developing their sense of competency by helping them to recognize, monitor, and strategize about their learning progress; and

creating an emotionally supportive and nonthreatening learning environment where learners feel safe and valued.

对于学校学习的意蕴

Conclusion 13: 有效教学取决于对于以下三组因素的交互作用的理解：（1）学习者的先前知识、经验、动机、兴趣、语言、认知技能；（2）教育者自身的经验与文化影响；（3）学习环境的文化、社会、认知和情感特点。

CONCLUSION 13: Effective instruction depends on understanding of the complex interplay among learners' prior knowledge, experiences, motivations, interests, and language and cognitive skills; educators' own experiences and cultural influences; and the cultural, social, cognitive, and emotional characteristics of the learning environment.

Conclusion 14: 多种研究都表明以下方法 让学习者指导自己的学习的重要性 ：在发展元认知技能方面提供指向明确的反馈和支持，提供与学习者现有能力匹配良好的挑战机会，在确定和追求有意义的目标方面提供支持。

CONCLUSION 14: A disparate body of research points to the importance of engaging the learner in directing his own learning by, for example, providing targeted feedback and support in developing metacognitive skills, challenges that are well matched to the learner's current capacities, and support in setting and pursuing meaningful goals.

Conclusion 15: 越来越多的研究支持采取一种教育的资产模型，在这一模型中，课程和教学技术支持所有的学习者， 将他们的学术目标和他们的校外学习加以连接 ，这样，每一个学习者在多种场境中的学习经验和机会都能对其自身发挥作用。

CONCLUSION 15: A growing body of research supports adopting an asset model of education in which curricula and instructional techniques support all learners in connecting academic learning goals to the learning they do outside of school settings and through which learning experiences and opportunities from various settings are leveraged for each learner.

Conclusion 16: 有意识地教授某些学科（如科学、历史、数学） 特定的语言和实践方法 ，对于帮助学生发展对这些科目的深层理解至关重要。

CONCLUSION 16: Purposefully teaching the language and practices specific to particular disciplines, such as science, history, and mathematics, is critical to helping students develop deep understanding in these subjects.

Conclusion 17: 评价对于促进和监控学生的学校学习而言是一个关键的工具。如果以清晰定义的学习模型为基础，评价信息可以用于确定并缩小学生在学习和表现上的当前水平和期望水平之间的差距。

CONCLUSION 17: Assessment is a critical tool for advancing and monitoring students' learning in school. When grounded in well-defined models of learning, assessment information can be used to identify and subsequently narrow the gap between current and desired levels of students' learning and performance.

学习技术

Conclusion 18: 做出使用某种技术支持学习的决定应基于以下证据，这些证据要表明该技术在以下方面相似的情境中具有积极影响：

学习类型和学习目标；

学习者特征；

学习环境；

可能影响学习的社会和文化境脉特征；

为学习者和教育者使用该技术提供支持的程度。

CONCLUSION 18: The decision to use a technology for learning should be based on evidence indicating that the technology has a positive impact in learning situations that are similar with respect to:

the types of learning and goals for learning;

characteristics of the learners;

the learning environment;

features of the social and cultural context likely to affect learning; and

the level of support in using the technology to be provided to learners and educators.

Conclusion 19: 在正式教育和培训中，有效使用技术需要仔细规划实施方案，应考虑影响学习的所有已知因素。这些因素包括技术与学习目标的一致性、为教学者和学习者提供专业发展和其它支持、技术的平等获取机会。对学生学习的持续性评价以及对实施情况的评估，对于确保技术的某种特定使用达到最佳状态的识别所需改进十分重要。

CONCLUSION 19: Effective use of technologies in formal education and training requires careful planning for implementation that addresses factors known to affect learning. These factors include alignment of the technology with learning goals, provision of professional development and other supports for instructors and learners, and equitable access to the technology. Ongoing assessment of student learning and evaluation of implementation are critical to ensuring that a particular use of technology is optimal and to identifying needed improvements.

纵贯一生的学习

Conclusion 20: 人们在整个生命历程中不断学习和成长，他们的选择、动机、自我调节能力以及他们的境遇，会影响其学到多少，学得如何，也会影响其将学习向新情境迁移多少、迁移如何。

CONCLUSION 20: People continue to learn and grow throughout the life span, and their choices, motivation, and capacity for self-regulation, as well as their circumstances, influence how much and how well they learn and transfer their learning to new situations.

Conclusion 21: 人们通过积极投入自己所处环境中的许多场境而不断学习；在义务教育环境之外发生的学习受到学习者的动机、兴趣和机会的影响。从事工作（特别是有智力和社会性要求的复杂工作）、社会性参与、身体锻炼和充足的睡眠都与终生学习和健康老龄化有关。

CONCLUSION 21: People learn continually through active engagement across many settings in their environments; learning that occurs outside of compulsory educational environments is a function of the learner's motivation, interests, and opportunities. Engagement with work (especially complex work that involves both intellectual and social demands), social engagement, physical exercise, and adequate sleep are all associated with lifelong learning and healthy aging.

Readers can comment “如何学习” on the public account to obtain a link to the English version of the book.

Source: [US] Kola Bagley‑Marrett et al., edited by Pei Xinning, Wang Mei, Zheng Tainian, “Understanding How to Learn II”, Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 2021.