The APA-supported Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education has condensed the most important psychological science on PreK–12 teaching and learning into 20 principles:
- Students' beliefs or perceptions about intelligence and ability affect their cognitive functioning and learning.
- What students already know affects their learning.
- Students' cognitive development and learning are not limited by general stages of development.
- Learning is based on context, so generalizing learning to new contexts is not spontaneous but instead needs to be facilitated.
- Acquiring long-term knowledge and skill is largely dependent on practice.
- Clear, explanatory and timely feedback to students is important for learning.
- Students' self-regulation assists learning, and self-regulatory skills can be taught.
- Student creativity can be fostered.
- Students tend to enjoy learning and perform better when they are more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated to achieve.
- Students persist in the face of challenging tasks and process information more deeply when they adopt mastery goals rather than performance goals.
- Teachers' expectations about their students affect students' opportunities to learn, their motivation and their learning outcomes.
- Setting goals that are short-term (proximal), specific and moderately challenging enhances motivation more than establishing goals that are long-term (distal), general and overly challenging.
- Learning is situated within multiple social contexts.
- Interpersonal relationships and communication are critical to both the teaching-learning process and the social-emotional development of students.
- Emotional well-being influences educational performance, learning and development.
- Expectations for classroom conduct and social interaction are learned and can be taught using proven principles of behavior and effective classroom instruction.
- Effective classroom management is based on (a) setting and communicating high expectations, (b) consistently nurturing positive relationships and (c) providing a high level of student support.
- Formative and summative assessments are both important and useful but require different approaches and interpretations.
- Students' skills, knowledge and abilities are best measured with assessment processes grounded in psychological science with well-defined standards for quality and fairness.
- Making sense of assessment data depends on clear, appropriate and fair interpretation.
To download the report, visit APA. To order a hard copy, email Maie Lee.