Principles¶

Research-backed design commitments: what to do and why.

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In Review¶

Jump to: A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W

A¶

Accessible Vocabulary & Syntax - For a learner whose failure on a content task may be linguistic rather than conceptual, removing avoidable wording barriers while explicitly teaching the few essential terms is expected to improve comprehension of the taught material, with weak evidence for transfer to authentic texts or delayed retention.
Activation - For learners whose relevant prior knowledge is accurate and is then used by the instruction that follows, an activity that makes it visible before instruction may improve comprehension or retention, while activating topic knowledge alone has often shown little effect and activated misconceptions need confronting.
Active Learning - For learners meeting new material in a course, class time spent generating, explaining or applying the content with feedback, rather than only listening, is expected to raise course-end exam and concept-inventory scores, qualified by guidance for novices, the kind of engagement and what else changed with the format.
Adaptive Learning - When learners on a cumulative, decomposable task start from different observed responses, choosing each next task, hint or check from the learner's own recent responses (rather than one fixed path) may improve aligned achievement, conditional on how well the responses diagnose the learner, what the adaptation changes, and whether support is withdrawn as performance grows.
Adopt humanistic and radical approaches so adult learners develop as individuals and can question social injustice - For adult learners, a course in which the educator hears and answers views unlike their own, brings social events in as material to question and leaves action to the learner is expected to strengthen learners' sense of voice, systemic accounts of social problems and readiness to act, but no claim in the wiki tests this, and the one controlled survey found more frequent discussion did not predict more critical reflection.
Always report and interpret effect sizes alongside p values for primary outcomes - For anyone writing or reading an evaluation of an instructional intervention, reporting a standardized effect size with its interval, comparison and measure beside every p value, and reading it against effects for the same kind of outcome rather than a universal label, is expected to lead to better adopt-or-revise decisions than significance alone; no claim in the wiki tests that expectation, though claims show significance and size diverging, significance filtering inflating sizes, and sizes depending on the measure.
Analogical Reasoning - Comparing a new situation with a provided analogous case, prompted to find the shared relation and followed by the principle, is expected to help learners who do not yet see that structure transfer it to a near new case at a short horizon; analogies from a familiar source domain, far transfer and delayed effects are untested here.
Annotating - For readers of a demanding text, marking it may improve later performance on what was marked, while gains in comprehension are expected only from annotations that make the reader select, explain or question, and remain largely untested.
Ask Experts - For a novice or intermediate learner who brings a specific question or attempt to someone with more domain expertise, a consultation in which the expert has the learner explain first, responds with the least help that works, and does less across a series, followed by applying the advice, is expected to improve unaided performance on that task, though no claim here tests expert access as such.
Assessment for Learning - Assessment evidence gathered during instruction is expected to support learning when teacher and learner read it against shared criteria, under stakes that let partial understanding show, with a revision step before the outcome is judged.
Authentic Audiences & Purposes - For writing and project work, addressing a genuine reader beyond the teacher-as-grader is associated with higher-rated products in small comparisons, conditional on the audience being credible, the criteria explicit and support for revision present.
Autonomy - For a learner whose engagement is controlled by pressure or reward, meaningful choice within structure, a rationale for required work and non-controlling language are expected to sustain motivation and voluntary engagement; their effect on learning outcomes is small, inconsistent and depends on what the learner controls and when.

B¶

Build productive instructor-learner relationships so adults feel connected and take an active role in learning - For adult learners, deliberate early relationship work by the instructor (learning about each learner, greeting by name, stated working terms, a brief one-to-one, low-exposure participation before public, non-punitive responses to conflict) is expected to raise willingness to participate, raise needs and engage opposing arguments, but no claim in the wiki tests this for adults: the evidence is correlational syntheses and randomised tests of single moves in middle schools.
Building Empathy - For a learner forming an interpretation of another person or group, structured perspective-taking with concrete accounts and comparison of interpretations may improve attitudes towards that group, a relationship qualified by outcome, dose, target and horizon.
Bullying Prevention and Intervention - For school-age learners, a schoolwide plan kept for two or more years (one definition shared by all adults, supervised and organised unstructured times, rehearsed bystander and defender moves, several reporting routes including anonymous ones, and an incident response that protects the target, with separate steps for cyberbullying) is expected to reduce bullying and fear of it more than a response aimed only at the bully and target after incidents; trials of schoolwide behaviour, recess and restorative programmes test schoolwide action against comparison schools, but no claim tests the role-focused design or a cyberbullying response.

C¶

Character Education - For school-age and university learners, making ethical understanding, caring response and moral action part of everyday school life (shared conflict-resolution routines, class meetings, service tied to reflection, moral problems in specific situations across subjects) is expected to change behaviour and civic commitment more than a separate civic or moral course or rule recitation; WWC reviews test three branded programmes against usual practice, finding behaviour effects more often than attitude or achievement effects, but no claim tests the integrated form against a separate course.
Check-ins - A brief, recurring prompt for learners to report their state can guide the next instructional move, but only when the report is read as uncertain evidence, checked against performance where accuracy matters, and acted on.
Chunking - For a learner who cannot yet treat a task's elements as familiar units, presenting the material in meaningful units with boundaries at conceptual breaks, then recombining them, is expected to ease processing and may improve immediate performance; what counts as a unit depends on that learner's prior knowledge.
Classroom Space and Procedural Design - For a group sharing a classroom, a room arranged for visibility with moderate displays, taught procedures kept separate from a few positively stated rules, tasks pitched at moderate difficulty with structure that fades, and prepared transitions are expected to reduce disruption and lost time compared with improvising them; no claim tests these moves directly, and the nearest test is a meta-analysis of universal classroom management programmes against usual practice.
Clear Structure - For learners without an organization of their own for unfamiliar material, making its organization explicit (signals, lean organizers, graphics that match the content and task) may improve what they select and recall on immediate tests, an effect qualified by prior knowledge, structural match and outcome.
Cognitive Activation - For learners working toward a concept or principle, tasks that require them to explain, compare, predict or justify beyond what was presented, with enough guidance to produce something correct, are expected to improve immediate understanding and near transfer more than tasks completed by recall or copying, with weak evidence for classroom and delayed outcomes and no claim testing cognitive activation as a dimension of teaching quality.
Cognitive Disequilibrium - For a learner who holds a confident but inaccurate explanation, meeting evidence it cannot account for and then being helped to resolve the mismatch is expected to improve conceptual understanding more than the correct account alone, with weak evidence that the revision lasts or that conflict without support helps.
Cognitive Flexibility - Revisiting the same concepts across several cases, perspectives or representations that differ in how the concept applies, with explicit prompts to compare them, is expected to help learners with some but rigid knowledge of an ill-structured domain transfer it to a new case at a short horizon; it may cost factual recall, novices may need a simpler start, and delayed effects are untested here.
Cognitive Load Management - Across a sequence, matching how presentation, task order and support distribute processing demand to a learner's current task-specific capacity is expected to improve learning, while keeping effortful processing that the intended outcome and horizon need; in the wiki, single levers and two whole load-reducing designs are tested, the withdraw-and-restore policy is not.
Cognitive Load Theory - For a task-specific novice on high-element-interactivity material, reducing avoidable processing is expected to improve performance or efficiency, a relationship that weakens or reverses as task-specific expertise grows.
Cognitive Styles - For a learner whose attempts stall in a way that looks like a habit of approach (holistic or analytic, quick or deliberate), teaching the approach the task requires to everyone who needs it, faded across sessions, is expected to help more than matching tasks or formats to a measured style; no claim in the wiki tests either use of cognitive styles, and the matching evidence, from learning styles, runs against it.
Coherence Principle - When learners study an explanation of something they do not yet understand, leaving out interesting but irrelevant words, pictures, sounds and music (seductive details) is expected to improve comprehension and transfer over the same explanation with them added; the wiki's claims test this, in a meta-analysis and many experiments, and record effects that range from large in one research programme to small or absent elsewhere, depending on the material, its pacing and complexity, and the learner's prior knowledge, working memory and attentional control.
Collaborative Learning - For learners who can take part in the task, working jointly so that each member must engage with the others' reasoning is expected to raise individually measured understanding over working alone on the same task, for goals that gain from explaining and reconciling ideas; co-presence, equal participation or group satisfaction alone are not expected to show it.
Combine intentional and incidental vocabulary learning rather than relying on incidental learning alone - For second-language learners building general vocabulary, deliberate study of selected words combined with reading and listening for meaning (glossed, with recurring words) is expected to give more words and better retention than either mode alone, with the deliberate share largest while text coverage is below about 95%; two thin claims test the combination, none tests its order, ratio or dose.
Communities of Practice - For adults and professionals entering a shared practice, sustained and structured participation with more experienced members, under norms of trust and critical inquiry, is proposed to change their practice and understanding over a term or more, though the wiki holds only descriptive, qualitative and argued evidence for it.
Community of Inquiry - For learners in a discussion-based course whose shared inquiry stalls at sharing ideas, the CoI framework proposes that designed social, cognitive and teaching presence together move discourse towards resolution, but the wiki holds only survey associations and descriptive profiles of the presences, no test of that effect on learning.
Community-Based Learning - For a learner whose coursework stays school-internal, giving the work a real role in a community is associated with civic attitudes, self-reported growth and deeper reflection when the work is tied to course concepts, reflection is structured and relationships are supported; no claim here tests its effect on content learning.
Compensate for age-related sensory impairments by combining audio input with visual presentation - For an adult, often older, learner whose hearing or eyesight has declined, presenting each new item both spoken and written or shown, in a well-lit room with little outside noise and with control of pace, is expected to let them take in more of the new material than speech alone; no claim in the wiki tests this with such learners, only spoken-plus-written words, captions and pacing with other learners.
Competency-Based Assessment - Scoring a learner's response on a task that represents the intended capability against explicit criteria and a stated threshold, by consistent assessors, is expected to support better teaching, progression and certification decisions than a rank or seat time, though no claim here tests that comparison and assessor agreement is not guaranteed.
Concreteness Fading - When learners must come to understand an abstract symbol system or formal structure (an equation, a group property, a permutation formula), starting with a concrete model of it, moving through an iconic picture of the same model, and ending with the abstract notation, each step explicitly linked to the last, is expected to produce better learning and transfer than starting abstract or staying concrete; one experiment, reported second-hand, tests the full sequence here, a meta-analysis supports concrete materials over symbols alone, and the rest is a review's argument and one teaching experiment.
Considering The Opposite - For a learner who has committed to a judgment where the evidence could point either way, a prompt to generate specific reasons the opposite could be right, then to decide again, is expected to reduce confirmation, anchoring and overconfidence biases more than a general warning to be objective; no claim in this wiki tests it directly, and the one claim on it rests on a review that names the method without testing it.
Contiguity Principle (Spatial and Temporal) - When words and a picture explain one thing and neither makes sense without the other, placing each word next to the part of the picture it describes, and presenting narration at the same time as the animation it describes, is expected to improve learning over separated or successive presentation for learners new to the material; meta-analyses test this (spatial and temporal effects of similar size), with larger effects for complex material and system-paced media and a reversal reported for experienced learners.
Cooperative Learning - For learners who can take part in the task, structured small-group work in which each member's learning is individually checked and counts toward the group's success is expected to raise individually measured achievement over several weeks, more than individualistic or competitive work; grouping alone is not expected to.
Criterion- and Norm-Referenced Testing - A decision about a learner is expected to be more accurate when the score matches the question asked: a criterion-referenced report against skills defined in advance for what a learner can do and should be taught next, a norm-referenced score read against a fitting norm group (and never alone) for relative standing and selection, and a diagnostic profile for why a learner struggles; no claim here tests the relationship.
Cultural & Life Experiences Connections - For learners whose instruction draws on contexts they do not recognise or see no stake in, building some tasks, examples and assessments from their own cultural, community, family and work experience, tied to the concept taught, is expected to raise engagement, open sharing of developing thinking and the competence an assessment can see; no claim here compares it with the same content taught without that connection.
Culturally Responsive Classroom Norms - For learners whose home or community norms of talk, questioning, competition, time and conduct differ from the classroom's, widening the classroom's norms (longer wait time, private or all-student response, cooperative options, conventions taught explicitly) and reading a departure from a norm as a possible difference of convention before judging ability or defiance is expected to make questioning show more of what learners know and to raise participation and reduce disciplinary exclusion; no claim here tests this, though claims test wait time, cooperative structures and empathic discipline in general populations.

D¶

Debriefing - For learners who have just shared an experience (a simulation, case, team exercise or real event), a facilitated debrief that establishes what happened, asks for their reasoning at a few decision points against stated criteria, gives task- and process-level feedback and ends with one change to try is expected to improve the next comparable performance more than the experience alone or an unstructured recap, though no claim here compares an experience with and without a debrief.
Deliberate Practice - For a learner who can already perform a task but has stopped improving on part of it, repeated attempts on that one diagnosed component, set just beyond reliable performance, judged against an explicit standard with feedback and a deliberate change on each next attempt, are expected to improve whole-task performance more than repeating the whole task; no claim tests this in schooling, and the nearest causal evidence is simulation training with deliberate practice in the health professions.
Design tools so productive usage is guaranteed by affordances and constraints rather than instructions - For learners using a simulation, practice tool or AI assistant, building the productive use into the tool (obvious productive actions, controls that invite comparison, limits on shortcuts such as answer-giving) is expected to yield more of the intended activity and better unaided performance than the same tool governed by written directions; no claim in the wiki compares the two directly, and one randomised trial shows a hints-only limit preventing harm without producing a gain.
Developing Your Cultural Awareness - A recurring cycle in which an educator gathers outside evidence about their own practice, names the assumption it shows and changes one decision is expected to make their reading of learners more accurate and less excluding; no claim tests this whole, and one brief empathic-discipline exercise tests a narrow version.
Digital Learning - Putting part of a course on a digital tool is expected to help only through the method it makes affordable (more practice with feedback, adaptive hints, prompts to explain, visible progress) and not through the medium itself; no claim here tests a digital against a non-digital version of the same method.
Direct Instruction - For a learner with no working method for a structured target, explicit explanation, modelling and guided practice with checks is expected to beat minimally guided discovery on near-term performance, qualified by task-specific expertise, age, outcome type and horizon.
Disciplinary Literacy - For adolescents who read adequately in general but meet a discipline's texts as novices, a semester or more of instruction that names, models and has them practise the discipline's own reading and reasoning moves on its own texts is expected to improve comprehension of new texts in that discipline and the practised kind of disciplinary thinking; two studies test this against usual or textbook instruction, none against generic strategy instruction, and the one writing measure showed no gain.
Discussing Race - For learners studying a topic in which race shapes outcomes or experience, naming race explicitly around a shared text, case or data set, under agreed norms with optional disclosure and a closing debrief, is expected to yield more specific, better-evidenced analysis than neutral treatment or unstructured talk without raising risk for learners in the minority; no claim in the wiki tests this.
Distributed Cognition - For a task too large for one learner to hold or do alone, putting part of the work into shared representations, tools or partners is expected to raise performance with those aids present, and to build what the learner can do alone only when the parts the target requires stay with the learner and the learner's decisions to rely on aids are calibrated; no claim recorded in the wiki tests distributed against individual work at first hand, while single studies test how much to hand to an AI tool, feedback that calibrates offloading, and the form of a group's shared representation.
Dual Coding - For a learner without a working model of a structure or process, pairing the words that explain it with a visual of the same idea, supplied or learner-made, is expected to improve comprehension over words alone; claims test each half against words alone, none tests the sequence, direct tests favour provided over learner-built organizers for transfer, and the drawing supports tested did not help.

E¶

Educational Readiness - For learners starting a new stage, course or unit whose tasks assume earlier capabilities, checking each learner's starting response on those capabilities and adjusting the entry point, support and setting to it is expected to let more of them reach the stage's goals than holding them back until judged ready or teaching all from one assumed starting point; no claim in the wiki tests this directly, though claims on delayed entry, repetition and preschool attendance bear on it.
Educators should act as mediators and facilitators of learning rather than content disseminators - For learners working toward understanding they can use, a teacher who states the goal, organizes a task learners act on, questions and helps contingently while they work, and has them explain and transfer what they understood is expected to yield more engagement and usable understanding than presenting the content, provided novices still get explicit guidance; no claim in the wiki tests the teacher's role directly, only neighbouring comparisons (active learning against lecture, teacher-led against student-led inquiry).
Effective Classroom Management Plan Criteria - For a group of learners in a shared space, a classroom-wide plan put in place before problems arise and kept consistently (relationships, taught rules and routines, unobtrusive redirection, a short consistent response to persistent misbehavior, self-control taught with external controls planned to fade, and corrections checked for cultural meaning) is expected to reduce disruption and raise engaged time more than improvised practice; one meta-analysis tests planned universal management against usual practice and a K–5 practice guide rates taught behavior expectations as strongly supported, but no claim tests the six-part plan or any of its traditions.
Elaborative Reasoning - For a learner with relevant prior knowledge studying facts or prose, answering why-questions about each statement or generating their own connections is expected to improve recall and recognition over reading it, at a cost in time; randomised experiments with school students test this for science facts, and one experiment finds the reverse for novice undergraduates learning a probability calculation.
Employ flexible error treatment strategies matched to objectives, competence, affect, and correction effectiveness - For a second-language learner, treating errors according to the activity's objective (accuracy or meaning), the learner's competence with the form, their affect and whether earlier corrections have taken hold is expected to improve accuracy at immediate and delayed tests better than one uniform correction policy; no claim in the wiki tests that matching, though corrective feedback as a whole has a durable effect and correction forms differ.
Engagement - For a learner whose participation in a task is low, a personal contact, a visible reason for the task and visible, reachable progress are expected to raise observed on-task time, completion and persistence, and that engagement is expected to raise learning only when the task requires thinking with the target; claims test single conditions on single outcomes, and none tests engagement as a whole or shows that it causes learning.
Epistemic Cognition - When learners must judge claims, explicit teaching and practice of the standards for a particular kind of evidence (checking who is behind a web source, judging a study's methods, justifying an argument with evidence) is associated with better judgments of that kind, measured up to five weeks later; the gains have not been shown to carry over to other kinds of evidence.
Error Analysis - For a learner who can already follow a correct solution, comparing an incorrect solution with a correct one, explaining the error and seeing the correction is expected to improve conceptual understanding, and correcting errors (confident ones first) to improve later recall, but the evidence is a few short studies, mostly children in mathematics and adults on recall items.
Evaluating Sources - For adolescent and adult novices who judge unfamiliar web sources by their own features, several lessons teaching and practising a move off the page (searching what independent sources say about who is behind it) are expected to improve credibility judgments of new sites up to five weeks later; one claim tests this package against untaught classes, though not against a checklist taught over the same number of sessions, nor for research articles or primary documents.
Evidence-Based Teaching and Scientific Reasoning - For a teacher, designer or purchaser choosing an approach for other people's learners, writing the belief as a claim some result could refute, seeking a comparison that could have come out otherwise and the case against it, and adopting as a recorded local trial where no comparison exists, is expected to select approaches that do more for learners than choosing by impression, popularity or philosophy; no claim in the wiki tests this for practitioners' own decisions, and one school-reform evaluation tests a school-level version with mixed results.
Expanding Social Networks - For adults in transition who can name few people to ask about their goal, repeated structured contact with the same peers, outreach by staff or mentors, and brokered introductions with a follow-up step are expected to yield usable new ties, less isolation and, more slowly, persistence and access to opportunity, though no claim in the wiki tests this against leaving networking to the learner.
Experiential Learning - For learners building applied, professional or interpersonal capability, an experience followed by structured reflection and a further attempt with feedback is expected to improve performance and transfer, while unguided experience for novices learns less than guided instruction.
Explicit Instruction: Computer Basics - For adult novices with a device, especially older or low-confidence adults, demonstrating one short routine at a time on their own device, having them do it at once with help that responds to each attempt, and withdrawing that help as they succeed is expected to produce more accurate unaided use of those routines than exploration or explanation alone, though no claim in the wiki tests this for computer basics.
Explicit Instruction: Internet Search - For a novice searcher who types whole questions and stops at the first results, explicit modelling of a routine for turning a question into terms, building and revising queries and checking results, practised on real inquiry questions with feedback on the queries, is expected to find more relevant sources with less abandonment than unguided exploration, though no claim in the wiki tests search instruction directly.
Explicit Instruction: Math Strategies - For a learner who can compute but not yet choose a method for word or non-routine problems, explicitly modelling when and why a strategy fits, comparing methods side by side and guiding justified choice are expected to build flexible, accurate problem solving, though no claim in the wiki tests strategy instruction against its absence.
Explicit Instruction: Online Reading Strategies - For a learner who reads print adequately but navigates linked online texts without a goal, explicit modelled instruction in a few online reading moves (goal and questions before opening links, choosing links against the goal, a running record of pages, returning from drift, combining pages), practised on curated then open sets of pages with prompts that fade, is expected to improve comprehension and integration across pages; no claim tests this, and the nearest evidence is print strategy instruction and computer-based metacognitive prompts.
Explicit Instruction: Vocabulary - For a learner whose comprehension or use of language is limited by particular unknown words, explicitly teaching a small selected set and then arranging repeated encounters and use across contexts is expected to improve knowledge of those words and comprehension of texts that use them more than exposure alone, which claims test for school-age and second-language learners, but not for general comprehension, dose or schedule.

F¶

Feedback Loops - For a learner whose performance can be observed, information about it is expected to improve later performance only when the loop closes (the information says what to change, a next attempt uses it, and that attempt is checked again on a new item); corrective feedback and correct-and-recheck programmes are supported on average, but no claim here tests a closed loop against the same feedback without a next attempt.
Flexible Grouping - In a class whose learners differ on the current task, forming temporary similar-need and mixed groups for a stated purpose from recent task evidence, and re-forming them as the evidence changes, is expected to match support and challenge to need better than one whole-class format, and to keep what targeted support gains without the costs fixed attainment sorting shows on grades, pass rates and the lowest group's classroom climate; no claim here tests flexible grouping itself, and the fixed-sorting evidence (one district's algebra policy) shows test-score gains for high attainers as well as those costs.
Flipped Learning - For learners who can follow a topic's first explanation on their own, moving that first exposure before the live session and spending the freed time on application with feedback is expected to give better course outcomes than spending live time on the same exposition, provided learners prepare and the home time is not simply added; one meta-analysis of undergraduate health-professions courses found flipped classes ahead of lecture-based ones on exam performance (SMD 0.57), at low certainty with very high heterogeneity, and no claim here tests it with home time held equal.
Formative Assessment - A conditional model relating learner state, activity and subsequent observation; the linked pattern specifies a reusable design policy.
Fostering Creative Thinking - For learners producing ideas or products in a domain they partly know, open prompts with many answers, generating kept apart in time from judging, grading and reward, and own ideas before AI are expected to yield more varied ideas, sustained interest and better unaided generation later; no claim in the wiki tests the relationship as a whole, though neighbouring claims test rewards, praise, AI sequencing, explicit strategy instruction and a pause before choosing.
Free-Choice Learning Environment Design - In settings where learners choose whether, what and how long to engage, several entry points, a start from their own interests, no grades or expected rewards for taking part, and an activity that responds to each attempt are expected to lengthen voluntary engagement and, with feedback on the target idea, to improve understanding; no claim tests a free-choice environment as a whole, and one randomised exhibit study tests the feedback part.
Functional Behavior Assessment - For a learner whose disruptive behavior recurs despite sound classroom management, identifying what triggers it and what it gets them, then changing the trigger and teaching a replacement that meets the same need, with consistent documented responses, is expected to reduce it more than generic or escalating discipline, though no claim here tests a function-based plan against a generic one.

G¶

Game-based Learning - For a learner who has not yet reached a stated capability, a game whose winning move is the target reasoning, played over several sessions inside a course of instruction, with modelling for novices and a debrief that asks for the reasoning outside the game, is expected to improve aligned outside-game performance over passive or no instruction; meta-analyses find small-to-moderate average gains that vary widely and disappear against active non-game instruction, and enjoyment and game score are separate outcomes.
Gamification - For learners whose bottleneck is keeping going through repeated practice, a game layer (points, levels, badges, team scores, a theme) added to sound instruction is expected to give a small gain in later performance when it rewards accuracy and improvement rather than activity, leaves meaningful choice and keeps decoration tied to content; one meta-analysis tests gamification on average, and no claim tests these conditions.
Goal Setting & Monitoring - When a learner holds a specific, challenging goal for a task, with a plan for reaching it and feedback to check progress against it, effort and task performance may rise, qualified by task complexity and the learner's expertise (process goals before outcome goals for novices), commitment and self-efficacy, and whether the outcome measured is behaviour, regulation or learning.
Graphic Organizers - For learners who do not yet hold a material's structure, a diagram whose layout matches that structure, provided first and later built and explained by the learner, is expected to improve comprehension and retention over text alone; concept-map meta-analyses test this for node-link maps, and no claim tests other organizer forms, partial organizers or fading.
Guide change efforts with systemic understanding, focusing interventions on one framework component at a time as needed - For a team introducing an innovation that others must adopt, mapping the system it enters, planning the other changes it needs as one coordinated bundle and working on whichever part blocks now is expected to produce more lasting use than introducing the innovation alone; no claim in the wiki tests this, and the evidence is mostly the change literature's own argument.
Guided Practice - For a learner who has seen a model but cannot yet perform a structured task alone, several practice attempts with support and feedback still available, reduced as unaided success appears, are expected to produce more accurate independent performance than no practice or unsupported practice, though no claim here tests guided against independent practice directly.

H¶

Handouts/Online Guides/Visual Reading Aids - For a reader who cannot yet tell what matters in a dense or unfamiliar text or task, a supplied guide that marks the essential points, shows the structure, glosses unknown terms and asks the reader to use it is expected to improve comprehension and recall over the same material without it; claims test its components (cues, guided notes, organizers, pictures, glosses), and none tests a whole handout or reading guide as such.
Harmonize opposites: strike a balance between competing educational ideas rather than embracing one method wholesale - When a target has components that competing methods serve unequally (content knowledge and application, language form and use, precise and expressive language), giving each component to the method its evidence favours and checking each separately is expected to cover more of the target than adopting either method wholesale; no claim tests this as a general rule, though one trial shows two methods each winning on a different outcome and vocabulary syntheses report combined instruction ahead of either alone.
Holistic Learning - For a learner without an organisation of their own for interconnected content, giving a usable whole early (a map of the main ideas, a model or a complete simple task) and keeping later details attached to it is expected to help integrative tasks more than learning details in isolation, unless the whole is too complex for a novice to follow; no claim tests whole-first against parts-first, and one small set of physics experiments on hierarchical organisation bears on it.

I¶

Immediate Feedback - For a learner practising a task where errors can be seen, correction before the next attempt is expected to stop errors being rehearsed, but whether the timing matters, immediate rather than delayed feedback improving delayed retention, is not settled: the comparisons recorded here find no advantage or favour delay.
Include parents, teachers, or mentors in any self-regulation intervention and support their own skills and coaching capacity - For adolescents and young adults in a self-regulation programme, adding coached support for the adults around them (their own regulation, and rehearsed co-regulation of the young person) is expected to make gains larger and more transferable, a practice brief's guideline that no claim in this wiki tests directly; neighbouring syntheses show coached parent training beating information alone for younger children.
Inquiry-based Learning - For school science learners, inquiry that is guided (prompts, feedback, teacher-led explanation and a synthesis) is associated with better conceptual understanding than comparison instruction, while unguided discovery of essential content learns less than explicit instruction for novices.
Instructor Accessibility - For a learner who gets stuck on course work between contacts, published channels, a kept reply window, an invitation that makes asking normal and replies that respond to the learner's attempt are expected to raise the share who get help before they disengage, though no claim here tests instructor accessibility as such.
Interleaving - When the goal is to tell apart categories or problem types that resemble one another, mixing examples or problems of different kinds in practice (interleaving) is expected to improve later classification and problem choice over practising one kind at a time (blocking); a meta-analysis of 59 studies supports this for visual categories and, more weakly, mathematics, finds no benefit for expository texts and a reversal for word lists, and finds the benefit grows with how similar the categories are.

J¶

Journaling - For a learner keeping a journal over a course, short recurring entries written to task-specific, metacognitive prompts and then read and used are expected to improve understanding and self-regulation more than an unprompted or unused diary, though no claim tests keeping a journal against not keeping one on a learning outcome, and a diary alone showed no detected gain.

K¶

Keep the learner in control of the information flow with on-demand tools and supports - For a learner working through second-language video or text a little above their level, keeping the material whole and putting helps (glossary, replay, first-language explanation, model answer after an attempt, hints before answers) one step away under the learner's control is expected to support comprehension and vocabulary at least as well as withholding or pushing the same helps; no claim here tests on-demand against pushed helps, and learner control in general averages near zero.
Knowledge Organization - For a learner who holds a topic as unconnected facts and must later use it for tasks that cut across it, teaching the content with an explicit organization built for those tasks, and having learners sort into, explain and rebuild that organization from memory, is expected to improve integrative tasks but not single-detail tasks; one small 1979 physics report tests the core contrast, and no claim tests other kinds of organization or a course-long framework.

L¶

Least Restrictive Environment - For a student with a disability, bringing supports into the general class and school life and moving the student to a separate setting only for a documented need the supported class cannot meet, decided case by case by a team and reviewed against data, is expected to give learning no worse than separate placement and fuller participation; one review of non-randomised studies finds no average difference between inclusive and segregated placement, and no claim tests the case-by-case decision itself.
Link program elements to workforce entry points and employer-recognized credentials so learners see an immediate economic payoff - For learners who enter a program to get work soon, tying each program element to a named job entry point (an early employer-recognized credential, training timed to hiring or apprenticeship intake, employer contact, visible wage steps) is expected to raise entry into that work, but no claim tests the linking against the same program untied; apprenticeship-versus-other-route evaluations and program reports are the nearest evidence.

M¶

Mastery Learning - When a learner's response on a unit check falls short of a stated criterion, corrective support and a further check before advancing may raise later unit and course performance, qualified by the validity of the check, the quality of the correction, the time it costs and the horizon assessed.
Match the form and content of staff development interventions to clients' assessed Stages of Concern - For adults adopting an innovation in their work, support whose form and content are matched to each person's assessed Stages of Concern and Levels of Use, and kept up after use begins, is expected to move concerns and use forward more than uniform support, though no claim in this wiki tests matched against unmatched support.
Memory Consolidation - For a learner who can perform something at the end of a session, planning later encounters that make them reactivate and use the material, and judging security only on a delayed unaided check, is expected to leave more available at the horizon than treating one fluent exposure as finished; no claim tests this as a whole, only its spacing and retrieval routes and a post-learning exercise-timing effect.
Mentoring and Coaching - A learner doing real work in a role or programme new to them, paired over time with a more experienced person who observes that work, responds with modelling and specific feedback, meets regularly, stays out of judging them and hands judgement over, is expected to improve observed practice and persistence; the strongest test in the wiki is a meta-analysis of causal teacher-coaching studies (practice 0.49 SD, students' test scores 0.18 SD, effects shrinking at scale), one randomised student-coaching evaluation found higher persistence but not completion, and one randomised induction study found no first-year gains.
Mindfulness Activities - For a learner unsettled at the start of demanding work, a short optional attention routine tied to the next task is expected to support settling and self-regulation, and only through that the task itself; no claim here tests a classroom routine, and the one tutor experiment that added mindfulness found no gain in learning or anxiety.
Minimize student frustration by making feedback clear, legible, focused, and transparent - For student writers receiving comments on their work, comments written as complete, specific sentences, legible, limited to a few priorities and following a routine explained in advance are expected to be understood and acted on with less frustration than cryptic, illegible or exhaustive commentary; no claim in the wiki tests this directly, and the nearest evidence is learners' ratings of clearer feedback and reports that some students are overwhelmed by automated feedback.
Mnemonic Device - For a learner who must recall arbitrary items (terms, foreign words, lists, ordered steps), teaching a specific mnemonic with its meaning made explicit, then practising recall from the cue and without it, is expected to improve recall of those items but not understanding or transfer; claims test this for students with mild disabilities, and for learners in general rate mnemonics below retrieval and spaced practice.
Modality Principle - When words explain a picture or animation that learners must look at as they hear or read them, presenting the words as speech rather than printed text is expected to improve learning, most of all in system-paced, complex lessons for novices; claims test this (two meta-analyses and a review of 17 experiments), and they report it vanishing when learners set the pace, in social-science content, and as learners gain expertise.
Modeling - For a novice on a task whose key decisions a finished product hides, a model that narrates those decisions, studied actively and followed at once by supported practice, is expected to give better unaided performance than the product alone or no model, though no claim here tests live or narrated modelling directly; the evidence is carried from worked examples and self-explanation.
Motivation - For a learner whose effort or persistence is low, motivation is expected to rise when the design repairs the component that is low for that learner (expectancy of success, task value, ownership, or belonging) rather than adding generic boosts, and to raise learning only through effort on a task that demands thinking; claims test single components, and none tests the matching relationship.
Multimedia Learning - For a learner without a working model of a structure or process, a relevant picture placed with the words that explain it may improve a learning test over words alone, qualified by redundancy, decorative additions, pacing, prior knowledge and assessment horizon.
Multimodal Instruction - For a learner who cannot yet explain a structure that one mode shows poorly, coordinated modes that each carry part of the meaning, with the learner translating between them, may improve immediate comprehension over a single mode, qualified by representational competence, pacing, redundancy and access; matching modes to learning styles does not.
Multiple Methods of Assessment - When one assessment method can mislead about a learner (through reading load, an unfamiliar symbol system, anxiety or a capability that shows only with help), a judgement drawn from two or more methods sampling the same goal under common, calibrated criteria is expected to be more accurate than one drawn from a single method, and bounded choice of format to raise motivation rather than achievement; no claim here tests the relationship as a whole.

N¶

Note-taking - For a learner meeting a dense stream of new material they will need later, selective notes restated in their own words, supported by a teacher-supplied outline that is withdrawn as skill grows and reviewed by recalling from them, are expected to beat no notes or verbatim notes; one claim tests guided notes, and none tests note-taking itself against no notes.

O¶

Observation/Shadowing - For a newcomer to a practice, watching it done as work, with a written focus, a record that separates what was seen from its meaning, a prompt to explain the performer's decisions, a same-day debrief and a prompt own attempt, is expected to improve what the learner notices and their readiness to perform, though no claim tests shadowing or peer observation directly; the evidence is one observation-training study with teacher candidates and findings carried from self-explanation and contingent support.

P¶

Pairing Non-examples with Examples - For a learner who can already follow a correct example but makes a plausible boundary error, studying a matched non-example or incorrect case beside the correct one and explaining the difference is expected to improve conceptual understanding and correct procedures more than correct examples alone; one claim tests this for incorrect solutions in mathematics with children, and none tests category non-examples.
Peer Discussion - When learners commit an individual answer to a conceptual question and then discuss their reasoning with peers, later independent answers to a new isomorphic question may improve, conditional on the question, group dynamics, instructor follow-up and an immediate horizon.
Peer Learning - For learners who have already studied the material, a structured exchange in which each must explain to a peer and answer that peer's questions (tutoring, teaching a peer, reciprocal roles, peer assessment) is expected to raise each learner's individually measured achievement over studying alone, for explainer and helped alike; meta-analyses test peer tutoring against no tutoring and teaching against studying, while no claim tests the doses, role rotation or hand-over points.
Personalization - Where learners sharing one goal differ in prior knowledge, interests, access needs or preferred means, tailoring support, pace, problem contexts and means to each learner while the goal and criterion stay common is expected to raise engagement and, where tailoring rests on a diagnosis of responses, aligned achievement, though no claim in the wiki tests personalization as a whole against uniform instruction and tailoring to learning styles is contradicted.
Phonics - For a beginning reader who cannot yet turn print into sound, explicit teaching of letter–sound correspondences in a planned sequence, applied at once to reading and spelling words, is expected to produce more accurate decoding and word reading than unsystematic or no phonics; a meta-analysis tests this for kindergarten to grade 6, with smaller gains for older struggling readers and for comprehension, and a contested advantage over whole-language teaching.
Physical Activity - For school-age learners whose on-task behavior drops during long seated stretches, a brief bout of movement between segments, followed by a named task, is expected to raise on-task behavior in the next segment but not test-measured attention or achievement; two classroom reviews and one school study test this for children, with the largest gain for the least on-task, and nothing in the wiki tests it for adults.
Positive Self-talk - For a learner who stalls, rushes or freezes at a predictable hard moment in a task, a few short, credible self-talk cues tied to a next action, modeled and rehearsed, are expected to improve performance and persistence; claims test self-talk only on sport and motor tasks, not on academic learning on its own.
Pre-reading Questioning - For a reader about to meet an expository text whose central ideas they do not yet know, attempting a few aligned questions before reading and checking the attempts against the text afterwards is expected to improve later memory of the questioned content over reading alone, possibly at some cost to unquestioned content; one laboratory claim tests this with undergraduates, and no claim tests its classroom, comprehension or purpose-setting forms.
Pre-training Principle - For learners new to a system or topic whose main lesson will use many unfamiliar parts or terms, a short primer giving the name, location and behaviour of each key component before that lesson is expected to improve transfer from it over the same lesson without a primer; claims in the wiki test this (Mayer's 5 of 5 experiments, median d = 0.85, and one VR experiment), bounded by prior knowledge, the complexity and pacing of the main lesson, and short lab tests.
Preserve Heritage Language While Acquiring an Additional Language - For a learner acquiring a school or majority language, continuing to use and develop the heritage language is expected not to slow that acquisition and, at an academic level, to transfer to it; the support is associational and second-hand, and the one randomised programme-level test in the wiki found no significant difference for English learners.
Pretesting (Prequestions Before Study) - When learners are about to study material they do not yet know, asking them to attempt questions on it first, even though most attempts will be wrong, and then letting the study, lesson or feedback supply the answers, is expected to improve later memory of the questioned content over studying for the same time without the questions; laboratory and classroom studies recorded in the wiki test this, with the gain bounded to the questioned content, dependent on the answer arriving (immediately, for arbitrary paired items) and offset in one online course by learners who stopped.
Problem-based Learning - For learners who must apply knowledge to ill-structured problems, organizing work around problems has a small, highly variable and possibly inflated average effect; what is better supported is guidance for novices on the target content, with a problem-first phase as a narrower option followed by instruction.
Procedural Learning - For a novice on a procedure, a visible model, supported attempts with feedback, support withdrawn on unaided success, then mixed practice spread over sessions with the steps tied to their reasons are expected to yield accurate, fluent, retained and flexible unaided performance; no claim tests the arc as a whole, only single links in it.
Process-based Writing - Teaching writing as a staged process (plan, draft, respond, revise, edit) with feedback on drafts gives developing writers a modest gain in writing quality over product-focused teaching, tested by one meta-analysis in grades 1–12 that found no gain for struggling writers, who gain more from explicit strategy instruction.
Productive Failure - When the goal is conceptual understanding and transfer of a new concept, having learners first attempt problems that the concept solves, before they are taught it, and then teaching it by building on their attempts, is expected to improve conceptual knowledge and transfer over teaching first, with no pooled gain on procedural skill.
Professional development should guide teachers on integrating digital content and tools, not just offer technical know-how - When a school introduces a digital tool, professional development that starts from a lesson goal in the teacher's subject, shows the tool doing that job, and has teachers plan and teach a lesson with follow-up support and time is expected to produce more purposeful classroom use than training on how the tool works alone; no claim in this wiki tests that comparison, the nearest evidence is survey associations and implementation reports, and one coach's report limits it by finding narrow step-by-step technical training necessary for uptake.
Provide positive comments alongside constructive criticism when responding to student writing - For a student writer who will revise a draft, a response that names specific strengths of the text alongside a few prioritised critical comments is expected to keep the writer acting on the critique and to improve the revision, more than critique alone or generic or ability praise; no claim in the wiki tests this, and the nearest evidence (feedback meta-analyses, praise experiments with children, AI feedback audits) bounds it.

Q¶

Quiet Learning Spaces - For a learner doing attention-heavy work (reading, writing, problem solving, test preparation), a protected block with competing talk, notifications and avoidable interruptions removed is expected to lengthen on-task work and improve task performance compared with the same task amid ordinary distraction; no claim in the wiki tests this, and the nearest evidence is observational work on classroom conditions and surveys of study space and digital distraction.

R¶

Redundancy Principle - When a picture, diagram or animation is explained by narration, adding on-screen text that repeats the narration word for word is expected to lower transfer for novices, most in system-paced lessons; when no picture competes for the eyes, the same words spoken and written do no harm and help second-language, less fluent and low-prior-knowledge readers, and text that helps novices becomes redundant as expertise grows. Claims test this: Mayer's experiments, a meta-analysis of verbal redundancy, a 63-study review and a meta-meta-analysis, with boundary conditions for pictures, pacing, reader fluency, prior knowledge, outcome and age.
Reflection - For a learner who has just performed a task or acted in a practice setting, structured prompts to examine that performance against a stated criterion and commit to a change are expected to improve later performance more than unguided reflection, qualified by the learner's ability to judge their own work, access to feedback, and whether the planned change is acted on.
Responsive Teaching - For learners whose ideas on a concept or principle may diverge from the plan, a teacher who makes their thinking visible, reads it against a prepared model of likely ideas and chooses the next move from it is expected to improve conceptual understanding and near transfer over the same plan delivered unchanged; no claim in the wiki tests this directly.
Retrieval Practice - For learners who have studied material, recalling it from memory rather than restudying tends to raise delayed retention when initial retrieval mostly succeeds or is corrected by feedback; restudy can lead at a few minutes, transfer gains are smaller and conditional, and high element-interactivity material is contested.
Rhetorical Skill Development - For a learner who presents ideas the same way to every reader, teaching rhetorical moves as choices made for a stated audience, purpose and situation, with explicit criteria for evidence and for answering the other side, practice across contrasting situations, process goals first and learners saying why a move works, is expected to produce better arguments and better-fitted texts or talk than teaching fixed forms or style rules; no claim here tests that comparison, though argument practice, writing strategy instruction, real audiences and peer feedback are each tested.

S¶

Scaffolding - Temporary support given while a learner attempts a task they cannot yet complete alone may improve later cognitive outcomes compared with unsupported attempts, qualified by the learner's task-specific starting response, the kind of support, the setting and whether the outcome is measured without the support.
Scaffolding and Fading - Contingent support that is withdrawn as the learner shows unaided success may improve later independent performance on a task the learner cannot yet do alone, qualified by the task-specific starting response, how support ends, the setting and the outcome horizon.
Segmenting Principle - When a lesson presents complex material as a continuous, transient stream (a narrated animation, a video, a live demonstration) to learners for whom its steps are new, presenting it in meaningful segments with a pause or a continue control between them is expected to improve retention and transfer over one continuous presentation, at the cost of more learning time; meta-analyses test this, and it holds when the system sets the pauses, matters more for complex than for simple material, and its relation to prior knowledge is mixed.
Self Affirmation - For learners who expect an evaluation to confirm a negative judgement of their group or of them, a 10–15 minute private essay on a personally important value, given to the whole class before the threat, is expected to protect later grades compared with writing about an unimportant value; one claim tests this, with two positive small field experiments and a null large replication, so effects are small and unpredictable.
Self-Directed Learning - Handing a learner decisions about goals, resources, pace, strategy and evaluation is expected to sustain engagement and build independence without costing learning only when the learner knows enough about the content to choose well, has been taught to plan, monitor and evaluate in the subject, and is given control gradually with checked checkpoints; no claim in the wiki compares learner-directed with teacher-directed study directly.
Self-monitoring - For a learner with a readable criterion and a next move for each result, taught, test-based checks of their own work at set points during a task are expected to improve performance on it, but no claim here isolates self-monitoring against its absence on a learning outcome.
Self-Regulated Learning - When learners are explicitly taught and prompted to plan, monitor against stated criteria and act on what they notice, their regulation activity and task performance may improve, qualified by monitoring accuracy, prior knowledge, whether support is used, and which outcome is measured.
Sequencing - For a novice on a target whose parts depend on each other, meeting the parts in an order that puts what a step rests on before it and moves from what the learner can process toward full complexity, revised from the learner's responses, is expected to improve performance on tasks that draw on the whole; no claim tests that general rule, and tests of particular orders (example or problem first, parts or whole first, blocked or mixed) favour different orders for different learners and goals.
Signaling Principle - When learners study material whose essential elements and organisation they cannot yet pick out for themselves, adding cues that highlight those elements and how they connect (headings, an outline, highlighting, arrows, colour links between words and picture, spoken emphasis) is expected to improve learning over the same material without cues, by a small-to-medium amount in the meta-analyses the wiki records; the claims test this directly and report it weakening or reversing for learners who already know the material, and helping only for what is cued.
Simulations & Immersive Virtual Environments - For a learner preparing for a risky, costly, rare or invisible performance, repeated runs in a simulation that keeps the task's decisions and cues, guided during exploration and followed by feedback or a debrief, are expected to improve performance on the represented task more than no simulated practice, with more immersion adding nothing by itself; claims test simulation against no intervention, passive and active instruction (no advantage over active methods) and guided against free VR exploration, but not the debrief, dose or fidelity.
Skills Sprint - For learners who can already do the component skills, a short time-boxed cycle around one scoped deliverable, with criteria set before work starts, a mid-cycle review and revision, and an unhurried structured debrief, is expected to build whole-task skill better than open-ended projects or isolated exercises; no claim in the wiki tests sprints, and the evidence is on goals, feedback, coaching, reflection and time pressure in other settings.
Social Interdependence - For learners who can contribute to a multi-week group task, making the group's success depend on every member's individually assessed learning (a shared goal, team recognition built from individual results, and distinct roles or resources) is expected to make members help and hold one another to account and so raise individual achievement; claims test the reward-plus-accountability component in school studies, while one online experiment found role or reward structures changed interaction and attitudes but not achievement.
Social Presence - For learners in an online or blended group course whose part in discussion is thin or guarded, designed chances to be seen and heard as a person (course-tied introductions, a visible instructor, small stable groups, structured replies, some live contact) are expected to raise open participation and persistence, but the wiki holds only survey associations and correlational syntheses, and no claim tests that design on learning.
Spaced Learning - A conditional model relating learner state, activity and subsequent observation; the linked pattern specifies a reusable design policy.
Standardized Test Fairness and Bias - A standardized test score is expected to support a selection or placement decision equally well across groups only where its items do not depend on group background, it predicts the later outcome equally accurately for each group, and the testing conditions do not depress one group's scores; no claim tests this relationship, and the claims bearing on it are second-hand testimony, narrative reviews, psychometric studies of item-bias methods and a values-affirmation intervention that did not replicate.
Strengthen ties between teachers and parents rather than pressing for remote sanctions behind teaching - For a teacher who needs families' cooperation, relationship-first contact and regular two-way communication about learning, begun before any problem, are expected to build more teacher-parent trust and fewer escalations than relying on rules notices and remote sanctions; no claim tests that comparison, though partnership-programme trials and a home-visit study test parts of it.
Strengths-based Approach - For a learner described mainly by gaps, collecting evidence of what they can already do, naming it as specific performances and building tasks, roles and support from it, with barriers still addressed, is expected to raise teacher expectations, make competence visible and support self-efficacy and persistence; no claim here compares it with deficit-organized instruction, and praise of the person or brief belief exercises limit it.
Summative Assessment - An end-of-unit or end-of-course judgment is expected to report a capability fairly, and steer study towards it, when it samples the capability at the outcome's level with several tasks, uses criteria and a cut set in advance, follows low-stakes practice of the same thinking, and adds no demand such as speed or anxiety that the capability lacks; no claim here tests summative assessment as a design.
Support Early Language Development - For young children building a first language, frequent responsive exchanges in which an adult answers and expands the child's own turns are expected to grow the child's expressive language more than language the child only hears; one routine, dialogic shared reading, is tested against ordinary reading, and the general relationship rests on associational evidence.
Supporting Gifted and Talented Students - For a student whose work on a unit shows the target already done, replacing the practice they do not need with acceleration or harder enrichment, chosen from that response rather than the label, is expected to sustain progress and engagement; no claim tests this, so the page gives a labelled default design.
Supporting Students with Intellectual Disabilities - For a student with an intellectual disability who is not yet doing an age-appropriate academic or daily-life task, teaching it in small steps with more practice, specific feedback on what the student did, functional everyday contexts and full participation in the class is expected to raise performance and participation more than lowered expectations or separate, younger-age materials, though no claim in the wiki tests this combination; neighbouring claims test mastery pacing, mnemonics, self-determination instruction, student-led IEPs and praise.

T¶

Teach response precision and new associations with minimal errors, using mediators and stimulus fading - For a learner new to a precise response or a set of new pairings, keeping responses almost always correct (a tolerance narrowed in small steps, mediators linked to known items, cues faded across trials, every error corrected at once) is expected to give accurate unaided performance with fewer rehearsed errors than errorful trial and error, though no claim in the wiki tests this with human learners and cue support kept high can weaken retention.
Teach the conceptual underpinnings of L2 forms rather than only their structural aspects or formulaic units - For an L2 learner who produces a form but distributes it unlike proficient users because the L1 divides the meaning differently, explaining the meaning that motivates the form's uses (its core sense, with diagrams) and then practising choices across contexts is expected to yield more appropriate use than structural or phrase-only teaching; no claim in the wiki tests this comparison.
Teacher professional development should include ongoing activities like study teams and peer coaching rather than only occasional large-group sessions - For in-service teachers whose practice does not change after occasional large-group sessions, adding ongoing school-based structures (study teams, peer coaching, a school-based coach) with protected time, an instructional focus and non-evaluative participation is expected to change observed classroom practice more than the sessions alone; no claim in this wiki tests that comparison, and the nearest evidence (a coaching meta-analysis) favours pairing coaching with group training rather than replacing it.
Technology should augment, not supplant, learning processes in student-centered environments - When a tool could do part of a task the learner must learn to do unaided, using it so the learner still does that part (attempt first; hints, questions and feedback rather than solutions; simulation or VR beside hands-on practice, not instead of it) is expected to give better performance once the tool is removed than letting it take the part over; single studies of generative AI with adults test this, three experiments limit it, and no claim tests complement against replacement for simulation or VR.
Text Chats - For learners who need practice writing for a live audience or a lower-threshold way to ask and respond, a focused text chat on a closed task, with content prepared beforehand and someone keeping the pace legible, is expected to produce negotiation of meaning, self-correction and wider participation, but no claim in the wiki tests chat against the same task without it on a learning outcome.
Text-to-Speech - For a learner whose barrier to a text is decoding, vision or fatigue rather than its language, and when the goal is its meaning rather than reading the words, hearing the text read aloud while following the print with control of pace is expected to raise comprehension over print alone; no claim in the wiki tests text-to-speech itself.
Transfer of Learning - Showing the same structure in several surface forms, prompting learners to compare them and name what they share, and then having them retrieve and apply it on changed items is expected to raise near transfer to new cases once the original learning is secure; no claim tests varied against single-context instruction directly, and far transfer stayed at floor where it was measured.
Treat talking and writing as means to learning through dialogue-based, student-centered instruction - For learners meeting content they must understand, especially through a second language, moving lesson time from teacher talk to learners' own purposeful talk and short writing about the content, in a class where mistakes are safe, is expected to deepen understanding and willingness to speak; no claim tests this whole relationship, writing-to-learn and discussion-versus-lecture claims test its halves, and more talk alone does not raise comprehension.

U¶

Understanding must be cultivated through exploration, not described or told - For a learner who can make attempts at a new concept or principle, exploration guided by clues, questions on the learner's own ideas and critique of everyone's work, with the principle then named from that work, is expected to deepen understanding more than being told first or exploring unguided, though no claim tests indirect against direct guidance.
Universal Design For Learning - For a class whose learners vary in access, language, prior knowledge and motivation, planning several routes into content, engagement and expression while the goal and criteria stay fixed is expected to let more learners reach the goal than a single-route design; no claim here tests UDL as a framework, only its parts.
Universal Early Literacy Screening - In kindergarten to grade 3, briefly screening every child for early reading risk at set points in the year and following each flag within weeks with a diagnostic look and added instruction is expected to find children who need help sooner than referral; the wiki holds no test of screening itself, and its evidence (mostly one Massachusetts research programme) shows screeners flag later strugglers better than they clear the rest, disagree with each other, and flag children from low-income families, English learners and Black and Hispanic children more often, gaps that reflect circumstances, treatment and possibly the measure, not the children.
Use computer tools that let students explore hypotheses and solutions faster so they can test many ideas without frustration - For learners exploring how a system behaves, a computer tool that returns the result of each idea in seconds is expected to let them test more hypotheses with less frustration and spend the saved time interpreting, improving conceptual understanding and inquiry skill when the exploration is guided; no claim in the wiki tests the speed of the cycle itself, though guidance during inquiry is supported.
User-Centered Design for Learning - For learners who reach instruction through a digital interface, revising that interface against what representative users actually do on the real learning tasks (finding, reading, submitting, interpreting) is expected to remove avoidable effort and failed attempts that compete with the content, though no claim in the wiki compares a user-tested interface with an untested one on a learning outcome.

V¶

Validity, Reliability, and Bias in Classroom Assessment - A classroom assessment score is expected to support a decision about a learner only as far as the tasks sample the intended capability without demands unrelated to it, the score is consistent across items, occasions and raters, and no group is disadvantaged by content or administration; no claim here tests that relationship in classrooms, and the claims that bear on it come mostly from large-scale testing and simulations.
Video Replay Analysis - For a learner building a real-time performance skill who cannot yet say accurately what they did at the moments that mattered, reviewing a recording against one stated focus, explaining paused moments, debriefing with someone who asks before telling and carrying one change into a recorded next attempt is expected to improve what they notice and their next performance, though no claim tests reviewing one's own recording against an alternative; the evidence is coaching reports, one study of teacher candidates analysing others' video, and findings carried from self-explanation and contingent support.

W¶

Wise Feedback Across Racial and Ethnic Difference - When critical feedback crosses a racial or ethnic difference, or reaches a learner from a group stereotyped in the domain, specific task-level critique stated together with the high standard it is held to and an explicit assurance that the learner can reach it is expected to be trusted and acted on more than the same critique without that framing; no claim in the wiki tests this, and neighbouring brief identity-targeted interventions are fragile.
Worked Examples - An example-first relationship qualified by task knowledge, representation, configuration and assessment horizon.