Practical teaching

Understanding how students learn is essential to effective teaching. Foundational educational theories offer different perspectives on the learning process and provide valuable insights that can inform everyday teaching decisions. These theories help explain what drives learning, how information is processed, and how learners build understanding. They offer both theoretical grounding and practical strategies for designing instruction, fostering engagement, and supporting student development.

As a teacher, you might find yourself asking:

• How can I help students remember and apply key concepts more effectively?
• What types of feedback actually support learning?
• How do I design lessons that build on what students already know?
• What role do motivation and reinforcement play in student engagement?
• How can I encourage deeper understanding rather than rote memorization?
• What’s the best way to support students in making sense of complex ideas?

These questions don’t have one-size-fits-all answers—but the foundational learning theories can help you explore them from multiple angles and make informed, intentional teaching choices:

Teaching is not just about what you say, but also how you say it. Strong communication—both verbal and non-verbal—is foundational for creating a clear, engaging, and inclusive learning environment.

Practical questions it helps answer:

• How do I keep students engaged during a lecture or seminar?
• What signals am I sending through my body language and tone of voice?
• How can I create a safe and inclusive learning environment?

Non-verbal cues such as tone of voice, facial expressions, posture, and eye contact communicate confidence, openness, and care—or, unintentionally, disinterest or stress. When aligned with your verbal message, they help students feel welcomed and engaged.

You can enhance communication by:

• Using open body language and eye contact to build rapport
• Varying your tone and pacing to emphasize important points
• Leaving space for silence—useful for reflection and processing
• Inviting interaction through questions and active listening

Feedback is one of the most direct and powerful tools teachers have to influence student learning. In a course on practical teaching skills, learning how to give effective, actionable feedback is essential for promoting improvement and motivation.

Practical questions it helps answer:

• How can I give students feedback that actually helps them improve?
• When is the right moment to give feedback—during a task or after?
• How do I balance being constructive without discouraging students?

Effective feedback is timely, specific, and focused on learning goals. Research (e.g., Hattie & Timperley, 2007) shows that feedback is most effective when it answers three key questions:

1. Where am I going? (What are the goals?)
2. How am I going? (What progress has been made?)
3. Where to next? (What can be improved?)

Feedback should focus on task performance, not personal traits, and ideally point toward feedforward—giving students a next step. Self-Determination Theory reminds us to give feedback in a way that supports autonomy and competence, avoiding controlling language. Frequent, informal feedback (such as during in-class discussions or formative assignments) can be just as powerful as written feedback on final work.

Many teachers wonder how to structure their lessons to promote deeper learning. Gagné’s Nine Events provide a practical and research-based roadmap for lesson planning that supports student attention, understanding, and retention.

Practical questions it helps answer:

• How can I structure a lesson that supports deep learning?
• What steps should I include to help students absorb and apply new material?

Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction (1985) provide a structured approach that mirrors how students process information. The steps are:

• Gain attention – Use a question, story, or surprising fact to draw interest.
• Inform learners of objectives – Clarify what they will learn and why it matters.
• Stimulate recall of prior knowledge – Connect new material to what students already know.
• Present content – Organize material clearly and accessibly.
• Provide learning guidance – Offer examples, analogies, and strategies.
• Elicit performance (practice) – Let students try it out in a low-stakes setting.
• Provide feedback – Guide improvement during practice.
• Assess performance – Evaluate learning through tasks or discussion.
• Enhance retention and transfer – Help students apply knowledge in new contexts.

Learning is not just about receiving information—it involves doing, reflecting, and applying. Kolb’s Learning Cycle highlights the importance of experience and reflection, making it a key model for designing active, student-centered learning experiences.

Practical questions it helps answer:

• How can I support students in learning from experience?
• How do I help students connect theory with practice?
• How can I design activities that go beyond content delivery?

What you can learn:
Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle (1984) consists of four stages that promote deep, active learning:

1. Concrete Experience – Engaging in a hands-on activity (e.g., simulation, case study, lab work).
2. Reflective Observation – Looking back on the experience and identifying what happened and why.
3. Abstract Conceptualization – Connecting the experience to theories, concepts, or frameworks.
4. Active Experimentation – Applying what was learned to a new context or task.

This cycle supports a constructivist view of learning, where knowledge is built through reflection and application. Teachers can structure courses to move students through these stages by including interactive activities, reflection prompts, theoretical input, and practical application tasks.

With so much advice available, teachers often ask: “What actually works?” These 12 principles summarize key findings from educational research and offer a practical guide for making informed teaching decisions.

Practical questions it helps answer:

• What does research say about effective teaching?
• How can I make my teaching more engaging and impactful?
• What small changes can I make that lead to better learning outcomes?

The 12 principles—based on research synthesized by educational scientists like De Bruyckere, Kirschner, and Sweller—offer practical, research-supported ideas you can apply directly. Examples include:

• Activate prior knowledge 
• Use retrieval practice 
• Vary practice 
• Support intrinsic motivation 
• Manage cognitive load 
• Use feedback effectively