If you’ve been in education for any length of time, you know there’s never a shortage of “new” strategies being touted as game changers. The challenge is figuring out which ones are actually grounded in solid research and then translating them into everyday classroom practice. The good news is that recent studies offer some very practical, doable shifts that can make a big difference for your students.
Make Learning Visible
John Hattie’s work on visible learning reminds us that students should always know what they are learning, why they are learning it, and what success looks like. That means moving beyond “We’re going to work on fractions” to clearly posted goals and simple, student-friendly success criteria. When students can describe what they’re working toward and how they’ll know they’ve gotten there, they begin to take ownership of learning instead of just completing tasks.
Feedback plays a major role here. Actionable, timely feedback that points students to their next step is far more powerful than a score at the top of the paper. Building in reflection—using questions, prompts, or Project Zero Thinking Routines—helps students become more metacognitive and “their own teachers” over time. A quick example: After a lab or writing task, ask students, “What did you do that helped you learn today, and what will you try differently next time?”
Develop Brains, Don’t Just Fill Them
Research on expertise shows that complex skills develop through deliberate practice, not just exposure to information. In other words, it’s not about how much content you cover but how intentionally students practice the thinking required in your subject. Tasks should be challenging but doable, with clear models and lots of chances to try, get feedback, and try again.
This is where you can dial back the “one-and-done” assignment approach. Instead, design sequences of tasks that stretch students just beyond their comfort zone and ask them to reflect on what’s getting easier and what’s still hard. Short conferences, peer feedback, and checklists can help students compare their current work to a standard and plan concrete next steps.
Rethink Review: Retrieval, Not Rereading
Many students (and adults!) still think that rereading, highlighting, and copying notes equals studying. The research strongly disagrees. Low-stakes, spaced retrieval practice—activities that require students to pull information from memory—beats passive review almost every time. Think quick practice quizzes, brain dumps, short review games, or group problem-solving that revisit key concepts over time, not just before a test.
The spacing effect tells us that review sessions spread out over days, weeks, and months are far more effective than cramming. You might set a simple goal: “Every week, I’ll bring back two ideas from earlier in the unit or year.” A two-minute warm-up where students list everything they remember about a prior topic or sketch a key process can dramatically strengthen retention.
Connect to Background Knowledge
Students learn new content more easily when they can connect it to what they already know. Research suggests that background knowledge is most powerful when it’s organized into schemas—mental frameworks that help students slot new information into place. That means we should intentionally design units around a few big, unifying ideas and consistently reinforce how new learning fits into that bigger picture.
In practice, you might preview a video or reading and ask students to identify new vocabulary and link it to prior topics, experiences, or texts. Simple prompts like “This reminds me of…” or “This is similar to…” can help students see patterns and strengthen their understanding. Over time, they begin to see your course not as isolated lessons but as a connected story.
Let Students Draw to Learn
One of the more surprising findings from recent studies is how powerful drawing can be for learning. From detailed diagrams to quick sketch notes, drawing boosts both factual recall and comprehension when students use it to represent relationships between ideas. The key is not artistic quality but helping students externalize and organize their thinking visually.
Try asking students to create a one-page sketch note after a reading, focusing on how concepts connect rather than copying chunks of text. Mind maps, annotated flowcharts, and simple labeled drawings can all serve as visual organizers and “memory facilitators.” Research suggests that drawing by hand (rather than with a device) increases the learning benefits, so keep the tech simple on this one.
Small Shifts, Big Impact
You don’t have to overhaul your entire curriculum to align with the latest research. Start by choosing one or two strategies—maybe making learning goals more visible and adding a weekly retrieval practice routine—and build from there. Over time, these small shifts can significantly increase engagement, retention, and student ownership of learning in your classroom.
*This blog was written with the help of Perplexity.ai and directly pulls source information from TCEA’s September 2025 Lunch and Learn Webinar of the same title.