Teaching-to-Learn

Abstract

Students report poor learning goals and study strategies. Educators may encourage better learning by requiring students to complete assessments that promote generative learning. The benefits of engaging in generative processes suggest encouraging them through teaching-to-learn assignments may be helpful. There is little research examining the benefits of teaching-to-learn conducted as part of a classroom curriculum with appropriate control conditions. The current study examines the benefits of teaching-to-learn on conceptual knowledge learning by requiring 53 students to prepare and deliver a lecture in one unit and write a paper in another unit. Students then answered questions covering their lecture and paper topics on both a unit and surprise final exam. Analyses on exams revealed students answered a greater percentage of the questions about their lecture topic correctly (84.91% and 76.23%) than their paper topic (76.98% and 67.92%) on both the unit and final exam respectively.