Summary of Relevant Learning Theory

1. It is better for college students to be active seekers rather than passive recipients of learning.
2. For students to be fully engaged in learning, their attention must be focused on the material.
3. Differences in intellectual ability among college students will influence their speed of learning: these differences will be more noticeable when the information to be learned is abstract and complex than when it is simple and concrete.
4. Students increase their effort if rewarded rather than punished; however, students differ in the teacher behaviours that they find rewarding.
5. Students will learn and remember information better if they have many cognitive associations to it; learning of isolated information is more difficult and less permanent than learning of information that is connected to a network of other material.
6. It is difficult to learn ideas that are very similar unless the differences between them are emphasized. Conversely, it is easier to learn disparate ideas if their similarities are emphasized.
7. Students learn images as well as words.  Images are more easily remembered especially if the images are vivid and emotionally tinged.
8. Students enter every class with positive and negative emotional attitudes that can interfere with learning or can increase motivation and provide an associational network for new learning.
9. A moderate amount of anxiety or challenge activates most students and increases learning; however, excessive anxiety interferes with learning.

Lowan, Joseph, "Mastering the Techniques of Teaching", Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1994.