Learning Foundations
Students bring these existing ideas, experiences, and beliefs into your classroom. They can help learning—or get in its way.
What is prior knowledge?
Discuss: How could you check what students already know before starting a unit?
A clear statement of what students should be able to do by the end of a course or unit is called this.
What is a learning outcome (or learning objective)?
Discuss: Is the intended student performance in one of your outcomes observable?
This is the sense of being accepted and valued as a member of a learning community.
What is belonging?
Discuss: How do you communicate that every student can contribute?
This type of assessment uses a brief, low-stakes check to guide next steps in teaching and learning.
What is formative assessment?
Discuss: What would you do if the check revealed a common misunderstanding?
Monitoring your understanding and choosing how to improve your learning is called this.
What is metacognition?
Discuss: What reflection would help students evaluate their own learning?
This describes the mental demand a task places on a learner’s limited working memory.
What is cognitive load?
Discuss: What could you simplify without removing the intellectual challenge?
This design approach begins with desired learning, identifies evidence, and then plans instruction and practice.
What is backward design?
Discuss: What evidence would convince you that students achieved an outcome?
Headings, meaningful link text, captions, and usable document structure support this.
What is accessibility?
Discuss: Which course material would you review first for barriers?
Students quietly explain a concept in their own words on an exit ticket. Does this count as active learning? Explain.
Yes. Students actively generate an explanation; active learning does not require movement or group work.
Discuss: Where could short writing reveal students’ thinking?
An AI tool performs a thinking task a student would otherwise do. This can be described as this.
What is cognitive offloading? Whether it supports learning depends on the task and how the tool is used.
Discuss: Which thinking must your students practice themselves?
Students close their notes and recall key ideas instead of rereading them.
What is retrieval practice?
Discuss: Where could you add a low-stakes recall opportunity?
The outcome asks students to evaluate evidence, but the exam tests only definitions. This is the design problem.
What is misalignment between the outcome and assessment?
Discuss: What task could assess students’ evaluation of evidence?
This framework supports proactive design with multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression.
What is Universal Design for Learning (UDL)?
Discuss: Where could choice reduce a barrier while preserving the learning goal?
Detailed comments arrive after the final submission, with no opportunity to apply them. Suggest an improvement.
Provide feedback earlier with a revision opportunity, or explicitly connect it to a later task where students can use it.
Discuss: When can students use feedback in your course?
“Use AI responsibly” leaves students unsure about an assignment. Identify what the instructor should clarify.
Permitted and prohibited uses, why the boundaries support learning, and required disclosure or documentation.
Discuss: Could students tell whether brainstorming, drafting, or editing is allowed?
A concept appears in week 2, returns in week 4, and is applied again in week 6.
What is spaced practice (spacing)?
Discuss: Which idea deserves planned revisiting?
Students must debate competing interpretations on the final, but class includes only factual lectures. This connection is missing.
What is practice aligned with the assessed skill? Students need to compare interpretations and support arguments before the final.
Discuss: Where could that practice fit in your unit?
Students choose a podcast or essay to show evidence-based reasoning. These features must remain consistent across options.
What are the learning outcome, level of challenge, and criteria for evaluating reasoning and evidence? Both formats must demonstrate the intended learning.
Discuss: Is the format itself part of the skill in your course?
Students produce examples, explain a process, or connect new ideas with existing knowledge. This is the learning process.
What is generative learning? Students produce explanations or connections rather than only receive information.
Discuss: What could students generate during a lecture?
AI is permitted, but a student cannot explain the claims in a polished submission. Suggest additional evidence of learning.
An oral explanation, critique of the output, annotated decisions, or application to a new case. Accept evidence aligned with the outcome.
Discuss: Which approach fits your course and workload?
Students use a mixed problem set to practice choosing among several problem-solving methods.
What is interleaving? Mixing related problem types helps students distinguish when to use each approach.
Discuss: Which problem types could students practice distinguishing?
Students complete aligned work but cannot explain why it matters or how it is judged. Name TWO design improvements.
Explain the purpose and relevance; provide clear success criteria, such as a rubric or annotated example. Accept equivalent approaches.
Discuss: Where do students see the purpose and criteria before beginning?
An assignment feels overwhelming and unrelated to students’ goals. Propose one change for clarity and one for motivation.
For example: break the task into clear stages with criteria; explain its relevance or offer meaningful topic choice. Accept justified alternatives addressing both concerns.
Discuss: Which change could you make without redesigning the whole assignment?
A poll reveals widespread confusion, but the instructor continues without adjustment. This step is missing.
What is using assessment evidence to respond? Clarify misconceptions, model reasoning, provide targeted practice, or adjust instruction.
Discuss: What response could you plan for a likely misconception?
A course has engaging activities, accessible materials, clear AI rules, and frequent quizzes. Why might its central outcomes still go unmet?
The pieces may not work together: activities or quizzes may target different skills, or practice, feedback, and sequencing may not prepare students for the intended performance.
Discuss: Which connection in your course would you inspect first?