The Evidence on Teaching

Explore the evidence

6 of 88 decisions · clear everything

Survives the gold standard Independent, durable, rigorous The debunked shelf Cheap wins For parents at home Famous numbers, deflated Where we admit ignorance The terrain

evidenceall drop D A–B A only

evaluatorany no dev-led independent

durabilityany follow-up ≥1yr ≥2yr

what are these? →

Your situation · from the applicability layer — absence means “not yet assessed,” never “doesn’t apply”

who's delivering

group / setting

cost

outcome class

domain skill2

Feedback on the task helps modestly; feedback on the person backfires — a stable third of studies reverse. The famous 0.4–0.7 number has no computed source.

mixedconf: highgc: low

18/1812/48connected:Retrieval practice (the testing ef Does teaching music produce musica Placement and mastery diagnosis

Feedback and formative assessment · feedback · ages 5–18 · method

Matching instruction to 'learning styles' does nothing: real matching experiments return d=.04. The correlational literature IS the myth.

debunkedconf: highgc: low

13/1324/48connected:Brain Gym, Whole Brain Teaching, a

Does matching instruction to a child's "learning style" improve learning? · debunked · ages 4–18 · debunked

Teaching coding teaches coding: the one clean school RCT gives g=0.47-0.68. Which approach you pick barely matters, and almost every effect size rests on an instrument the developers built.

moderate supportconf: mediumgc: low

22/2225/48connected:Does learning to code improve gene Talent and trainability

Does teaching programming actually teach programming — and does the method matter? · computer-science · ages 5–18

Sort by what the software replaces: adaptive drill inside the school day buys +0.05-0.20 SD; a device, a connection or the teacher buys zero to negative; LLM tutors have no usable evidence at all.

mixedconf: mediumgc: low

53/5339/48connected:Placement and mastery diagnosis Mastery learning (teach → test → r Tutoring Class-size reduction

Does educational technology raise learning — CAI, adaptive software, devices, screens, and AI tutors? · edtech · ages 5–18 · structure

Never operationalised well enough to test: no MI-based trial meets even a loose evidential bar. Four decades in, a valid evaluation is still impossible.

insufficientconf: mediumgc: medium

4/412/48connected:Does teaching movement transfer to

Should Gardner's multiple intelligences be used as a basis for instruction? · debunked · ages 4–18 · debunked

Brain Gym, Fast ForWord, coloured overlays, the Mozart effect: tested and failed, or never evidence-based at all. Mozart works exactly as well as any other music.

debunkedconf: mediumgc: low

11/1118/48connected:Does teaching visual art produce a Does matching instruction to a chi Does working-memory or brain train Does learning music make children

Brain Gym, Whole Brain Teaching, and the smaller classroom brain fads · debunked · ages 4–18 · debunked

The URL is the state — any view you build here is a permalink you can hand to someone mid-argument.