The Evidence on Teaching

Explore the evidence

7 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

free1

outcome class

domain skill1

Unallocated money is the worst buy in the database; the same dollars as No-Excuses charters buy +0.3–0.4 SD/yr — and the average charter is a precise null.

mixedconf: highgc: low

8/839/48connected:Tutoring Background knowledge and vocabular Teacher quality Math curriculum choice

School spending, charters, and what school-level choices actually move outcomes · school-structure · ages 4–18 · structure

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

Unassisted discovery loses to explicit teaching; well-scaffolded guided discovery beats both. The operative variable is guidance, not ideology.

moderate supportconf: mediumgc: low

13/1315/48connected:Worked examples (studying solution Explicit vs reform/constructivist Science content sequencing Inquiry-based science teaching vs +1

Explicit instruction vs discovery/inquiry — how much guidance? · instruction-style · ages 4–18 · method

Novices learn faster studying solutions than solving problems — then the effect reverses with expertise. Use worked examples early; fade them.

moderate supportconf: mediumgc: low

6/67/48connected:Explicit instruction vs discovery/Word problems, schema instruction,

Worked examples (studying solutions vs solving problems) · instruction-style · ages 10–18 · method

Near-zero in primary and almost entirely correlational in secondary. The causal base is three small trials; what the homework IS beats how much of it there is.

mixedconf: mediumgc: medium

16/1629/48

Homework — effects by age and by dosage · homework · 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.