Teachers usually can’t use standardized tests to accelerate students’ learning. The tests are often too general and the results too slow in coming to help teachers make daily instructional decisions.

The K-12 “reading wars” discussions have been missing a critical point: No matter the curriculum used, too often, teachers are being asked to stick to a script and execute equal teaching, not ...

Doing well in school isn’t just about being able to read dense books and solve complex math problems. There are other, less tangible qualities that help students succeed, like having the courage to ...

On a recent morning, I had the chance to read poems my ninth-grade English students had written about encounters with racism. I was struck by the beauty and poignance of many of their lines. Yet I ...

Mr. Willingham is a psychologist at the University of Virginia and the author, most recently, of “Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy.” See more of our coverage in ...

Easy come, easy go is more than a hook to one of Queen's greatest ballads. It's also how our brain seems to approach learning. When information is acquired without mental effort, it tends to disappear ...

Understanding intelligence and creating intelligent machines are grand scientific challenges of our times. The ability to learn from experience is a cornerstone of intelligence for machines and living ...