If you want to achieve ideal learning outcomes, puzzling over relevant problems before learning the basics pays off. ETH Zürich / Alessandro Della Bella
If you want to achieve ideal learning outcomes, puzzling over relevant problems before learning the basics pays off. ETH Zürich / Alessandro Della Bella - Researchers from ETH Zurich have demonstrated the positive effects of productive failure on learning outcomes. The success rate for one of ETH's largest courses was increased by 20 percent. For a long time, the dominant paradigm in teaching has been that we learn new things best when someone explains them to us. First instruction, then practice: this is the educational formula still applied in countless classrooms and lecture halls today. Researchers from the Professorship for Learning Sciences at ETH Zurich have now demonstrated that exactly the opposite is the case. "If you want to achieve ideal learning outcomes, it's better to first puzzle over a problem that is specifically relevant to a topic before then exploring the underlying principles," explains ETH professor Manu Kapur, who authored the study together with postdoctoral scientist Tanmay Sinha.
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