When Jim Davis and I were approached about writing a second edition of our book, Seven Ways of Learning, we asked some hard questions. Can we still justify the same seven ways of learning? Could we re-conceptualize them into five? Or nine? (It always seemed to be an odd number!) After much reading, exploration, discussion, and concept mapping, we found ourselves returning to our core seven ways of learning.
Even though nearly a decade had passed, most of the fundamental concepts and elements that underlie the seven ways of learning have remained essentially the same, often with new terminology and deeper understandings. And the core elements that make these ways of learning effective are being called upon anew to help us weather the most recent challenges in our teaching.
The rationale behind seven ways of learning is this: there are distinct types of learning we pursue in higher education, and they benefit from distinct teaching approaches and distinct understandings of learning theory. When we adopt a new teaching method, we should fully understand what type of learning the method is best used for (something surprisingly missing from many arguments). As we explain in the book:
The learning associated with developing a skill is in many ways different from the learning associated with understanding and remembering information, which in turn is different from thinking critically and creatively, solving problems, making decisions, or reworking attitudes…Differing outcomes involve different ways of learning. Learning a skill through a carefully arranged sequence of steps with appropriate feedback is one way of learning. Learning information through a carefully designed presentation is another. Learning to think critically by asking questions is still another (Arend & Davis, 2026, p. 11).
This is not to say the seven ways operate in entirely separate worlds. There are immense benefits to understanding the theory and core principles behind different learning approaches. Yet in practice, there are certainly areas of overlap and convergence.
In fact, digging into what is distinct about each approach actually makes it possible to zoom out and see what they hold in common. In re-exploring these seven ways of learning over the last few years, at least three aspects emerged repeatedly and seemed worth noting as universally beneficial.
1. Focus on the Process of Learning
For nearly all college learning outcomes, learning is not a one-and-done event. Rather, true learning is about the process itself. As scholars such as Robert Talbert argue, learning is practice. Those who are top performers are good at practicing.
When the learning goal is to solve problems (the mental models way of learning), one could assume the teaching focus should be on seeing a correct answer. Yet the literature underlying this way of learning points to the true goals of helping students learn the guidelines and heuristics of solving problems, not just getting the right answer. When we teach the models and rules of our fields—the steps, stages, and common pitfalls—it helps students be able to transfer and apply concepts to new situations and new contexts. Those aspects can get lost when students are only concerned with a correct answer. In fact, sometimes getting the wrong answer may actually better teach the process.
This focus on process works with other learning goals too. When the learning goal is skill development, the teacher can rely on behavioral learning principles of practice, feedback, and incremental progression. It is in the space where students try out a skill and gain immediate feedback where learning is occurring.
In inquiry-based learning, students move through identifiable stages of thinking, and the effective instructor recognizes those stages in order to nudge students to the next stage. When using experiential or group learning, ongoing reflection on the process is considered a better support to learning than giving feedback about a final outcome. And when the learning goal is understanding information, cognitive principles reveal how that true learning objective is never to regurgitate content but to guide learners through a deliberate cognitive process, using strategies like priming, chunking, and spaced retrieval practice.
Across all seven ways of learning, what students do in the process of achieving the learning goal often matters more than what they produce at the end.
2. Prioritize Formative Feedback
When we recognize that the process of learning often matters more than the final outcome, it follows logically that formative feedback becomes essential. Formative feedback is feedback designed to support learning while it is still happening, not to evaluate it after the fact. Although it can be time consuming, the value and benefits of formative feedback are among the most consistent and well-supported findings in educational research.
Behavioral learning principles offer foundational insight around feedback. In this way of learning, when we are teaching a skill, immediate and specific feedback to shape performance step by step is essential. The instructor’s role is to intentionally guide students from structured to independent practice. An instructor who knows the impacts of positive and negative reinforcement and the benefits and limitations of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can be more effective in guiding students.
Formative feedback is important with with other ways of learning as well. Learning information from presentations benefits from frequent knowledge checks and retrieval practice that strengthen memory encoding. Inquiry-based approaches rely on probing questions, peer dialogue, and real-time idea refinement. In problem- and case-based learning, consequences embedded in the work itself provide feedback on the quality of reasoning along the way. Simulations and role-play derive much of their power from in-process debriefing. And group learning and experiential learning benefit from ongoing check-ins and modifications during the process.
Overall, timely, specific, formative feedback is a universally beneficial practice and is most valuable when it arrives during learning rather than after it is over.
3. Make the Learning Visible
College educators are, by default, experts in their fields. Experts can perform complex skills, reasoning, and judgments automatically. Unfortunately, this “curse of knowledge” can be an obstacle to teaching. We may know our content so well that we miss crucial teaching moments by skipping over steps, using unexplained jargon, misjudging difficulty, or assuming prior knowledge. In order to teach the process of learning and give formative feedback, we need to make student’s thinking visible.
When teaching thinking skills through inquiry, making the thinking visible is the entire point. A first aspect to effectively facilitating this way of learning is to understand the desired thinking process you are teaching—the elements, rules, fallacies, and biases involved in thinking—and use that knowledge to guide your teaching. Inquiry-focused teaching means asking meaningful open-ended questions to draw out how students are analyzing an issue, to anticipate possible responses based on known prior knowledge, to structure questions in a way that will scaffold understanding, and to provide opportunities and time for students to actually do the thinking.
This importance carries over to other ways of learning. An instructor teaching skills must resist the urge to skip sub-steps that feel easy, instead breaking tasks down into smaller and smaller components as needed. An instructor presenting information must first gauge what students already know. When teaching problem- and case-based learning, instructors need to articulate the frameworks and decision pathways, often showing theoretically how outcomes would different when different decisions are made. And in experiential learning, structured reflection is what transforms an experience into usable knowledge.
Effective teaching, across all seven ways of learning, requires deliberate effort to make tacit knowledge visible, both for students and instructors.
When AI Can Fake the Product, Process Becomes Everything
In writing this, I’m struck that the three elements above are all subtly different forms of centering the process of learning that is so needed today.
In an era when generative AI can produce polished products on demand, it’s more important than ever to resist the temptation to equate outputs with learning. We are just beginning to grapple with manageable ways to do this in our courses.
This post does not provide solid answers to gAI issues, but does convey that the literature underlying our teaching approaches encourages us to center the process of learning, prioritize formative feedback, and make thinking visible. Any efforts to put purposeful attention to how learning is happening, not just whether it appears to have happened, are still well worth our time.
Arend, B. & Davis, J. R. (2026). Facilitating seven ways of learning: A resource for more purposeful, effective, and enjoyable college teaching. Taylor & Francis.
AI disclosure: After writing an original first draft, generative AI was used to refine language and provide additional ideas for the final text. Nearly all AI-created text was re-written, and TBH, probably took more time to rethink and rewrite in my own words (including em-dashes) than it was worth.
