ABSTRACT We marshal discoveries about human behavior and learning from social science research and show how these can be used to improve teaching and learning. The discoveries are easily stated as three social science generalizations: (1) social connections motivate, (2) teaching teaches the teacher, and (3) instant feedback improves learning. We show how to apply these generalizations via innovations in modern information technology inside, outside, and across university classrooms. We also give concrete examples of these ideas from innovations we have experimented with in our own teaching. Humans have theorized about how to teach for thousands of years and update the substance of what we teach almost every year. Yet generations have passed without any major improvements in the procedures and style of teaching in our classrooms. If your great-great-great-grandparents went to college, they probably sat in a classroom with all the other students facing forward, trying to look attentive, while the professor professed. If

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Abstract: Lifestyle medicine interventions are typically intensive by design. This study explored the optimal “dosage ” of a well-known lifestyle medicine intervention—the Complete

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Raising schooling quality in low-income countries is a pressing challenge. Substantial research has considered the impact of cutting class sizes on skills acquisition. Considerably less attention has been given to the extent to which peer effects, which refer to class composition, also may affect outcomes. This study uses new microdata from East Africa, incorporating test score data for over 250,000 children, to compare the likely efficacy of these two types of interventions. Endogeneity bias is addressed via fixed effects and instrumental variables techniques. Although these may not fully mitigate bias from omitted variables, the preferred IV results indicate considerable negative effects due to larger class sizes and larger numbers of overage-for-grade peers. The latter, driven by the highly prevalent practices of grade repetition and academic redshirting, should be considered an important target for policy interventions.