The document discusses findings from a systematic review on variables associated with achievement in higher education. It identifies factors that can help make courses and learning more meaningful. These include thoughtful preparation and organization of courses, clear objectives and requirements, relating new content to students' lives and experiences, providing intellectual challenges, using advance organizers and concept maps, incorporating conceptually oriented tasks and project-based learning, and carefully structuring small group work and supervision of projects. A combination of different teaching methods is most effective for both acquiring knowledge and practical skills.

1. Stimulating Meaningful
Learning
Exploring the evidence
Schneider & Preckel, 2017,Variables Associated with Achievement in Higher Education

2. the evidence
In this systematic review,
3,330 effect sizes from
quantitative empirical
studies involving a total
of 1,920,239 students
have been synthesized.
Schneider & Preckel, 2017 p. 28
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3. The findings
Teachers in higher
education can
make their courses
more effective by
using these
findings in the
preparation and
delivery of their
courses.

4. Meaningful learning
requires….
• thoughtful
preparation and
organization of
the course
(rank 3)

5. meaningful learning
requires….
• clear course
objectives and
requirements
(rank 13),
so that teachers
and students do
not mindlessly
follow routines
but intentionally
engage in
educational
practices to
attain their goals.

6. Teachers can also make new
content more meaningful by…
• explicitly pointing out how it
relates to the students’
lives, experiences, and aims
(rank 17).
This helps students
perceive the relevance of
the new content,
integrating it with prior
knowledge in their long-
term memory, and
memorizing it
(Schneider, 2012).

7. Providing intellectual
challenges and
encouraging independent
thought (rank 26) helps
students…
• think through new
learning content,
• elaborate on it,
• consider its relation to
their prior knowledge,
and,
• identify its theoretical
and practical
implications.

8. Teachers can foster
meaningful learning by……
• beginning each lesson with
a short description of its
contents (advance organizer, rank
64)
• visualizing abstract
relations between
constructs in concept maps
(rank 45).
Moderator analyses show,
concept maps are more
effective when they depict
central ideas only
(Nesbit & Adesope, 2006).
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9. Conceptually oriented tasks (rank 30)
are useful, because ….
• they “elicit students’ level of
understanding of key science
concepts,
• identify students’
misconceptions, [. . . and]
• engage students with real-world
problems in creative ways that
reflect a conceptually integrated
understanding of the content”
(Ruiz-Primo et al., 2011, p. 1269).

10. Classes can be made
more meaningful by
using project-based
learning arrangements,
where groups of
students work on
complex authentic tasks
over extended periods
of time and have to
structure their own
problem-solving
process under the
supervision of a
teacher or a tutor.

11. The students’
projects are often
similar to scientific
research or
workplace projects,
helping students to
see where and how
the contents their
course can be useful.

12. Project based learning is
more effective than regular
lectures and seminars for
acquiring practical skills
(rank 35) but less effective
for acquiring fact knowledge
(rank 96).
…it can be productive to
complement project-based
learning with lectures, which
improve knowledge more
strongly than practical skills
(Bligh, 2000, p. 5).

13. According to moderator
analyses, an entire project-
based curriculum has
stronger positive effects on
skills than a single project-
based course
(Dochy, Segers, Bossche, &
Gijbels, 2003).

14. Similar to all forms of
small-group learning,
project-based learning
requires careful
preparation and close
supervision by teachers.
Entirely student-directed
project-based learning, the
so called pure discovery
learning, is far less
effective than standard
lectures and seminars
(Alfieri, Brooks, Aldrich, &
Tenenbaum, 2011; cf. Mayer,
2004).

15. How do design
meaningful learning?
What else could you do?