“How Teaching Happens distills decades of complexity into an easy-to-read volume that dispenses practical wisdom. Anyone connected with education must read it…”
- Daniel Willingham, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia and author of Why Don’t Students Like School?
Jim Heal is a co-author of the award-winning book How Teaching Happens. The book offers a comprehensive look at the science behind effective teaching, blending decades of research with practical insights. It explores essential teaching principles and their application in classrooms, providing educators with a guide to improve student learning.
New book coming April 2025
Life is one big chance to teach and learn. Begin with ‘the mind’ in mind.
In work and in life, each of us encounters daily opportunities to teach and learn. Whether you’re presenting a complex idea to a room of people, or helping a friend or relative acquire a new skill – acts of teaching and learning are woven throughout our lives. Despite this daily call to think and grow, we rarely think about the most important aspect of the learning process: how the mind actually works.
Publications & Media
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The Applied Science of Learning
By aligning instruction with the science of learning, educators can help their students better absorb lessons in the classroom
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How Systems Change
If we are going to teach, we need to understand what it means to learn.
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Balancing Teacher-Led Instruction and Student-Centered Learning
Taking students’ prior knowledge into account can help teachers balance direct instruction and student autonomy.
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The Science of Coaching Teachers
What happens when we apply an understanding of how people learn to the way we coach novice teachers?
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Moving from Engagement to Deeper Thinking
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Just because they’re engaged, it doesn’t mean they’re learning
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Why Time is a Teacher’s Greatest Commodity…and What to Do
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Using Inquiry to Support Deeper Learning
Teachers can use ‘effortful’ follow-up questions to refine and extend student thinking about important concepts in a lesson.
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If You Want to Remember Something, Think Hard and Dig Deep
How effortful thinking impacts student learning
