English

Professor Michelene (Micki) Chi is perhaps best known for her influential theory of active learning, called ICAP. It’s the latest in a series of milestones in her work, which challenges accepted ideas and enriches our understanding of how students learn best.  

 

Out of the four modes of learning (Interactive, Constructive, Active, and Passive), Micki has shown that Interactive and Constructive modes tend to cultivate deeper understanding. Students can learn the most in the former mode — but only when they collaborate in a co-Constructive way, such as debating with a peer or jointly writing a critique. 

 

Her Yidan Prize-funded project focuses on post-secondary STEMM subject teaching (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine), given the need to reduce high drop-out rates and nurture the next generation of scientific thinkers. 

 

Micki has been breaking new ground since her early work on expert problem-solving, showing that expert instructors ‘see’ the deep underlying principles of physics problems immediately, whereas novice students see only the surface features — or explicit characteristics. This distinction poses a challenge to the way we teach problem-solving so that students can connect the dots between the surface and its underlying principles to solve a problem. 

 

Among her other major contributions to the science of learning is her work demonstrating how ‘self-explaining’ deepens a student’s understanding of a topic. She also clarified the power of tutoring, showing that the benefits come from tutors encouraging students to think aloud — not, as then thought, through a range of skilled tutoring tactics.  

 

Crucially, Micki has also given researchers a new way to analyze information, using quantitative coding methods to evaluate qualitative data. As with ICAP’s framework for teachers, this emphasizes her strongly pragmatic approach — making research accessible and easier to use with students at every level.