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Over the years, education researchers have conducted thousands of studies. Governments, private foundations, and businesses have spent billions of dollars in an attempt to answer one simple question: How do we increase student success?

I think most people would agree that it’s a noble pursuit, right? Worthy of billions of dollars. However, for over 50 years, many of these studies deliver essentially the same findings. They confirm that if we want to increase student success, we need to focus on two things: Relationships and Active Learning, in that order. If we want to increase student success, the most important thing, by far, is that the students respect, trust and like the instructor. If they do, then they will probably learn a great deal. If they don’t respect, trust or like the instructor, then learning will be limited.

Also, If we want to increase student success, the instructor must offer an active learning environment where students are doing, creating and collaborating. If the students are passive and don’t have a chance to do, create or collaborate, success will be limited. And that’s basically it. Decades of research, and that’s what we know. It’s simple, so why haven’t things really changed? Why haven’t these ideas caught on?

Well, here’s what happens. Millions of dollars are spent on a multi year research study. They discover that relationships and active learning increase student success. Yay! Those results are celebrated and shared. And the expectation is that, of course instructors will change because of this important research. But, they don’t. So, millions are spent on another study to find that it’s all about relationships and active learning. Yay! Still no one changes. So we spend millions more, then millions more, and after 50 years, and billions spent teaching practices across the industry are still kinda the same. We know how to improve student success. We have known for many years. Now it’s time to invest in efforts to advertise these best practices so that instructors are inspired, encouraged and incentivized to change their behaviors. Improving student success is no longer a research problem. It’s a marketing problem.