Two years ago, eight faculty at California State University, Northridge, began studying how people learn as a grassroots effort to increase student success by focusing on what instructors do in the classroom. Our website shares our efforts, Five Gears for Activating Learning, as well as supporting resources and projects developed to date (e.g., documents, videos, and a yearlong Faculty Learning Community in progress). Although all five gears interact when people learn and develop expertise, our fifth gear, the Developing Mastery gear, focuses on assisting students in developing their metacognitive skills.
