The fundamental idea underlying engagement theory is that students must be meaningfully engaged in learning activities through interaction with others and worthwhile tasks.

The only instructional element that really matters is practice with feedback.

As the brilliant German educator Kurt Hahn (the founder of Outward Bound) said, teaching people who are aren’t ready is like “pouring and pouring into a jug and never looking to see whether the lid is off.”

People have radically different learning styles and abilities, and effective learning—learning that benefits <i>all</i> students—is necessarily individualized and self-paced. This is the elephant in the classroom from which no teacher can hide.

Finally, whereas that first compulsory-education law in Massachusetts was competency-based, the system that grew in its wake requires <i>all</i> young people to attend school, no matter what they know. Even worse, the system provides no incentives for students to master material quickly, and few or no meaningful options for young people who do leave school.

In today’s fast-paced world, education needs to be spread out over a lifetime, and the main thing we need to teach our young people is to love the process of learning.

What if you could engage users in a story for about half the time, yet have them remember about 34 percent more of the content?

Well-constructed social environments provide an excellent opportunity to model high tech learning in a safe online environment. In other words, experienced learners can share their experience with new learners.