My research-and-consulting practice, Work-Learning Research, was 20 years old last Saturday. This has given me pause to reflect on where I’ve been and how learning research has involved in the past two decades.

Today, as I’m preparing a conference proposal for next year’s ISPI conference, I found an early proposal I put together for the Great Valley chapter of ISPI to speak at one of their monthly meetings back in 2002. I don’t remember whether they actually accepted my proposal, but here is an excerpt:

Interesting that even way back then, I had found and compiled research on retrieval practice, spacing, feedback, etc. from the scientific journals and the exhaustive labor of hundreds of academic researchers. I am still talking about these foundational learning principles even today—because they are fundamental and because research and practice continue to demonstrate their power. You can look at recent books and websites that are now celebrating these foundational learning factors (Make it Stick, Design for How People Learn, The Ingredients for Great Teaching, Learning Scientists website, etc.).

Feeling blessed today, as we here in the United States move into a weekend where we honor our workers, that I have been able to use my labor to advance these proven principles, uncovered first by brilliant academic researchers such as Bjork, Bahrick, Mayer, Ebbinghaus, Crowder, Sweller, van Merriënboer, Rothkopf, Runquist, Izawa, Smith, Roediger, Melton, Hintzman, Glenberg, Dempster, Estes, Eich, Ericsson, Davies, Garner, Chi, Godden, Baddeley, Hall, Hintzman, Herz, Karpicke, Butler, Kirschner, Clark, Kulhavy, Moreno, Pashler, Cepeda, and many others.

From these early beginnings, I created a listing of twelve foundational learning factors—factors that I have argued should be our first priority in creating great learning—reviewed here in this document.

Happy Labor Day everyone and special thanks to the researchers who continue to make my work possible—and enable learning professionals of all stripes to build increasingly effective learning!

If you’d like to leave a remembrance in regard to Work-Learning Research’s 20th anniversary, or just read my personal reflections about it, you can do that here.