Carl Hendrick, noted cognitive psychologist who writes about the implications of research for the design of instruction on his ‘stack, The Learning Dispatch. delivered a keynote address at the 2026 National Institute for Direct Instruction annual conference on 21 July 2026. A video of Professor Hendrick’s talk, “10 Rules for Designing Effective Learning that Work for Every Student,” is available from YouTube.
Here’s is that video, beginning wth Kurt Engelmann introducing Professor Hendrick:
Professor Hendrick spoke about important ideas from his discipline. He described studies, many of them particularly well known, and explained their connections to learning. He described educational situations and how they reflected those learning studies, noting how many educational practices were inconsistent with those findings—and how DI methods actually are consistent with the findings.
Some members of the Special Education Community were in the audience. I hope that they can tell us in the comments a little about their first-hand experience of the meetings and Professor Hendrick’s address. I wish I could have been there! (Also, if we get lucky, someone may add info about how to find a PDF of the slides or other passouts from the conference.)
National Institute for Direct Instruction, which is a non-profit organization that promotes effective instruction of DI programs, has lots more to offer. There are resources of teachers, coaches, and supervisors, many of them available for free.
As the keynote presenter for the Eugene DI conference, Professor Hendrick joined an illustrious club. If one pokes about enough on the NIFDI Web site, she can find keynote presentation by Anita Archer, Jan Hasbrouck, and (of course) Zig Engelmann. (Look here and here, and you’ll also find lots of others).