Michelene T.H. Chi

Professor Michelene (Micki) Chi is the 2023 Yidan Laureate for Education Research and a Regents’ Professor at Arizona State University. She is also the Director of the newly formed ICAP Center for Teaching and Learning, within the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (MLFTC). Trained as a cognitive developmental psychologist from Carnegie-Mellon University, Prof. Chi is an internationally prominent scholar studying how students learn and how to enhance deeper understanding of rich content materials taught in schools.

Her current influential theory of active learning, called ICAP, hypothesizes that students can engage with instruction in four overt ways and these four different ways of engaging produce differential levels of learning. ICAP is a parsimonious and generalizable theory of active learning that can be translated into professional development for training teachers and instructors. An interdisciplinary scholar, Professor Chi has received six prestigious lifetime achievement awards from both the education and psychology disciplines.