Though his research is no longer commonly cited, Edward Thorndike’s promotion of psychological research amongst teachers pre-empted the contemporary resurgence of interest in applying psychological principles to teaching. Thorndike pioneered experimental studies of learning, most famously puzzles boxes, cages from which animals could learn to escape by using an unlocking mechanism. The puzzle box experiments led Thorndike to develop learning curves, charts which represented an animal’s progress in problem solving. Thorndike was one of the first researchers to propose formal principles of learning, ‘laws’, which foreshadowed several recommendations of contemporary science education research. Thorndike suggested an approach to introducing abstract concepts and was critical of unstructured discovery learning. He was committed to the idea that teaching should be informed by research and published books that introduced teachers to psychological research. Though Thorndike’s research is sometimes presented as outdated or simplistic, his work is nuanced and contains ideas of value to contemporary teachers and researchers. Perhaps Thorndike’s most lasting influence is the belief that learning can be studied and modelled and that classroom practice should be informed by empirical research.