Principles of Effective Learning and Teaching

Challenge is not a 'learning activity' or 'more work' when you are finished. Challenge is not just making questions 'harder'.

At Southfield we recognise that challenge is created through the use of; effective explanations, models, scaffolds, questions, practice and feedback. Challenge is all of these wrapped in a culture of high expectaions, positive relationships and purposeful learning environments.

Challenge is about pitching our students into the struggle zone as regularly as possible (see the picture below from 'Making every lesson count' - Allison and Tharby). Learning is unlikely to happen in the comfort zone as students are not thinking hard enough about the material in order for it to be retained. Equally once the challenge gets too high students enter the panic zone and will shut down to what we are trying to teach them. This is in large part due to cognitive load, as when we overload students with information their limited working memory (in which almost all information is lost within after 30 seconds) will not contribute to the formation of long-term memories.

The team at Durrington Research School suggest that 'everyday challenge' can be ensured if we:

Prioritise learning over performance
Space it out and keep coming back
Set single challenging objectives
Get them thinking hard
'Know thy subject'
Use challenging vocabulary
Set the benchmark early
Share excellence

This full length blog by Shaun Allison of Durrington gives a solid explanation of what challenge looks like in the 'everyday classroom'.

Useful external blogs

Teach to the top – Tom Sherrington

At the core of a great teacher’s skill-set is the ability to explain the concepts, theories and techniques that form their subject. These can seem relatively simple to the expert teacher, but to the novice learner, these complexities can be completely alien to them. There is no doubt that teachers who explain things well, making the complex simple, allow for novice learners to learn in depth, gaining inspiration and a passion for the subject.

Tom Sherrington states:

‘As teachers, for high quality explanations to be habitual, we need to know our subjects, taking time to develop our own capacity to explain the key concepts simply. I think departmental CPD time would be well spent with colleagues rehearsing the ways they explain the more difficult material. Too often we assume we can do this but, over the years, I’ve found this is a key area for improvement and experimentation, for me personally and for others.’

At Southfield, staff have dedicated curriculum planning and subject knowledge sessions on a Wednesday afternoon. As part of this time, they work together to think through explanations thoroughly, sharing ideas/methods to improve. Explanation that isn’t well planned is likely to become muddled and unclear, the opposite of what great teaching is trying to achieve.

You can find out more on how Subject Planning and Development Sessions work, from their original source, Durrington Research School, here.

Books in our Professional Learning Library

How to explain absolutely anything to anyone – the art and and science of explanation – Andy Tharby
Why Don’t Students Like School? – Daniel Willingham – is an outstanding book that grounds effective explanations in scientific evidence.
Chapter 2 on ‘explanation’: Making Every Lesson Count – Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby
Chapter 11 on ‘Exemplary explanations’The Confident Teacher – Alex Quigley
Rosenshine’s Principles in Action – Tom Sherrington
Dual Coding With Teachers – Oliver Caviglioli

Useful external blogs:

At Southfield, we realise that great explanations, modelling and questioning will only have the desired impact if students are given well-planned opportunities to practice using their knowledge and skills.

Students need time to rephrase, apply, elaborate and summarise new material in order to aid its transfer into the long term memory. It is important students are challenged whilst continuing to enjoy a relatively high success rate to aid retention of new knowledge.

Furthermore, it is essential that students are clear about the success criteria against which this deliberate practice is to be evaluated. This will inevitably lead to meaningful feedback and student reflection.

In their book 'Making every lesson count', Allison and Tharby give a clear 'practice continuum' that can illustrate how this will look in the classroom:

Practice Continuum

Dependence

Teacher explains and models content. Students are mainly listening, watching and taking notes.

Heavy guidance

Teacher leads practice through questioning, discussion and supports. Students’ cognitive work is shared with the teacher

Light guidance

Students are doing cognitive work on their own with regular teacher feedback and fewer supports

Independence

Students work with and apply new knowledge for an extended period without teacher support. All cognitive work has been passed to the student.

Autonomy

Students fluently manipulate knowledge and skills independently by applying them to new contexts

Retrieval Practice - the act of having to 'retrieve' something from your memory (often with the help of a cue).

Staff at Southfield have been developing ths aspect of student practice across the curriculum. Research supports the idea that retrieval practice strengthens long-term memory. Ths is known as the 'testing effect'.

Every time a memory is retrieved, that memory becomes more accessible in the future. Retrieval also helps us create coherent and integrated mental representations of complex concepts, the kind of deep learning necessary to solve new problems and draw new inferences.

A really useful starting point to understand retrieval practice is the work of the Learning Scientists.

The Science of Learning – Deans for Impact is also a great overview of how students learn and the implications this has for how we teach.

Useful external blogs:

Books in our Professional Learning Library

Chapter 4 on ‘Practice': Making Every Lesson Count – Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby
Rosenshine’s Principles in Action – Tom Sherrington

Principles of Effective Learning and Teaching The six interrelated principles that Southfield staff consider when planning great learning and teaching

Principles of Effective Learning and Teaching
The six interrelated principles that Southfield staff consider when planning great learning and teaching