How Learning Happens


Book Description

"How Learning Happens introduces 28 giants of educational research and their findings on how we learn and what we need to learn effectively, efficiently and enjoyably. Many of these works have inspired researchers and teachers all around the world and have left a mark on how we teach today"--




The Characteristics of Effective Learning


Book Description

The characteristics of effective learning – playing and exploring, active learning and creating and thinking critically – underpin young children’s learning and development and are central to the revised Early Years Foundation Stage. Practitioners need to be confident of planning, observing and assessing characteristics of effective learners and understand how they support children’s learning and development. The book explores what the characteristics of effective learning look like and how practitioners can create opportunities for children to express them. It considers the ways in which they connect with children’s natural explorations, play, enjoyement and the environments created by adults. Throughout the focus is on building on children’s own interests as practitioners plan for, observe and assess playing and exploring, active learning and creativity and critical thinking. Including encounters from authentic settings and provocative questions for reflective practice, the book covers: children’s well-being and motivations creating effective learning possibilities for all children engaging children’s interests the role of the adult and environment sustained shared thinking This timely new text aims to help practitioners and students develop their understanding of the charactersitics of effective learning and show them how they can support young children in become effective and motivated learners.




How People Learn


Book Description

First released in the Spring of 1999, How People Learn has been expanded to show how the theories and insights from the original book can translate into actions and practice, now making a real connection between classroom activities and learning behavior. This edition includes far-reaching suggestions for research that could increase the impact that classroom teaching has on actual learning. Like the original edition, this book offers exciting new research about the mind and the brain that provides answers to a number of compelling questions. When do infants begin to learn? How do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers and schools do-with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methodsâ€"to help children learn most effectively? New evidence from many branches of science has significantly added to our understanding of what it means to know, from the neural processes that occur during learning to the influence of culture on what people see and absorb. How People Learn examines these findings and their implications for what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess what our children learn. The book uses exemplary teaching to illustrate how approaches based on what we now know result in in-depth learning. This new knowledge calls into question concepts and practices firmly entrenched in our current education system. Topics include: How learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain. How existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn. What the thought processes of experts tell us about how to teach. The amazing learning potential of infants. The relationship of classroom learning and everyday settings of community and workplace. Learning needs and opportunities for teachers. A realistic look at the role of technology in education.




Understanding How We Learn


Book Description

Educational practice does not, for the most part, rely on research findings. Instead, there’s a preference for relying on our intuitions about what’s best for learning. But relying on intuition may be a bad idea for teachers and learners alike. This accessible guide helps teachers to integrate effective, research-backed strategies for learning into their classroom practice. The book explores exactly what constitutes good evidence for effective learning and teaching strategies, how to make evidence-based judgments instead of relying on intuition, and how to apply findings from cognitive psychology directly to the classroom. Including real-life examples and case studies, FAQs, and a wealth of engaging illustrations to explain complex concepts and emphasize key points, the book is divided into four parts: Evidence-based education and the science of learning Basics of human cognitive processes Strategies for effective learning Tips for students, teachers, and parents. Written by "The Learning Scientists" and fully illustrated by Oliver Caviglioli, Understanding How We Learn is a rejuvenating and fresh examination of cognitive psychology's application to education. This is an essential read for all teachers and educational practitioners, designed to convey the concepts of research to the reality of a teacher's classroom.




The Pedagogy of Lifelong Learning


Book Description

Presenting a snapshot of contemporary international research into the pedagogy of lifelong learning and teaching, this book focuses on a wide range of issues related to lifelong learning, including higher education, community-based learning and literacy practices in continuing education. It highlights the fact that the wide-ranging conclusions they draw have vital implications for this rapidly changing field. The book reviews the emerging issues from researching teaching and learning in different post-school contexts - an issue which has grown in research importance around the world in recent years - with the concern both to widen participation and improve student attainment. Examining empirically, methodologically and theoretically contemporary research in teaching and learning in diverse contexts, it focuses on three main areas: learning careers and identities; pedagogy and learning cultures and learning beyond institutions.




Powerful Learning


Book Description

In Powerful Learning, Linda Darling-Hammond and an impressive list of co-authors offer a clear, comprehensive, and engaging exploration of the most effective classroom practices. They review, in practical terms, teaching strategies that generate meaningful K–2 student understanding, and occur both within the classroom walls and beyond. The book includes rich stories, as well as online videos of innovative classrooms and schools, that show how students who are taught well are able to think critically, employ flexible problem-solving, and apply learned skills and knowledge to new situations.




Learning about Learning


Book Description

This practical A4 pack contains activities and ideas for teachers and students to learn more about learning. Learning about Learning is a practical way of teaching important and neglected theories of learning. The idea is that if teachers and students learn about what learning is and how it happens they understand a greater range of learning possibilities and approaches and improve their learning and teaching skills.




Learning as a Generative Activity


Book Description

During the past twenty-five years, researchers have made impressive advances in pinpointing effective learning strategies (namely, activities the learner engages in during learning that are intended to improve learning). In Learning as a Generative Activity: Eight Learning Strategies that Promote Understanding, Logan Fiorella and Richard E. Mayer share eight evidence-based learning strategies that promote understanding: summarizing, mapping, drawing, imagining, self-testing, self-explaining, teaching, and enacting. Each chapter describes and exemplifies a learning strategy, examines the underlying cognitive theory, evaluates strategy effectiveness by analyzing the latest research, pinpoints boundary conditions, and explores practical implications and future directions. Each learning strategy targets generative learning, in which learners actively make sense out of the material so they can apply their learning to new situations. This concise, accessible introduction to learning strategies will benefit students, researchers, and practitioners in educational psychology, as well as general readers interested in the important twenty-first-century skill of regulating one's own learning.




Effective Learning in Classrooms


Book Description

`The book is at once accessible, evidence-based, practical and eminently readable...Readers will find in this book a treasury of learners′ voices guiding us towards the goal of more effective learning in classrooms′ - International Network for School Improvement `This book promotes an ambitious and inspiring conception of meaningful pedagogy and works to applaud those teachers who are determined to reflect upon, enquire into, and then facilitate ′′effective learning′′. A coherent and structured case is made for the primacy of ′′learning′′ over ′′work′′ - Learning & Teaching Update This book addresses an important, and too seldom addressed issue: learning. Not teaching, not performance, not "work": this book really is about learning, what makes learning effective and how it may be promoted in classrooms. The authors take the context of the classroom seriously, not only because of its effects on teachers and pupils, but because classrooms are notorious as contexts which change little. Rather than providing yet more tips, they offer real thinking and evidence based on what we know about how classrooms change. Four major dimensions of promoting effective learning in classrooms are examined in depth: Active Learning; Collaborative Learning; Learner-driven Learning and Learning about Learning. Evidence from practising teachers in the form of case studies and examples, and evidence from international research in the form of useful ideas and frameworks is included.




Understanding Effective Learning: Strategies For The Classroom


Book Description

Within education, concepts such as learning styles, learning strategies and independent learning are often cited as important areas for development in schools (DFES 1998, 2001) but these are rarely satisfactorily defined. It is essential for teachers to develop a detailed understanding of learning across the curriculum, as well as appropriate strategies, if children are to learn effectively. This book explores these important concepts by examining learning in a range of classroom settings and drawing on evidence from teachers and pupils, through interviews and observations. The focus is two-fold: to understand learning in the classroom, and to develop practices which will support learning. Topics explored include: Models of learning Learning strategies and the teacher Learning strategies and the learner Assessment for Learning The social dimension of children’s learning The book provides a rich mixture of examples, reflection points, case studies and strategies for the classroom to provide the reader with a wide range of ideas to encourage more effective learning in their classroom. Understanding Effective Learningis key reading for student, beginning and early career teachers in primary education.