EducationFest… Reflections for me as a classroom teacher

As a regular attender of #EducationFest, I know that I will leave every year feeling re-energised and inspired, but more importantly, informed.  As we know though, a one off conference does not lead to change in performance and so an important part of ensuring that this incredible CPD has an impact on my practice is to spend some time reflecting on my top takeaways.

This year I have decided to write 3 mini blogs rather than one big blog post (although there may be more to come), with each post focusing on a different area of my practice and this one is about my learning as a classroom practitioner.

I am going to focus this piece exclusively on the session led by Nick Rose, a really interesting session entitled ‘what can psychology tell us about learning?'  I knew a lot of what his talk contained from my degree study of psychology BUT I am not applying it in my own classroom.  So here is a short summary of the key points that Rose reminded me about psychology and that I need to implement into my own teaching:

·       Learning involves changes in long term memory

·       Your memory is broadly speaking divided into working memory (short term) and long term momery.  You are constantly overwhelmed with information in our envieonment – some of this is attended to by working memory, some is not.  The stuff that is will move into long term memory if we consolidate it.

·       Your working memory has a limited capacity – 4 chunks.  If the working memory is overloaded you will see incomplete recall, failure to follow instructions, place keeping errors and task abandonment.

·       Takeaway 1 – Reduce the load on attention.  Use prior knowledge to attach new learning to, pair graphics with words so that working memory is not overloaded, keep the focus on the focus, what do you want them to learn.

·       Long term memory is full of schemas (blueprints for life) – they help working memory and enable you to think faster BUT they can lead to bias and misconception. 

·       Schemes are organised by meaning.

·       Takeaway 2 – if you want students to access their schemas, ask them to do something that requires meaning (e.g. a crossword is better than a wordsearch) but beware of schemas that contain misconceptions.  Use probing questions, encouraging effortful thinking about meaning of material.

·       There is a difference between a novice learner (student) and an expert learner.

·       Novices lack schemas and therefore will often look at problems superficially because they don’t have schemas that provide deeper understanding (a good example of this is the way I would perceive an AS question and the way my student would – I would see complexities and nuances that a student might not because I have more knowledge and a better developed schema). 

·       Problem solving for a novice can overload working memory – problem solving has to be rooted in knowledge.

·       Takeaway 3 – Alternate abstract and concrete reasoning.  Providing worked examples that are gradually removed will enable novice learners to problem solve more effectively.  Worked examples and partial solutions can provide scaffolding and reduce load.

·       To remember, you need to forget. 

·       Testing boosts retention in long term memory.

·       Using low stakes quizzing rather than restudying to enhance learning.

·       Takeaway 4 – Develop cumulative rather than modular assessments of learning to support retention.

This was a really practical and useful session that can have immediate impact on my classroom practice particularly when thinking about students traditionally labelled LPAG.