susanWALLACE


Learning in a nourishing way


Teaching shouldn’t be about hurling information out and hoping some of it sticks – like throwing spaghetti at a wall. The more students are encouraged to engage with what they’re learning, the more likely they will retain it. Susan Wallace discusses five practical and straightforward strategies for success.


I’ve heard people speak recently about teaching being like chucking spaghetti at the wall. Why? Because, they say, you never know how much is going to stick. But this is not a very useful simile and it’s one, I would have thought, best avoided (especially if you teach in hospitality and catering). While it’s okay to think of supporting learning in terms of providing food or nourishment, it’s obviously not okay to throw it at learners in a hit or miss fashion with no forethought about how to maximise the likelihood of it ‘sticking’.


Susan Wallace is emeritus professor of education at Nottingham Trent University. She is an author and expert in behaviour management. Susan and Geoff Petty alternate their contributions to these pages.


During our training, most of us will have heard those wise words attributed to Confucius: I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand. We recognise this as an important principle to bear in mind when we’re planning teaching and learning activities. It’s another way of saying that the more we encourage learners to engage with their learning – the more opportunities we create for them to be active participants in the process – the more likely it is that they will retain what they have learnt and be able to build upon that firm foundation as their education and training progresses. Research has highlighted a number of factors that


play a key role in the longer term retention of learning. They are: enjoyment, clarity of purpose, appropriate pace, style of presentation and variety of activity. So let’s have a look at each of these in terms of the practical and straightforward ways we can apply them in the classroom or workshop.


Enjoyment There are lots of means of ensuring that learners enjoy the learning process. Most of them are common sense; and the reason we may feel they are not for us often comes down to the time constraints under


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which we have to deliver a demanding curriculum. But they are worth considering because the pay-off in terms of learners retaining skills, knowledge and understanding can be considerable. They include: • Planning your lesson around methods and strategies that are not only appropriate but also fun, such as games, workplace simulations, and exercises in discovery.


• Demonstrating your own enthusiasm for the topic. Enthusiasm is infectious (and takes up no more time than its opposite).


• Using learning materials or resources which will relate to learners’ interests as well as providing sufficient challenge.


• Allowing humour into your lessons.


Clarity of purpose • Make sure the learners are aware of the planned outcomes of the lesson in terms they will understand: ‘By the end of this lesson you will be able to...’


• Implement the famous three-stage clarification: 1. At the beginning of the lesson explain what we’re going to do.


2. As the lesson proceeds explain what we’re doing. 3. At the end of the lesson explain what we’ve done.


• Begin each lesson with a recap of the last. Use questioning or a quiz, or similar activity, to check whether learners have retained a sufficiently sound foundation to continue building on.


Pace • When setting group tasks, give clear instructions about the length of time allowed at each stage, and provide regular reminders of the time remaining: ‘Ten minutes to go.’ ‘You have two minutes left to


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