DIDAU ON...


hypothetical population. They are unique individuals. Hence, attempts to average out their fine-grained actions make no sense at all.


Considerations such as these, based on empirical findings, lead us to affirm teaching as an applied craft. As a craft, it is able to be described in terms of coherent principles that have been (a) well-articulated and operationalised, and (b) investigated by researchers in the past 50 years. We feel it important that those new to teaching be exposed to such information, to advance in their profession confidently able to develop their own instructional practices, mannerisms, styles, quirks and personality, in ways consistent with recognised personal and professional goals. By way of analogy: superb architecture and engineering hinge on practitioners applying deep understandings from disciplinary studies of mathematics, chemistry, mechanics and geometry. Superb teaching hinges on using principles of learning, knowledge acquisition and personal agency. It is inevitable that individuals will differ in the manner these principles are applied. Indeed, the way different teachers orchestrate their practice celebrates their uniqueness and defines their craft. Nevertheless, each teacher’s uniqueness can be described through concepts consistent with principles documented in the scientific literature. In summary, the scientific method has been able to describe effective and valuable teaching methods. Every teacher exemplifies a unique personal stamp. These two notions are not necessarily in conflict. Through exposing teachers to the information derived from the scientific method they are able to create and mould their own personal and professional style.


...THE VITAL ROLE OF MEMORY IN LEARNING


By David Didau Most teachers get precious little training in psychology. That’s a pity because knowing how people – particularly young people – think and learn ought to be a boon to anyone planning to embark on a career in teaching. Arguably, the most important area of psychology for teachers to know about is the science of memory. The Working Memory Model has been around for a few decades and is a pretty solid foundation on which most of our current understanding of learning is built. Essentially, our working memory is the site of consciousness in which we think about what’s happening in our environment. But our working memory is limited and most of us struggle to process more than four ‘chunks’ of information at once. If we try to hold more than this in mind we very quickly become confused, frustrated and forgetful. Luckily, we are able to supplement our fragile working memories


by holding vast stores of knowledge in our long-term memories. Anything we have thought about gets stored here. This is then organised into interconnected networks called schema. Our ability to recall is based on receiving prompts from the


environment that cue up connected ideas. So, if I say ‘bread’, you will probably think about ‘butter.’ The more connected an item of knowledge is, the easier it is to recall, Eventually, schemas can become so well connected that we develop the ability to operate on auto-pilot.


The challenge for teachers is that this process of automation


David Didau is a teacher, author, blogger, consultant and speaker. He runs the popular and influential Learning Spy blog. His books include What if everything you knew about education was wrong? (Crown House Publishing) and What every teacher needs to know about psychology (John Catt Educational Ltd).


doesn’t always happen smoothly when teaching abstract concepts. If students’ recall of basic foundational information isn’t effortless, then their working memories are rapidly overwhelmed. Essentially, anything that requires effort and attention reduces our capacity to think and anything that can be performed effortlessly frees up precious working memory reserves. For this reason, the primary goal of teaching should be to help students acquire increasingly well-organised schema so that they can think about more challenging subject content without becoming overloaded.


• Rosenshine, B. & Stevens, R. (1986) Teaching functions. In M.C. Wittrock, (Ed.), Handbook of research on Teaching (3rd Edition, pp. 376-391). New York: Macmillan.


inTUITION ISSUE 34 • WINTER 2018 19


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40