Research-informed Practice
A two-part PLP with Jonathan Robinson
(Director of Teaching School)
Part I
•
•
•
•
Lifeworthy Learning
Flipped Learning
Forgetful Learning
Retrieval Learning
2
Lifeworthy Learning
3
State something you understand really
well
How did you come to understand it?
How do you know you understand it?
4
5
The Top Results from the International
Conference on Thinking (2007, Sweden)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Thinking
Self-understanding
Empathy
Ethics
Communication
Learning to learn
Environment
Global perspectives
The arts
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Collaboration
Health
Dealing with conflict
Spirituality
Science
Maths
Technology
Society and how it
works
6
The Problem with Achieving Literacy
READING LITERACY + KNOWLEDGE
7
What is worth Learning?
Choice of
What to
Learn
21st Century
Skills
Beyond
Traditional
Disciplines
Interdisciplin
Global
ary
Perspectives
Problems
Learning to
Think about
the World
with the
Content
8
Knowledge as Vehicles
INSIGHT: HOW DOES THIS MAKE
SENSE OF THE WORLD WE LIVE IN?
ETHICS: WHAT CHOICES AND MORAL
DILEMMAS RESULT FROM ACTION?
ACTION: HOW CAN WE ACT EFFECTIVELY IN
THE WORLD AS A RESULT OF INSIGHT?
OPPORTUNITY: HOW DOES ALL THIS LEARNING
9
MATTER TO LIVES OF LEARNERS TOMORROW?
Tim Holt: Big Questions (from Think historically:
narrative, imagination, and understanding (1990)
Take a page from a text book, look at the
assertions made (declarative statements).

Challenge the statements by creating questions
from them or about them (interrogatives).
10
Cross-Disciplinary Buckets
Poverty
Latin American
geography, socioeconomic history,
geopolitics, political
systems, sociology,
applied sciences,
religions and faith,
literature, media
studies, music,
design and
technology, art,
textiles, food,
sport, the Law,
tourism, business
and economics …
11
What’s the point of [Spanish]?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
A is for … Al-Andalus
B is for … bullfighting
C is for … conquest
D is for … dictatorship
E is for … ecology
F is for … film
G is for … Gaudí
H is for … humanity
I is for … independence
J is for … Judaism
K is for … kingship
L is for … literature
M is for … modernism
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
N is for … nutrition
O is for … Opus Dei
P is for … Picasso
Q is for … Quixote
R is for … Romance
S is for … sport
T is for … terrorism
U is for … universe
V is for … voyages
W is for … the West
X is for … xenophobia
Y is for … Yucatán
Z is for … zarzuela
12
13
14
Flipped Learning
15
DEVELOP
TWIRLS!
T = THINK
W = WRITE
I = INTERACT
R = READ
L = LISTEN
S = SPEAK
The Ideal Educational
Landscape
Content
FLIPPING FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
Curiosity
16
Relationship
Forget to Learn: 5 Little Ideas
• Study  Use  Reinforce
• Performance  Manner of Study
• Silent Study (no stimulus) + Silent test (no
stimulus)  Low Retrieval
• Interference during learning  promotes
forgetting  forces deeper concentration
• Restlessness can be a sign of concentration
17
Change Habits of Learning
• Add colours and sounds to words (combine visual stimulus
with cognitive activity)
• Change where we study
• Change how we study (standing, moving, sitting …)
• Re-writing not revising
• Sit pre-test to purposely fail. That leads to strengthened
learning later on. (Set end of unit test on the first lesson
and then again at the end of the unit)
• Self-testing regularly
• Interleaving (e.g. practise several skills at once)
• Mix problem types in homework, so students have to draw
from prior and current learning and adapt to new contexts
18
Spaced Learning of Factual Information
aka Distributed Study Time
Time to the Test
First Study Interval
1 week
1 month
3 months
6 months
1 year
1-2 days
1 week
2 weeks
3 weeks
1 month
19
Interruption
20
Retrieval Learning
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
Regular testing of the same material (aka calibration)
Quizzes at the start and end of lessons
Delay feedback and correction
Regular self-testing rather than revising by rereading
Interleaved practice
Varied practice
Relatable contexts for retrieval
Foster conceptual cross-curricular learning
Generation learning
Writing to learn
Student-led learning
Learn through non-preferred learning styles
Make stories out of learning
Pre-reading and anticipate questions and possible answers
Free recall plenaries
Learning paragraphs
21
Leitner Boxes
22
Conceptual Learning
23
Memory Palaces
24
Reflection and Next Steps
25
Part II: Changing Landscapes
• Variance Theory
• Gamification of Learning
Premack’s Three Criteria of Pedagogy (1984)
1. There is a goal for learning
2. There is a systematic attempt by the teacher to
help the learner reach that goal
3. The systematic attempt is guided by the
teacher’s perception of the learner’s progress
“Pedagogy, in its
widest sense, is
the servant of
cultural
evolution.”
- Ference Marton
Challenge for Teaching Profession and Society at Large:
a) Do we remove the institutionalism of ‘pedagogy’ somewhat and focus on
connecting students with the ‘real world’? OR
b) Do we enhance pedagogical function so students see the world more
powerfully, where the school is seen as part of the real world?
26
Variance Theory
• At least two variants are needed to enable
meaning
• Critical aspects are needed to enable learning
and make students independent in their
learning
• Keep questions as open as possible
27
Example 1: learn to do or learn to see?
28
Example 2: What is the critical aspect?
29
Example 3: How to discern the first
time?
30
Variation in Action
1.
2.
3.
4.
X
i
v
i
v
Y
i
i
v
v
(repetition)
(contrast: what’s different)
(generalisation: what’s the same)
(fusion: what’s different and same)
Action:
Prepare students for the unknown by means of the
known – expose to lots of different angles on an issue
and learn to discern different types of variation
31
Questioning Style
a. Can an octopus change its colour?
b. Can you name an animal that changes its colour?
c. Why does the octopus change its colour?
In (a) the fact is proposed and student only has to
decide true or false. In (b) the fact is given and
student has to remember what fits. But in (c) the
fact is stated and the student has to explain
32
Question Style Continued
• Try to avoid pointing out the relevant aspects of a problem to be
solved, so students have to discern them.
Example 4: “What makes a pendulum swing faster?”
Example 5: “Three fishermen were spending the night on the
riverbank. All were smokers, but only one had an open pack of
cigarettes. They divided the cigarettes equally. By the morning each
one had smoked 4 cigarettes, and they left altogether as many
cigarettes as each one had had at first. How many cigarettes did each
fisherman get when the cigarettes were divided equally?”
• Then get students to construct their own similar problem based on
what they have discerned
33
Example 6: Students Themselves Bring
About the Variance Needed to Learn
From Kafka’s Vor dem Gesetz (Morton & Booth, 1997, p.150):
‘The story concerns a man who tries to get admittance to the
Law, the door to which is fiercely guarded by a man who
refuses him entry, saying that he is not allowed in but that he
should wait and see. However many times and in however
many ways he tries to get in, he is unsuccessful. As the old
man makes a final attempt, asking why nobody else has ever
tried to go through the door, only to be told by the guard that
the door was only for him, and now that his life was coming to
an end, the door was to be closed.’
What did Kafka want to say with the story?
34
Finding Novel Meanings
• Change points of view
• Change the perspective for looking at a
problem
• Represent the task in different ways
• Use different tools to handle a task
• Ask ‘What if?’ questions
• Juxtapose a problem with similar and different
problems in order to understand it better
35
Example 7: Using Video to Shift Focus
• Watch a scene without the sound and break the scene
into segments
• With each segment the students focus on one element
and describe what they see in detail
• Then play whole scene with students reading the script
as a kind of voiceover
• Then show students a similar scene with a different
protagonist. Repeat the process.
• What is different? Why?
• Homework: Find another similar clip and watch with
sound. What do you notice? How does this clip differ
and bear resemblance to the first two clips?
36
Owning Learning
37
What do Students Learn?
1. Problem is invariant, but solutions variant – students
learn that problems can have multiple solutions
2. Problem invariant, but context variant – students
learn which solution is best for a given situation
3. Pattern invariant, but vary rotational position –
students make idea of rotation their own
4. Pattern invariant, but vary reflections – students make
idea of reflection their own
5. Pattern invariant, but vary descriptions – students
learn how a set can be understood in terms of its
elements or the transformations that generate it
38
Challenge 1: Mathematical
• British education tends to employ the less
effective approach of an invaried method but
varied problems
• A shift to more varied methods for teaching a
common problem may be more effective (as
shown in the Chinese approach to teaching
mathematics: called 变式 (biànshì).
39
Challenge 2: Literary
• British education tends to approach genre (and
other literary or linguistic concepts) by looking at
multiple examples of a given genre (or other
literary / linguistic concept).
• A more powerful approach to understanding a
specific genre (etc.) may be to compare texts of
different genres (or other concept) that all share
the same theme, thus making the features of a
given genre (etc.) more discernable.
40
Gamification – Why?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
It’s fun!
It’s stimulating!
It’s collaborative and competitive
It promotes thinking
It makes learners face up to the consequences of their
decisions and actions
It facilitates the transition of learning to the real world
It acts as a catalyst for intrinsic motivation
It makes progress extremely explicit
It promotes a positive feeling of accomplishment while
building resilience
It develops tacit knowledge
41
Gamification – Basic Principles
•
•
•
•
•
•
It should simulate reality
It should consist of challenges
It should develop social skills (and other soft skills)
It should award points
It should lead to rewards
It should lead to mastery through completing
successive challenges and from making mistakes in a
safe environment
• It should make active involvement compulsory
• It should incorporate choice and personal responsibility
42
Reflection and Next Steps
43
Further Reading
• Bergmann, J. and Sams, A. (2014) Flipped Learning –
Gateway to Student Engagement, Washington D.C.: ISTE
• Brown, P. C., Roediger III, H. l., and Mc Daniel, M. A., (2014),
Make it Stick – The Science of Successful Learning, London:
The Belknap Press
• Carey, B., (2014), How We Learn – The Surprising Truth
about When, Where and Why It Happens, London:
Macmillan
• Marton, F., (2014), Necessary Conditions of Learning,
Oxford: Routledge
• Perkins, D. N., (2014), Future Wise – Educating our Children
for a Changing World, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
44
Online Reading
• eLearning Industry. Pappas, C. et al How
Gamification Reshapes Learning (Free eBook)
[online]. Accessed at:
http://elearningindustry.com/howgamification-reshapes-learning#cover
• [accessed 15 October 2014].
45