I recently stumbled across this statement in Coe’s excellent ‘Improving Education‘ publication and it really hit home:
Some research evidence, along with more anecdotal experience, suggests that students may not necessarily have real learning at the top of their agenda. For example, Nuthall (2005) reports a study in which most students “were thinking about how to get finished quickly or how to get the answer with the least possible effort”. If given the choice between copying out a set of correct answers, with no effort, but no understanding of how to get them, and having to think hard to derive their own answers, check them, correct them and try to develop their own understanding of the underlying logic behind them, how many students would freely choose the latter? And yet, by choosing the former, they are effectively saying, ‘I am not interested in learning.’
Coe goes on to inform us that ‘learning happens when people have to think hard‘. But how do we ensure that learners are both thinking hard, and putting effort into their learning? Easier said than done eh?
Here’s some ideas for you to think about using with learners at the start of the academic year:
- Teach students about the importance of hard work and effort: Now this is no easy feat. Marzano informs us that this can have a high effect of achievement and suggests sharing examples of personal experiences or those that learners can relate to. He also suggests that learners self-assess their effort in lessons when self-assessing achievement against success criteria – not something I have tried myself, but certainly one to consider.
- Establish routines early: For those working in an FE college, most learners are joining your class with no idea as to what to expect. they will be in new surroundings, with new people and this is a great opportunity to establish high expectations in the classroom – Start as you mean to go on! If you have learning activities that require little effort, or if learners are allowed to put little effort in, then guess what? Yes, that will be the routine for the year.
- Find out what learners know and use the information: Initial assessment is crucial, but I’m not talking the whole sticking the learners on a computer to complete a maths and English IA to determine… well, not-a-lot. What I’m talking about is finding out what the learners know about your subject. Give them an advanced organiser to help them identify current knowledge and how this fits with information they’re going to learn. Use what they know to help them make sense of new information, to challenge misconceptions and to give a clear direction to the learning that they’re about to embark on.
- Organise information: Building on from the above, the more organised the information that learners are dealing with, the better. Provide a range of concrete examples to explain abstract concepts and use both verbal and visual information simultaneously (dual coding) to reduce cognitive load. Cognitive science research also indicates the benefits of revisiting information on several occasions over the term/period of learning (distributed practice) to enhance retention. There are many other strategies that have shown time and time again to be effective – summarised clearly for teachers by the learning scientists (every teacher needs this in their life).
- Test learners regularly: As with the above, our memory trace is improved when we have to work hard to retrieve information from long term memory, thus improving retention. Therefore, we should aim to test learners frequently through mini quizzes and self testing. This not only supports retrieval practice, but it also allows both teacher and learners to identify strengths and any misconceptions that learner have, thus allowing for appropriate intervention.
All of the above are simple ‘off the shelf’ strategies that may help to increase the effort and ensure that learners are working and thinking hard in your classrooms. They are not silver bullets and may work better in some situations than others, but all are worth considering – particularly as the new term is about to begin.