Let's use our heads!

The core change

It is what is happening in a student’s mind that determines what learning will take place.

Traditionally, education was based on conscious memorisation and repetition of unconnected procedures. With these activities occupying a student’s mind then we could rely on the recall of facts and the accurate reproduction of procedures in exams.

Today we want students to do high cognitive demand activities, we want them to think and understand, to make connections. With these activities occupying a student’s mind then, over time, we will see greater student learning.

It is hard to make this change. We can design curriculum and we can open up classroom spaces to allow more scope for different physical configurations but without taking the human properly into account little will change.

Neither students nor teachers have experienced this type of learning before, at least not in any sustained way.

It is co-creating the capability to learn this way –students and teachers together - that is both the challenge and the opportunity… and this is a process that needs leaders to make it happen.