Metacognition, often known as ‘thinking about thinking’, is on the radar of more and more schools. And why wouldn’t it be? Sitting at the top of the EEF leaderboard for most effective teaching pedagogies. With a reported 7-month increase in… Read More »What Do Students Need to Know About Metacognition?
Thank you for reading this far! By daring to lead with the words ‘Active’ and ‘Learning’, I expect many potential readers are already a dozen items further down their feeds. Those of you who have remained have likely done so… Read More »Active Learning: Powerful Pedagogy or Futile Fad?
Understanding and retaining information involves more than just cramming facts into your brain. Mayer and Moreno (2003) describe meaningful learning as a deep grasp of the material, including paying attention to important details, mentally organising it into a coherent structure,… Read More »4 Working Memory ‘Hacks’ Every Teacher Needs To Know
We’ve known for a long time that mathematics is a series of interconnected ideas. At its simplest, this means that different mathematical concepts are related to each other in different ways. For example, the concept of multiplication is related to… Read More »Harness the Power of Number Bonds
As teachers and professionals, we continually reflect on how we can improve the outcomes for our students. However, when coping with a full curriculum, a packed school calendar and the many additional requirements of being a teacher, finding time to… Read More »Thinking About Learning: Cognitive Science for Teachers (Part 1)
Previously on ALTA Blog: Last time out we explored both the perilous nature of engaging with the research into the use of concrete resources and established our first guiding principle: The more salient a resource, the less likely transfer becomes.… Read More »Old Yellow Bricks: Developing an Evidence Informed Approach to Concrete Resources in the Mathematics Classroom (Part 2)
In the January of 2021, Christopher Such and I were, as I’m sure everyone does from time to time, casually discussing the validity of claims made in a paper about the use of digital manipulatives. And while I cannot remember… Read More »Old Yellow Bricks: Developing an Evidence Informed Approach to Concrete Resources in the Mathematics Classroom (Part 1)