The second 50% - thoughts about moving to the next level of deep learning and understanding.
If the first 50% of excellent learning is engagement, what makes up the next 50% to make learning excellent? When training ECTs recently we were asked to delve into Rosenshine’s principles and unpick the following quotes: “Engagement is a poor proxy for learning” – Professor Rob Coe “Learning happens when people have to think hard” - Professor Rob Coe “If nothing in the long-term memory has altered, nothing has been learned” – Sweller et al. I wanted to take a minute to consider what this all means for the D&T teacher and for myself as a classroom teacher. It is evident in many early career teachers that the first challenge is that of surviving the classroom and gaining the respect of the students in order to deliver the content of the lesson effectively. I have often heard teachers describe a lesson as a success when all students were on task throughout, the atmosphere was pleasant and the content was delivered in an interesting, varied way. I don’t want to bel