By Dennis Sale
Those of us who have been around education for a few decades or so may remember the traditional educational approach, often referred to as the “three R’s” – which focused on reading, writing, arithmetic, and firm student discipline.
This was followed by the progressive education movement in the 1960s; a child-centred approach allowing children more free expression in the classroom and a reduction of traditional discipline and structure. A major influencer was the paediatrician Dr Benjamin Spock, who later said: “You can blame me” for a generation of undisciplined and rebellious youths. This era was then followed by the back-to-basics movement in the 1980s, which was a response to perceived declines in educational standards and a push-back against the progressive educational approach.
Today, we seem to be entering an era of new progressivism which seems to be increasingly focusing on issues relating to gender, race, diversity, inclusion and equity.
Irrespective of one’s ideological perspective, this radical periodical reframing on what constitutes the better educational landscape does little to convince a critical public that teaching is truly a profession, with a strong validated knowledge base, in the sense that engineering and medicine are.
My focus is on enhancing teacher expertise globally in ways that enhance students’ capability to be highly metacognitive, resilient, responsible and self-directed. A new generation of better thinkers with a strong sense of core values can hopefully derive authentic scenarios for the future direction of humanity – whatever that will entail.
An evidence-based frame on teacher education
An overarching aim of teacher education must be to develop students who can master the learning process and become self-directed learners. Hence, teachers themselves must have a high level of pedagogic literacy and technical competence in using instructional strategies (ie, fully understanding how humans learn and what teaching methods work best).
In classroom contexts, student learning outcomes must be clear and specific in terms of knowledge and skills to be acquired, as well as systematically infused with 21st century competencies (eg, metacognition, critical and creative thinking, communication and collaboration and digital literacy).
To meet such outcomes, students must also develop agency, responsibility and resilience – and this needs to be fully structured into both the formal and informal curriculum (often referred to as the “hidden curriculum”).
What teachers need to learn and be able to apply and transfer across different teaching contexts is not theories of learning, but one unified validated set of key heuristics about how effective and efficient learning occurs.
For example, Danial Willingham (2009), a leading writer in this field, referred to such guiding heuristics as “cognitive scientific principles” and illustrates their implications for practice through an analogy with engineering:
“Principles of physics do not prescribe for a civil engineer exactly how to build a bridge, but they do let him predict how it is likely to perform if he builds it.
Similarly, cognitive scientific principles do not prescribe how to teach, but they can help you predict how much your students are likely to learn. If you follow these principles, you maximise the chances that your students will flourish.”
The following are examples of cognitive scientific principles or “core principles of learning” (Sale, 2020), as I refer to them in my own work in this area:
“Build a robust foundation of key concept knowledge. This knowledge, stored in Long-term Memory (LTM), is crucial for critical thinking and problem-solving. In most basic terms, knowledge plus thinking builds understanding and this gets organised in LTM and neurologically wired in the brain.”
Work with the working of memory systems. Working memory (the system we consciously use to process new information) has limited capability and needs both practice and the employment of effective strategies to enable knowledge to be accurately transferred, organised, and cemented in LTM. Hence, teachers must design instruction to minimise cognitive overload by breaking down complex information, using clear explanations and providing reinforcing examples, visuals/multimedia, etc.
Practice and repetition
Rehearsal, retrieval, and spaced practice are essential in making the connections between new knowledge and existing knowledge, as well as building a solid base for ongoing learning – both in terms of developing understanding and actual competence in practice.
Good thinking builds understanding
Critical thinking is essential for making meaning of content knowledge, analysing it, and deciding its usefulness or otherwise; then actively processing it into LTM.
Metacognition is an executive thinking capability essential for planning, monitoring and evaluating all aspects of the learning process – including critical and creative thinking, emotional and behavioural regulation – essentially the whole self-regulation process.
Providing activities that enable students to develop these thinking skills is crucial to developing self-directed learning.
Motivation drives the metacognitive and cognitive systems: “Without motivation, little or no effort will be put in by students to learn a complex subject area or skill set. As humans, we only significantly turn on our metacognition and start using cognitive techniques and tools once interest is generated. It is here that creative teachers can thrive, and there are many ways they can do this.” (eg Sale, 2020).
A positive mindset and a fun psychological climate
Much research (eg, Dweck) shows that when students adopt a growth mindset (ie, see intelligence as something that can be developed through effort and perseverance) they are more likely to become motivated to learn and put in the necessary effort to meet their desired learning goals. Similarly, students flourish in joyful classroom environments and respond well to appropriate humour.
Assessment with quality feedback
Extensive research highlights the important role of feedback in learning. Effective feedback is specific, timely and actionable, helping students to understand their mistakes and how to improve future performance.
The above examples are not meant to be exhaustive or summative – but illustrative of where teacher education needs to be primarily focused. In the present context of AI total content provision, teachers need to be expert pedagogic designers to make school-based learning meaningful and practical.
Dennis Sale worked in the Singapore education system for 25 years as adviser, researcher, and examiner. He coached over 15,000 teaching professionals and provided 100+ consultancies in the Asian region. Dennis is author of the books Creative Teachers: Self-directed Learners (Springer 2020) and Creative Teaching: An Evidence-Based Approach (Springer, 2015). To contact Dennis, visit dennissale.com.
