Aims ..* .... To explore why more and more schools are developing "Learning to Learn" curricula; * .... To look at a range of approaches to "Learning to

learn"; including 'Alite', 'Building Learning power' and 'Habits of Mind';

* .... To ask how these relate to the idea of a competency based curriculum; * .... To help establish how these approaches are essentially different from study skills.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Alvin Toffler

Alameda Community Learning Center,California

Building Learning Power

Resilience – being ready, willing and able to lock on to learning.

• Absorption - Flow; the pleasure of being rapt in learning.

• Managing distractions - Recognising and reducing interruptions.

• Noticing - Really sensing what’s out there.

• Perseverance - Stickability; tolerating the feelings of learning

Resourcefulness – Being ready, willing and able to learn in different ways

. • Questioning - getting below the surface; playing with situations.

• Making links - seeking coherence, relevance and meaning

• Imagining - using the mind’s eye as a learning theatre

• Reasoning – thinking rigorously and methodically

• Capitalising - making good use of resources

Reflectiveness - being ready, willing and able to

become more strategic about learning

• Planning - Working learning out in advance.

• Revising - Monitoring and adapting along the way.

• Distilling - Drawing out the lessons from experience.

• Meta-learning - Understanding learning, and yourself as a learner.

Reciprocity - Being ready, willing and able to learn alone and with others

• Interdependence - Balancing self-reliance and sociability.

• Collaboration - The skills of learning with others.

• Empathy and listening - Getting inside others’ minds

• Imitation - Picking up others’ habits and values

• 1. Collecting, analysing and organising information • 2. Communicating ideas and information • 3. Planning and organising activities • 4. Working with others and in teams • 5. Using mathematical ideas and techniques • 6. Solving problems • 7. Using technology

• (The Mayer Report, Mayer, E (Chair) 1992, Key Competencies Report of the Committee to advise the Australian Education Council and Ministers of Vocational Education, Employment and Training, on employment related Key Competencies for post-compulsory education and training. Canberra.)

Enterprise skills overlap with the Key Competencies identified by the Mayer Committee.

accepting responsibility communicating initiating ideas negotiating for successful outcomes planning activities taking and managing risk being flexible evaluating own and others' performance making decisions organising and managing resources solving problems thinking creatively.

Queen Elizabeth Community College, Devon

Key Skills for Success • Adaptable• Creative innovators• Literate in word, number and informatics• Able to learn new things quickly• Able to use new technologies• Able and confident communicators• Great team workers• Emotionally well grounded• Fit and healthy• Politically aware citizens• Self-motivated and responsible• Possessors of a wide range of interests

• “L2 puts exciting learning, study and thinking skills, collaborative problem solving, formative assessment and ICT into the one approach – brilliant”

• Derek Wise Head Teacher, Cramlington Community High School

The 5Rs: • resilience,• resourcefulness, • reasoning,• responsibility and • reflectivity – • Together with thinking and ICT skills.

Readiness

Resourcefulness

Resilience

Remembering

Reflectiveness

School is like the launch pad for a spaceship

“All the ‘life support’ systems remain attached until that moment of lift-off when, while it is always in communication with the command centre, the spaceship is ‘on its own.’ So, too, must we prepare students to take command of themselves; to establish feedback systems for self-guidance; and constantly to monitor their own progress toward their destination, making small manoeuvres and mid-course corrections along the way. Similarly, a student’s education must provide experiences by which students gradually learn to take charge of their own learning, to become increasingly more aware of their behaviours and their effects on others, and to strengthen their fortitude and resilience to self-correct and self-modify. Thus, the school becomes a launch pad for a life of self-directed learning.”

• Arthur L. Costa / Bena Kallick• Assessment Strategies for Self-Directed Learning

“A ‘Habit of Mind’ means having a disposition towards behaving intelligently when confronted with problems, the answers to which are not immediately known”

Costa and Kallick.

“ What behaviours are indicative of the efficient, effective problem solver? Just what do human beings do when they behave intelligently? Research in effective thinking and intelligent behaviour Feuerstein (1980), Glatthorn and Baron (1985), Sternberg (1985), Perkins (1985) and Ennis (1985) indicates that there are some identifiable characteristics of effective thinkers. These are not necessarily scientists, artists, mathematicians or the wealthy who demonstrate these behaviours. These characteristics have been identified in successful mechanics, teachers, entrepreneurs, salespeople and parents – people in all walks of life.”

Costa and Kallick.

What is a Habit of Mind?

“I reckon my first goal, ‘managing impulsivity’, is achieved because I tend to control my emotion easily and never show my bad-tempered side. This is shown when I never loss my temper or revenge even though a person offended me. However, ‘creating, imagining and innovating’, is the one where I have put in most effort in because I am lack in creativity and I think I am too indolent to abandon the traditional way of thinking. Furthermore, I think I have to improve my ‘questioning and problem solving’ goal too because I am lack asking questions even though I do not understand something, this is probably due to my shyness which is shown when I tend to be quiet in the class.”A male year 10 student (ESL)

YEAR 10 STUDENT EVALUATIONS OF CHOSEN HOM

“In order to think about my own thinking, I would have to take time out and look through how I came up with the end result. The down side of doing this thinking while also trying to solve the problems is that I can easily forget the method of solving the actual problem. The best time that I could try to think about how I solved a problem (maths questions would be the best time for the thinking process to begin), I will be able to see the way I thought of the method and then I will be able to see of this can be applied to my other questions ( if it was for maths.) Therefore, using metacognition does help in the way that we think and also in the way in which we can use this thinking to aid our situations.”A female year 10 student.

YEAR 10 STUDENT EVALUATIONS OF CHOSEN HOM

http://www.gwsc.vic.edu.au/

“The greater part of our happiness or misery

depends on our dispositions, and not on

our circumstances."Martha Washington

Stephen Heppell

CommunicationCollaborationCritiquingCreativity

• "...an information-driven curriculum is unlikely to be able to equip young people adequately for adult life in the new century. The National Curriculum is this kind of curriculum. It struggles to cope with the competing demands of subjects and the struggle gets harder as the volume of information increases. Meanwhile it neglects the development of the competences and skills that young people will need to survive and succeed in their future world..." (RSA 2005)

• Competences for Learning • Competences for Citizenship • Competences for Relating to People • Competences for Managing Situations • Competences for Managing Information

Summary of main findings There was some evidence of improved progress in literacy. Using a competency based curriculum has helped improve pupils’ learning after transition from primary, as reflected in

value added data. Students were more engaged in learning than in previous years. Students improved their ability to transfer skills across the

curriculum and beyond the school gates. Parents were overwhelmingly supportive of the Opening Minds

curriculum. Teachers involved in teaching Opening Minds felt invigorated and

inspired in their professional lives.

Strands• Knowing yourself as a learner• Collaborative learning• Questioning• Problem solving• Learning effectively• Planning future learning effectively• Taking hold of your learning• The four (five?) Rs

The nine generic skills are:

• ➩ Collaboration skills• ➩ Communication skills• ➩ Creativity• ➩ Critical thinking skills• ➩ Information technology skills• ➩ Numeracy skills• ➩ Problem-solving skills• ➩ Self-management skills• ➩ Study skills

"Learning to Learn - The Way Forward in Curriculum" EDB Sept 2001

Ye

ar 7

Ap

proa

che

s to le

arning

Language and learning

Exploratory talk as a learning tool / speaking and listening

Questioning

Ye

ar 8

The attributes of a great learner / what do we mean by success?

Critical thinking / PMI / Six thinking hats / Cognitive organisers

Learning and thinking together / Learning conversations / individual target setting

Ye

ar 9

Creative thinking … what is it? Strategies for doing it.

Team Learner / learning and team roles

Coaching others / setting learning targets / options

Year 7

1. What sort of learner am I?

2. Language learning and me.

3. Exploratory talk as a tool for learning.

4. Speaking and listening triads.

5. How to ask the right questions.

6. Managing home learning – and coping with stress

7. An introduction to generic learning skills – “The Four Rs”.

Year 8

1. What makes a good learner?

2. What do we mean by success?

3. Cognitive organisers and how to use them.

4. Imitating good learning habits / role models / “raiding and reusing”.

5. How to persist intelligently.

6. How do teams work and learn well together?

7. Target setting formality or continual part of iterative learning?

Year 9

1. What is creativity?

2. Looking at some strategies for developing creativity.

3. Review of creative approaches adopted in subjects.

4. How to be creative in teams / what are your preferred roles in collaborative learning?

5. Coaching others and why it is good for you.

6. Emotional intelligence and learning.

7. Ways of knowing / enquiry and questions

8. Planning your future in learning.