Thanks Natalie for sharing your observations. They are very true including your point on the need for ‘elaborations’ in lessons that begin with explicit instruction and your lack of observing this in the schools you visited. I also appreciate your observation that most of the schools where the tight nature of EDI works are the ones that cater for high learning challenges are student outcomes that are far behind the standards.
Coming from a high achieving school, we have found success in embedding explicit teaching parallel to students taking agency in extending this learning through carefully guided explorations. A whole school book study with TWR helped us up skill our teachers in teaching writing and improving our writing outcomes.
As a teacher in Australia, and someone doing their Masters in the Science of Learning, your observations ring true. We are working to embed TWR across our secondary school and we use Ochre where we can. I’ve resorted to creating similar resources to help teachers with fantastic results. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Stephanie, do you mind letting me know where you’re doing your Masters? I’ve thought about studying the same thing at UniMelb but I have some questions about it. Feel free message if you prefer. 😊
Hi Natalie. Aussie teacher here. Thank you for your interesting reflections. Can I ask for guidance on where to look to ensure I am ‘getting it right’ so that my schools practice is aligning correctly to the science? Especially in extending students’ thinking rather than just retrieval.
I don't know that there's any one place to look for guidance, but I do think explicit writing instruction (of the type embodied in The Writing Revolution method) can provide both retrieval practice and extend students' thinking simultaneously, when embedded in the content of the curriculum. That's what I've seen happen in classrooms and it aligns with what many teachers have told me.
Your comment, “they should get an opportunity to go beyond absorbing and retrieving information and start adding their own thoughts and observations” is very insightful and one that is often missed. As you pointed out, the starting point is a true understanding of cognitive science and how the brain works. Stanislas Dehaene highlights the elements the brain needs to learn. Too often, the slide show materials that tick off “evidence based practice” processes don’t allow the children to engage the elements Dehaene speaks about. My biggest concern is they do not allow for consolidation and success to the point of transfer. Unfortunately this means that people using them believe they are addressing cognitive science but they clearly have not started from a cognitive science lens, they have started from an evidence based practice lens. This means they are driving a car they don’t really know enough about and as such can’t get the performance out of it that is possible. The starting point is to understand the science and then implement the practice, not starting with the practice and hoping to understand the science. In Australia, in an attempt to win the education war we have grabbed the easy wins instead of set the foundations for true success.
I do think it can work for teachers to start with the practice and then understand the science, if the practice is sufficiently aligned with the science. In Monroe, Louisiana, a high-poverty school district, teachers just wanted to help their students learn to write. They had never heard of retrieval practice, elaboration, etc. But when they adopted an explicit method of writing instruction and embedded that instruction in content, they saw that their students' learning and thinking improved dramatically. Then they got interested in cognitive science, because they wanted to understand why.
There's an episode of a podcast I co-hosted (Season 3 of the Knowledge Matters Podcast, episode 6), that goes into the Monroe story, and I also wrote about it in my book, Beyond the Science of Reading.
If you’re only goal is to teach facts to be memorized, cognitive science is the answer. If education is interested in curiosity, connection, or creativity, then move on.
Great analysis natalie. I would encourage you to visit the Middle East as well as The science of learning is beginning to make tracks here as well. Probably behind Australia and the US, but making a start!
Hi Natalie an Aussie teacher of Secondary English here. I have definitely drunk the coolaid in regards to explicit teaching and the science of learning, mini whiteboards have been a revelation to me in my classrooms this year. I feel that in Australia senior VCE is a lot better structured with study designs, with junior and middle years being a little more vague and full of department jargon in curriculum. My only worry with explicit teaching and common curriculum is that it becomes corporatised somewhat like America and we end up buying in curriculum from companies that don't have much understanding of what day to day teaching in the classroom is like and that the art of teaching is lost to the science. Would love to hear thoughts about this.
In the US, we do now have some curricula that are pretty much aligned to cognitive science, although they aren't marketed or labeled as such, and some are produced by nonprofit organizations. But it can be hard for educators and policymakers to distinguish the good ones from the not-so-good or even terrible ones. I'd say the best source for finding the good ones (i.e., primary elementary literacy curricula that build knowledge) is the Knowledge Matters Campaign.
I love this analysis - I think you got a lot right. Thanks for coming to Australia, it was great to meet you!
Thanks, Katie! Great to meet you too.
Thanks Natalie for sharing your observations. They are very true including your point on the need for ‘elaborations’ in lessons that begin with explicit instruction and your lack of observing this in the schools you visited. I also appreciate your observation that most of the schools where the tight nature of EDI works are the ones that cater for high learning challenges are student outcomes that are far behind the standards.
Coming from a high achieving school, we have found success in embedding explicit teaching parallel to students taking agency in extending this learning through carefully guided explorations. A whole school book study with TWR helped us up skill our teachers in teaching writing and improving our writing outcomes.
As a teacher in Australia, and someone doing their Masters in the Science of Learning, your observations ring true. We are working to embed TWR across our secondary school and we use Ochre where we can. I’ve resorted to creating similar resources to help teachers with fantastic results. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Stephanie, do you mind letting me know where you’re doing your Masters? I’ve thought about studying the same thing at UniMelb but I have some questions about it. Feel free message if you prefer. 😊
"More of a good thing isn’t necessarily better, and in fact can be worse." The difference between a drug and a poison is the dosage.
Thanks for your insights Natalie, you've given me lots to think about.
Hi Natalie. Aussie teacher here. Thank you for your interesting reflections. Can I ask for guidance on where to look to ensure I am ‘getting it right’ so that my schools practice is aligning correctly to the science? Especially in extending students’ thinking rather than just retrieval.
I don't know that there's any one place to look for guidance, but I do think explicit writing instruction (of the type embodied in The Writing Revolution method) can provide both retrieval practice and extend students' thinking simultaneously, when embedded in the content of the curriculum. That's what I've seen happen in classrooms and it aligns with what many teachers have told me.
All beautifully put. Came to see you speak today in Adelaide and now have a lot to ponder. Thanks for travelling Down Under!
Your comment, “they should get an opportunity to go beyond absorbing and retrieving information and start adding their own thoughts and observations” is very insightful and one that is often missed. As you pointed out, the starting point is a true understanding of cognitive science and how the brain works. Stanislas Dehaene highlights the elements the brain needs to learn. Too often, the slide show materials that tick off “evidence based practice” processes don’t allow the children to engage the elements Dehaene speaks about. My biggest concern is they do not allow for consolidation and success to the point of transfer. Unfortunately this means that people using them believe they are addressing cognitive science but they clearly have not started from a cognitive science lens, they have started from an evidence based practice lens. This means they are driving a car they don’t really know enough about and as such can’t get the performance out of it that is possible. The starting point is to understand the science and then implement the practice, not starting with the practice and hoping to understand the science. In Australia, in an attempt to win the education war we have grabbed the easy wins instead of set the foundations for true success.
I do think it can work for teachers to start with the practice and then understand the science, if the practice is sufficiently aligned with the science. In Monroe, Louisiana, a high-poverty school district, teachers just wanted to help their students learn to write. They had never heard of retrieval practice, elaboration, etc. But when they adopted an explicit method of writing instruction and embedded that instruction in content, they saw that their students' learning and thinking improved dramatically. Then they got interested in cognitive science, because they wanted to understand why.
There's an episode of a podcast I co-hosted (Season 3 of the Knowledge Matters Podcast, episode 6), that goes into the Monroe story, and I also wrote about it in my book, Beyond the Science of Reading.
If you’re only goal is to teach facts to be memorized, cognitive science is the answer. If education is interested in curiosity, connection, or creativity, then move on.
*your
Clearly, you have no grasp of of cognitive science, or classroom practice.
Great analysis natalie. I would encourage you to visit the Middle East as well as The science of learning is beginning to make tracks here as well. Probably behind Australia and the US, but making a start!
Hi Natalie an Aussie teacher of Secondary English here. I have definitely drunk the coolaid in regards to explicit teaching and the science of learning, mini whiteboards have been a revelation to me in my classrooms this year. I feel that in Australia senior VCE is a lot better structured with study designs, with junior and middle years being a little more vague and full of department jargon in curriculum. My only worry with explicit teaching and common curriculum is that it becomes corporatised somewhat like America and we end up buying in curriculum from companies that don't have much understanding of what day to day teaching in the classroom is like and that the art of teaching is lost to the science. Would love to hear thoughts about this.
In the US, we do now have some curricula that are pretty much aligned to cognitive science, although they aren't marketed or labeled as such, and some are produced by nonprofit organizations. But it can be hard for educators and policymakers to distinguish the good ones from the not-so-good or even terrible ones. I'd say the best source for finding the good ones (i.e., primary elementary literacy curricula that build knowledge) is the Knowledge Matters Campaign.