LEARNING TO LEARN
a presentation , memorising lists and facts . These are not skills transferrable to almost any walk of life , in the way that , say , “ thinking critically ” is , but they are important elements of secondary education nonetheless . I will call these ‘ techniques ’ to distinguish them from the broader transferrable skills described above . Teachers can be guilty of assuming that students have picked up these techniques by a certain age , or that simply setting tasks involving these techniques will always enable a student to improve .
To fill this gap in a school requires a number of steps :
• an audit of what is already being done to teach these techniques to students at different stages in their education ;
• an evaluation of whether a holistic approach is appropriate ( i . e . are essays in , say , Geography and English Literature courses so different that any attempt to teach how to write an essay in all subjects would be counter-productive );
• an evaluation of the techniques held by students arriving at the school at different stages and from different backgrounds ;
• “ Curriculum Continuum ” – i . e . a linked approach where students re-visit a technique as they grow and as the expectations of that student become more sophisticated ; number of times a student said “ I want help with my creativity ”, compared to , say “ I want help with delivering a presentation ”, was unsurprisingly found to be very low – and student willingness and engagement is a key necessity in this process .
These “ How To ” guides are a work in progress , and , on the surface , very basic , but hopefully they fulfil an identified need .
References
Gibb , N . ( 2017 ) The importance of knowledge-based education . School Standards Minister speaks at the launch of the ‘ The Question of Knowledge ’. Available at : https :// www . gov . uk / government / speeches / nick-gibb-theimportance-of-knowledge-based-education ( accessed 08.10.20 ).
Oates , T . ( 2019 ) Skills versus Knowledge : A curriculum debate that matters – and one which we need to reject . Impact Journal of The Chartered College of Teaching , September 2019 .
Spileman , A . ( 2018 ) Knowledge or Skills : What is the real substance of education ? Available at : https :// www . fenews . co . uk / fevoices / 19845- knowledge-or-skills-what-is-the-real-substance-of-education ( accessed 08.10.20 ).
Wyse D . and Manyukhina Y . ( 2019 ) What next for the Curriculum . British Educational Research Association blog . Available at : https :// www . bera . ac . uk / blog / what-next-for-curriculum ( accessed 08.10.20 ).
• Consideration of the practicalities – should this be delivered in specific Study Skills lessons , or via pastoral units such as form tutor groups , or mapped in a planned way across many different subject areas and teachers ?
As a first step , the Institute of Teaching and Learning decided to start simply – single-sheet guides available on paper and online , mainly targeted at those students who find that their techniques and their teacher ’ s expectations are at odds – maybe they are new to the school or have missed a segment of the curriculum , maybe they simply need a refresher . Again , there are no claims of great sophistication here , just practical value . A teacher could use these guides as a starting point for a discussion with an individual student about how to make notes or how to learn vocabulary , or a student could refer to the guide to help them learn on their own without any teacher input . They might also be adjusted to fit the needs of a specific discipline , and they increase in sophistication to differentiate between the needs of students at different stages in their education . Attempts to create simple , understandable guides for the softest transferrable skills ( creativity , collaboration and so on ) were made , but the value of the results was limited . These were often skills that were addressed in almost every day of a student ’ s career , and the
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