Teaching and Learning

The Elements of Learning: Knowledge and Memory

Supporting Every Student to Thrive

In this edition, I’ll focus on how we are supporting our students to learn new information through our improved understanding of how the memory works.

Learning is a change in long term memory. We now know that the working memory can only hold 4 – 6 chunks of new information at one time. Limiting unnecessary information helps students focus on the learning material and reduces cognitive load. Working memory is the active workspace for engaging with knowledge, skills and concepts. Learning happens when new knowledge moves from working memory to long-term memory. Our goal is to increase the chance of new information/skills and concepts that we teach, end up in long term memory, so they can be recalled when needed at a later stage.

What we have been doing at SEPS:

Over the last 12 months, we have shifted to a pedagogical approach that incorporates a strategy called explicit instruction. This has allowed our teachers to use strategies that align with the science of learning. Some of the things we have done:

• We have updated our instructional model to ensure that we include the components required to provide the highest probability that our students will learn. We begin a lesson with some retrieval practice and then share the learning intention and success criteria with our students. This allows our students to know what they will be learning and what success looks like. 
• Our teachers then activate the students' prior knowledge, as we know making connections to already learned information supports new learning. 
• Teachers explicitly model/teach a new skill/knowledge or concept. During this time, the teacher will model with worked examples, including non-examples that address potential misconceptions. Teachers also use a strategy called ‘Think aloud’ – this is where they get to articulate what they are doing (i.e. sharing our thought process).
• The teacher intentionally reduces the role of the teacher and increases the responsibility of the students by getting students to have a go. During this stage, our teachers are checking the level of their students’ understanding by asking frequent questions during explanations and demonstrations. This is done through whole class participation in quick regular tasks. This increases student engagement and participation and provides valuable formative feedback for teachers. 
• Once the teachers feel confident that at least 80% of the students have understood how to complete the new skill/knowledge/concept, the students practice independently. During this time, the teachers get to work with students who may need further support on a task or an opportunity to be extended.

We have also shared information about how memory works in our brains, so that our students understand why we have made some shifts in our approaches to teaching.

At SEPS, we are proud of how we embrace new research (backed by science) to constantly improve what we do.

I look forward to sharing some of the work we are doing around 'Retention and Recall' in relation to the Elements of Learning, in the next edition.