20 questions (or statements with which you are invited to disagree)

1. Pedagogy (teaching children) and andragogy (teaching adults) require different approaches but nonetheless draw on common principles of learning 2. Learning is highly sensitive to the context in which it occurs so that transfer is typically problematic and relies on a strong grasp of metacognitive abilities 3. Learning is its own reward and it is only as we institutionalise and ration learning that it requires extrinsic incentives and compensations such as gold stars and marks out of ten. The spontaneous multi-faceted learning that occurs in informal contexts contrasts with so much of what takes place in classrooms - sequential, cerebral, pre-determined, ruthlessly cumulative (Pinker) 4. Whether as children or adults we seek out cognitive challenges, through Sodoku, crosswords, jigsaw puzzles, chess and bridge problems, video games, pub quizzes and because the progress from puzzlement (cognitive dissonance) to problem solving (cognitive resolution) is intrinsically rewarding. 5. Learning is a social activity. We store and retrieve our knowledge in and from other people and validate it through the approbation (or disapprobation) of others 6. Explaining to others (whether real or imaginary) what we have learned both exposes misconceptions and reinforces understanding. How do I know what I think until I hear what I say? (Jerome Bruner) 7. Intelligence is learnable and easily diminished by the identity we assume or are ascribed by sources we accept as authorities. 8. Sleep, physical exercise, diet and health are all highly correlated with intellectual acuity, memory, memory processing and retrieval 9. Learning is optimized and diminished depending on the time of day and night in which the brain is at its most (and least) alert and receptive 10. The stimulus to move beyond learners beyond what they currently know, or think they know, relies on a scaffolding of what it takes to move to the next or deeper level (Vygotskys Zone of Proximal Development)

11. There is an innate psychological need to achieve, to know more, to do it better. 12. All learning has an emotional component. It colours what we believe about the content and method of our learning and about our own capacities as learners 13. Optimum learning is where challenge and skill meet, what Csikzentmihalyi calls flow or sportspeople call being in the zone 14. Tension and anxiety inhibit creativity and recall. Relaxed but alert describes the situation in which brain rhythms (the beta rhythms) are at their most receptive and productive. 15. Learning is optimised when it is paced and spaced, avoiding the problem of retroactive inhibition in which what is attended to first becomes lost by what is attended to subsequently. 16. Transmission and delivery metaphors are misleading because knowledge is sticky. It sticks on prior learning and misconception, self talk and lack of self belief, peer norms and inappropriate media of teaching and learning 17. Students, adults and children alike, tend to remain faithful to old mental models and inert ideas because they may have little opportunities to test them in authentic or real life contexts. Even successful university students responded to problems with the same confusions and misconceptions as young children, reverting to their own implicit theories formed in childhood. (Howard Gardner) 18. Effective learning relies heavily on feedback. As much (or even most) feedback is actually deskilling, it requires an acute understanding of what, when and how it should be given 19. the 5 Ws plus H (what, where, when, who, why and how) provide a useful checklist for thinking about the nature of learning and the appropriateness of teaching. 20. We strive for a quality of dialogic teaching, - the engagement of minds in a critical discourse in which their teachers are part, reflecting and inquiring together (Robin Alexander)

The toolbox 1. Case study 2. Critical incident analysis 3. Practice focused workshops 4. FIishbowling 5. Concept mapping 6. Framiing/reframing 7. Brainstorming 8. Graffiti 9. Nominal group technique 10. Role play 11. Simulation 12. Carouselling 13. Snowballing 14. Gallery walks 15. Speed dating 16. Card sorts 17. Role play 18. Table mats 19. Random interval sampling 20. Traffic lights 21. Coonect-extend-challenge 22. Peer observation 23. Collaborative lesson planning 24. Photo evaluation 25. Think-Pair-Share 26. Learning wall exchange 27. Jig sawing 28. Force field analysis 29. Prioritisation 30. In tray exercises