Teaching for Effective Learning:

1. Teaching for Effective Learning: Teaching for Understanding Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

2. Is Learning Necessarily an Outcome of Teaching? “Cognitive research is revealing that even with what is taken to be a good instruction, many students, including academically talented ones, understand less than we think they do” Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

3. How is What Students Learn Influenced by Their Existing Ideas? • preconceptions versus misconception • reconstructing/reorganizing • pedagogical content knowledge Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

4. How does Progression in Learning Usually Occur? • from concrete to abstract • visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic • pictorial? • multiple representations • ... Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

5. What and How do People Learn to Do Well? • only what they practice doing • thinking critically, analyzing information, communicating scientific ideas • making logical arguments, working as a part of a team, acquiring other skills Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

6. Transfer • Transfer can be defined as the ability to extend what has been learned in one context to new contexts = apply ideas in novel situations • The quality of people’s learning experiences is dependent on the transfer Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

7. Key Characteristics of Learning and Transfer • Initial learning • Knowledge in context • Abstract representations • New learning involves transfer based on previous learning Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

8. Elements that Promote Initial Learning • Understanding versus memorizing • Time to learn • Feedback • Motivation Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

9. Other Factors that Influence Transfer • Context - Transfer across contexts • Multiple representations • What is learned versus what is tested • Abstracted representations • Dynamic process • Metacognition Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

10. All New Learning Involves Transfer • Building on existing knowledge • Understanding conceptual change • Transfer and cultural practices • Between school and everyday life • Metacognitive approach Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

11. Critical dimensions of classrooms that promote understanding • tasks • tools • norms • structuring and applying knowledge • reflection and articulation • classroom norms • developing sense of ownership Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

12. How is Performance Affected by Expectations success in learning - growth in confidence Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

13. How can Teaching Aim to Counteract Mathematics Learning Anxieties? • “Understanding anything is never absolute and it takes many forms” • build on success • equity • group learning • Is mathematics is about finding things out? Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

14. Should Teaching Mathematics Stay within School? • Extend beyond the school • Rich resources of larger community • Obstacles Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

15. What is the relationship between Teaching and TIME • “more is more” or “less is more”? • concepts must be offered periodically in different contexts and increasing levels of sophistication Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning

16. This presentation was based on • American Association for the Advancement of Science (1989). Science for all Americans: Project 2061. New York, NY: Oxford University Press • National Research Council. (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. National Academy Press. Washington, D. C. Mara Alagic: Teaching for Effective Learning