New resources explaining how students learn, and the research behind this, have been released by the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO).
The four explainers shine a light on the hidden processes behind effective learning, providing school leaders and teachers with insights into how students learn, process and retain information. These insights can support teachers in selecting and applying the teaching practices that align best with how students learn.
The explainers have been developed in collaboration with Mr Jason Lodge, Professor of Educational Psychology in the School of Education and Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation at the University of Queensland, and have been reviewed by cognitive science expert Emeritus Professor John Sweller.
Each explainer summarises an element of the student learning process outlined in AERO’s Teaching for How Students Learn: A model of learning and teaching, and is supported by the associated teaching practices explained in the Model – enabling, planning, instruction and gradual release. The explainers cover the following areas:
- Attention and focus – Students are actively engaged when learning.
- Knowledge and memory – Learning is a change in long-term memory.
- Retention and recall – Students process limited amounts of new information.
- Mastery and application – Students develop and demonstrate mastery of their learning.
To develop and demonstrate mastery – students must go through important cognitive stages in memory function that allow for acquiring, retaining, retrieving and consolidating of learning.
“Our brains are truly marvellous things,” Dr Jenny Donovan, CEO of AERO, said.
“There is no known limit to how much knowledge we can store in our long-term memory, but there is a limit to how much new information we can manage at any one time.
“When we learn, changes take place in long-term memory – but to achieve this learning requires sustained focus and attention, practice, measured amounts of new information combined with the right amount of scaffolding and support for students as they move towards mastery and application.”
Dr Donovan said understanding exactly how their students learn can help teachers to maximise learning within the classroom environment.
“These practical, evidenced-based explainers explain the pathways from short-term to long-term memory, that build the mental models students need to unlock their capacity for higher-order thinking and a huge array of critical and creative applications.”
AERO’s work on how students learn best connects research on the learning process with practical teaching implications.
More reading: AERO expands free resource toolkit for schools
