Teaching and Learning
Teach For Long Term Learning By Activating Students’ Working Memory
Pitch lessons so pupils have to think hard, without giving them so much at once that their working memory gives up.
- 34 minutes
- 8 modules
- 0.5 CPD hours
- Certificate
Members
14 days free, then £70 a year or £7 a month.
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What you'll learn
- Pitch tasks in the struggle zone, hard but achievable
- Add desirable difficulties that make pupils process information properly
- Explain new material clearly and model your thinking out loud
- Ask open, Socratic questions that get pupils thinking and talking
- Cut cognitive load with chunking, scaffolding and prior knowledge
About this course
Ask a class to multiply 57 by 3,489 in their heads and most will give up or get lost in the numbers. Set work that's too easy and they won't think at all. Between the two is the struggle zone, where learning happens.
Keeping pupils there takes a few deliberate moves. Desirable difficulties slow thinking down just enough to make it stick, and teaching to the top keeps the challenge high for every pupil, whatever their starting point. There's practical advice on explanations and modelling, and on questions that make pupils think rather than just checking who's listening.
The other half is making that thinking efficient. Chunking, scaffolding and building on what pupils already know all cut cognitive load, which leaves room for the hard part.
- For early career teachers and teachers. Post-16, primary and secondary.
8 modules
Open in order
- 5 min
Introduction
- 2 min
Wrap up
- 6 min
The struggle zone
- 5 min
Desirable difficulties
- 4 min
Teaching to the top
- 5 min
Teacher explanations and modelling
- 4 min
Questioning and classroom discussion
- 7 min
Avoiding cognitive overload