Are you right-brained or left-brained? Perhaps your learning style is visual, or kinaesthetic. Or maybe you identify with neither because you know they are neuromyths that became prominent in the 1990s, despite not being backed by science, or were misinterpreted in popular culture.
In more recent years, cognitive science and educational psychology have made great strides in how learning truly happens in the brain – but these have never widely been put into practice in the classroom as school systems were focused on concepts such as project-based learning instead of explicit instruction.
While some have argued that the so-called industrial model of schooling should be replaced with project-based learning, there is little evidence it has produced students with more creativity or ingenuity.Credit: State Library of Victoria
A report from think tank The Centre for Independent Studies outlines how practices such as explicit instruction, which breaks down what students need to learn into smaller learning outcomes and models each step, are based in the science of learning.
It says that has been overshadowed by student-led inquiry, where a pupil investigates and problem solves for themselves, in the belief that doing this will result in critical and creative thinkers.
“Unfortunately, key pillars of Australian education policy do not reflect the science of learning, due to the far-reaching impacts of progressive educational beliefs dating back to the 18th century,” the report said.
Despite billions of dollars in extra funding, the report notes the most recent NAPLAN results show roughly one-third of students fail to meet the expected standard in reading, numeracy and writing.
“The assertion that education should be underpinned by a scientific understanding of how students learn seems common sense to a layperson. However, this scientific understanding is ignored in the underpinnings of several aspects of the current policy architecture regarding teacher training, standards, curriculum content and teaching guidance,” the report says.
It notes progressive educationalists during the 20th century prioritised student-led learning as good for students while teacher-led learning was oppressive, with progressive educationalists aiming to put an end to “mindless rote learning and parroting of meaningless facts”.
“Rather than rejecting memorisation and the importance of memory, a better path for modern education is to understand how memory works and to draw implications for teaching practice from this knowledge, rather than the other way around,” it says.
The report outlines cognitive load theory as one pillar of the science of learning, which sketches how to optimise the load on students’ working memories to help maximise their learning.
That could mean eschewing learning fads including project-based learning or student-centred learning in favour of teacher-led instruction, which selectively presents information and repeats it.
“If working memory relies strongly on long-term memory and novel information is more likely to ‘stick’ when it can be connected to existing knowledge, teaching and learning should involve the same content and be practised over an extended period of time to ensure it is retained,” the report says.
Despite billions of dollars in extra funding, the report notes the most recent NAPLAN results show roughly a third of students fail to meet the expected standard in reading, numeracy and writing.Credit: iStock
In class, it could mean showing learners example problems that have been worked out results in them learning more than students who must solve equivalent problems on their own using the random generate-and-test method.
A report led by University of Sydney vice chancellor Mark Scott last year proposed overhaul of education degrees so future teachers learnt about the brain and learning and why specific instructional practices work and how to implement them.
However, the Centre for Independent Studies report says more professional education is required for the nation’s teacher workforce of more than 300,000 in a bid to get good practice into their classrooms.
Report author Trisha Jha, who has worked as a teacher, said the shift to explicit teaching across all subjects could replicate the transformation seen in NSW when it came to the mandatory use of phonics as part of its reading instruction.
“The NSW Department of Education, even at the very top, is focused on the importance of explicit teaching,” she said. “It requires a much more systematic response to get this approach to trickle all the way down to all teachers and schools.”
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