Latest / IB Unplugged / Beyond Intuition: Teaching Smarter with Cognitive Science w/ Gareth Rogers

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Beyond Intuition: Teaching Smarter with Cognitive Science w/ Gareth Rogers · IB Unplugged

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Welcome to IB Unplugged, a Kognity podcast for
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IBDP educators that tackles your submitted challenges and questions
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by connecting you with experts and peers who share their ideas and stories
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from real classrooms.
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and guest aims to equip you with practical tips and positive inspiration,
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a community of educators ready to learn, laugh, and thrive in your IB journey.
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Hi everyone!
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Welcome to another episode of IB Unplugged.
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Today we're talking with Gareth Rogers and we're looking at cognition in action,
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supporting learning through metacognitive practices.
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Gareth Rogers has been working in London and Japan
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and is now currently head of school in Jakarta at an international school.
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He's been, having a great over a decade of work
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doing some published authoring, teaching.
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Heading up some schools.
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So he has a lot of background here,
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and we're really excited to talk to him about cognition and metacognition.
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In this episode, we're going to look at the difference
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between the two, how understanding both can really transform
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how we're teaching and how students are learning.
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And we're going to look at some of the latest cognitive research,
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looking at busting some common learning myths, and really
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what some evidence based strategies can look like for you in your classroom.
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So if you've ever wondered, like,
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what are the actual practical strategies I can use to build in cognition?
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And more importantly,
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how can I intentionally scaffold metacognition within my classroom?
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This is a great episode for you.
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Or if you're a school leader, teacher, or otherwise interested in education,
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there's going to be lots of nuggets in here
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that really help you understand what you can do
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to really build that metacognitive as well as cognitive approaches
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to the teaching and learning so that students can be more successful.
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So we're really excited for you for this particular episode.
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And welcome to IB Unplugged.
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Hi, Gareth.
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Welcome to this episode of IB Unplugged.
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Hi. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you for being here.
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We want to kick off our podcast with asking you the question of why education.
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Why did you get started in a career in education?
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I'm one of those people that's always wanted to be in education.
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You know, some teachers fall into it and say that wasn't their dream.
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I think for me, I've always known that,
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when I was a kid, I, when I was young, I have a lot of memories
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of terrorizing my younger brother by constantly trying to teach him things.
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I think I was two years old, had the alphabet wrapped,
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and I'm trying to, distill IGCSE geography down his throat.
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It's just been part of my life.
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You know, I came from a background where education was really the way out.
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There were very limited options, for me, where I was living as a child, and
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I think I just saw is really, really important.
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And I then had a kind of
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ambition to work initially in disadvantaged schools,
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because I thought, you know, that education is the key,
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to helping communities like that.
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But then as I kind of
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grow in my career, I've realized that actually, whatever status of,
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social economic situations schools are in,
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there's a real need for for great education everywhere.
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Yes, it's just always been part of my life.
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I'm really passionate about it.
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And, I'm happy to be here today to talk about some things
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that I think are really important.
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Is it safe to say that your younger brother did not go into education?
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He definitely didn’t.
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Yeah, I think he dropped out of education as soon as he could.
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And I blame myself for that.
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You know, we do have a laugh about it now.
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Yeah yeah yeah.
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Good.
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Now, Gareth, you've lived in some pretty cool cities.
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London, Tokyo, Jakarta.
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Which one's the best?
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I might not answer that for fear of offending people, but
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I've loved each city for very different reasons.
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I think my biggest reflection of cities is actually
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about school systems, which I find fascinating.
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You know, you've got,
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Japanese schools where there's this
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very kind of group harmony culture.
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It's all about,
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club activities, group events,
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students cleaning schools and all this kind of working together.
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Then you've just kind of got the UK, which is more
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about individual achievement
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with a lot of inclusivity around it.
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And then working in
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Indonesia, it's just fascinating because the educational landscape
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is changing all the time.
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So I think I take those those memories from different cities.
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But yeah, I've loved living everywhere.
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Cop out answer about, well, let it go.
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My, more important question: tea your coffee?
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Oh, can I cop out of this one as well?
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No? No, no, you got it.
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This one's got to be a hard answer.
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Coffee, but I love tea.
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And I'm an Englishman. I should say tea.
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You're an Englishman, but you're living in Indonesia.
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Yeah. It's coffee.
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Yeah.
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Java coffee. Yeah. Perfect.
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All right.
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And what's the best snack to go along with that?
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Like, what are you going to have when you're having your coffee?
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You know, I didn't used to eat snacks till this year, but now I just
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I remembered back in Britain to summer, I remember chocolate hobnobs.
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So I stashed my suitcase with a little chocolate hobnobs some back on snacking.
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Yeah, definitely.
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All right, well, and kind of one last sort of warm up question
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that people get to know a little bit.
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Obviously you're a high school principal.
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What's one thing
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you think every high school principal should be doing on a daily basis?
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Circulating, just
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being out and about, meeting the teams every day, meeting the students every day.
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Because the workload is intense.
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It's a lot of it's administrative.
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A lot of it is confidential.
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So you're in private meeting rooms and or you're in strategic meetings.
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And I think it's easy to not have your face out there.
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And I think optically that's really important. And not just optically
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so people see you and feel you're there and present,
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but also because you need to have your eyes and ears open.
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So I think putting yourself on duties,
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being out and about, greeting everyone around the building
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regularly, that's a daily action that I think is really important.
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Yeah, I love that.
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You know, I think many people get into becoming a leader of a school
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because they love education and they love working with young people
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and love working with people.
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And so it's easy to then kind of almost get removed
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from the young people that you're there to serve.
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So I like that idea of just get out, be present, circulate.
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That's great.
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All right. Let's dive into our first segment.
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So for this first part we're going to talk about cognition versus metacognition
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and really understanding the difference and why that actually matters.
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So, as the baseline, if you could just define cognition
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and metacognition in the context of secondary education.
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So cognition is referring to
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the way in
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which we actually learn the way, brain processes information.
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So in terms of
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how does the brain access information?
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And so how in a secondary school context or school context, how how is information
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presented in ways that all students are going to be able to understand,
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how information is managed?
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So thinking about is the way of teaching and learning,
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allowing students to effectively process information.
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And then how students then can actually remember things
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and store information in their long term memory.
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So what they've learned has actually been learned.
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And there is, a lot of evidence that science has grown
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over the years about how that learning actually happens.
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And so it's really important then for teachers to be aware
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of that cognitive science and then how learning works.
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Because there's a
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lot of myths out there which I might get to later.
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Metacognition, on the other hand,
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is more about,
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the students having ownership of their learning,
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their agency and knowing themselves where they are,
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knowing what they need to do
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with knowing where they need to go next, being able to reflect on their learning.
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And that's something that, isn't automatic.
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That's something that does need to be taught and trained by teachers to help
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students take that ownership, reflect and grow.
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And I think that's really important because we
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that's often admitted in or historically that's admitted in,
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in a classroom in favor of more teaching kids knowledge, but actually,
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you know, the
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the world that the students
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going into in the future, where their careers are likely to keep changing,
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they're going to be,
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new working environments, new technologies or whatever
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have you in the future that their ability to reflect
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and know how to learn themselves is going to be really important.
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So, yeah, that's kind of how to distinguish
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cognition and metacognition in a school context.
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So I love that you've mentioned that
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because I think often, as you say, it's not explicitly put in the curriculum.
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And as teachers, sometimes we don't think about metacognition as much.
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We just sort of almost expect it because students are this age already,
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and therefore they should be able to self-directed,
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they should be able to reflect in these sort of things.
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So I think it's really good that we understand at least the distinction,
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because then that helps us approach it a little bit differently as well.
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I'm wondering for you, where does this passion sort of come from?
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Why this interest in metacognition and cognition?
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What sparked that for you?
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Yeah, I think I know really clearly where it's come from.
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I worked for
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many years in a school in London that,
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in 2005, when I was there in the early days,
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it was one of the country's most underperforming schools.
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It, you know, its success rates
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in various measures were very poor.
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It was one of the first kind of UK academies that existed.
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So there was a lot of urgency
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as a school to transform the school.
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We kind of needed to ground zero everything on all different levels
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academically, pastorally and really make a step change.
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And the decision
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there was to just be really evidence focused on, well,
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what do we know about great pastoral systems?
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What do we know about great academic systems?
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So the school invested a lot in,
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you know, taking time, which took years to really
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see what research is
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talking about, what it's saying about how learning happens.
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And actually in those days there was much less evidence
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there is now.
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But cognitive science, was really coming to the front.
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Metacognition is being spoken about, and we made a deliberate effort
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to really train our staff and our students,
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in knowing how learning happens, sharing that with students
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that they're aware of how learning happens.
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And we saw a huge change in the way students
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originally came in years before as kind of passive learners.
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They just turned up waiting to either be taught or not,
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to really taking ownership of their learning.
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And, you know, metacognitively,
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they were driving learns.
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There's a lot of student agency and that transformation was huge
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but that was very deliberate as looking at,
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what cognitive science was saying.
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And, you know, the transformation was great.
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The outcomes changed significantly.
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It's now in, the top 2% of secondary schools in the UK.
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It's 42nd out of 6000 secondary schools.
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So the change was and I really believe it's that.
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And then I've since worked in other schools,
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which have not had the same outcomes.
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And then I've noticed that that kind of awareness of cognition
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and metacognition has been missing in the infrastructure of the school.
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And that applies to even, you know, in the international circuit
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that I've worked on for a number of years, seeing students in schools
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that are highly privileged and should be having great outcomes,
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having much lower outcomes than those disadvantaged school children.
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And then saying, well, what's been the missing gap?
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And it's often been this kind of student and teacher awareness of cognition,
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how learning happens and that ability to map and measure their own learning.
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So I think that's why it's been really important for me.
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And in my current context, it's
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something that we've really pushed to develop in the student staff body.
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To dive into that a little bit, what is some of the research saying, like,
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what are some of the most important parts
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that they're saying is driving these outcomes?
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Well, I think in whatever reputable evidence sources you use for
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Identifying good teacher practice
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self-regulation is usually coming out as
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the number one strength in terms of moving students
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forward, students being able to regulate and own their own learning.
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And that, you know, that's metacognition.
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And if you look at, the work by deans for impact,
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the Chartered College of Teachers,
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I personally love the Education Endowment Foundation in the UK.
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The EAF because is really accessible.
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If you were to look at, you know, previously, over a decade
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ago, the work by John Hatty and things like that, that was done before.
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There's always elements related to thinking about your own learning.
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Feedback and reflection has always been key.
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And I think the EAF,
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I've got a number of studies now.
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There's quite strong data that saying that students that are well aware of how
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to reflect on their learning effectively can gain up to sort of seven months
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of academic progress against students that don't, in that sense,
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within one academic year.
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So that's quite powerful and that's quite new.
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It's new because, you know, when I went into teaching,
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it wasn't as much evidence about what actually works.
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A lot of educators had written books, about their experiences of learning.
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And you had all of these kind of how would Gardner's multiple intelligences
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and Bradley's VAK and all these different kind of ideas.
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But the evidence
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in terms of neuroscience, of actually monitoring the brain
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and knowing what's actually happening in the brain and how learning
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actually happens, wasn't there as much as it is now
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and a lot of studies
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you at the University of Cambridge, at Goswami in the Faculty of Education,
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that there's lots of teams that have really brought that forward.
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So now we're able to see that if there's certain strategies in place,
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there is actual data that suggests that the impact will be x, y, z.
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And that's new.
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And that's something we really need to take on board in schools.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I think it's absolutely correct that,
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you know, we've been thinking about these things for a little while.
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The idea of like metacognition and being aware of what you're doing is,
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is something that's been present.
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But just as you say,
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the actual results from this in the data, we've got sort of a long term data.
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Now we can look back and see like, yes, this actually has a big impact.
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So we need to be implementing it more.
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Now I've got my own hunches as a practicing educator
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as to why we don't focus on metacognition in the classroom as much,
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even though we know the benefits that come from it.
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But from your experience, why do you think we're overlooking this
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so often in the classroom?
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I mean, as you say, you can close a seven month gap
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in this short amount of time when you're doing this thing.
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So how do we change this?
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How do we bring metacognition more explicitly into the classroom?
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I think it's been overlooked.
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Just to go back to two questions, I think you're asking me why is it not there?
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I got too excited there. Gareth. I'm sorry.
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So let's break that up, split it appart.
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I think it's important to say why it's overlooked.
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If you don't mind me going to that point because,
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because I think it's a common issue.
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There's a number of reasons why it's not a focus in the classroom.
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One could just simply be that teachers were trained
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in a period of time when metacognition was not seen as a priority or understood.
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So, and they haven't had a school that has been prioritizing
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that in their own professional development programs.
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Could be that, I think the different curricula
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that schools follow can be very content heavy.
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And there's a kind of rush for teachers just to think about,
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I've got to get kids knowing all of this stuff.
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And they sometimes think that taking time to teach children
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how to reflect and redraft work and think about where they're doing
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and look for what they think, it's kind of time consuming.
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And as they said, that's
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a bit of a misconception, really, because it doesn't have to be,
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maybe misunderstanding what metacognition is.
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I often in different schools, I see teachers thinking,
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well, I'll give students extra tasks and that's metacognition.
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And it isn't.
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That's just extension tasks.
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So this is understanding
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and assessment types
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what very few models of assessment that schools take actually
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assess the student's ability in their own reflection and self-regulation.
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They assess the outcome of the knowledge that they're producing.
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So I think there's a number of reasons why it's, overlooked,
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but it, but it shouldn't be.
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Yeah.
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Well and so that brings in like the value statement of the school as well.
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Right.
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If the assessment only looks at the knowledge gain, then of course
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teachers are going to value that more than the metacognition aspect as well.
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But just as you say it.
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So it sounds like a time’s a factor,
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but also understanding what metacognition is and how to effectively teach it right?
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Yeah. How to teach it, how to assess it.
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I mean, lots of schools have tried different ways to try and assess,
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and I haven't seen a perfect model to know how to assess that.
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I suppose other outcomes suggest that it is happening.
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If students are performing well, you just assume that they have
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they have good self-regulation and but yeah, yeah.
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From the leadership side, I think
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even if it's not necessarily in the assessment
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but assessment of educators, is there anything that either of you
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have been able to do for accountability
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of that inclusivity of metacognition in your style of teaching?
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Holding kids accountable to metacognition, the easiest obvious thing is
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utilizing a learning objective.
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And that sounds really basic.
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But learning, you know, teacher set a learning objective for a class.
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You know, in schools, tell them you must share this with the
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with the child or whatever.
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And then it's just kind of left.
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No matter what strategy is used.
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And there's lots of different strategies.
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Just having a core principle that students are expected to
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throughout that lesson, consider how well they're achieving what they're meant to
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and by the end of it, kind of understand if they have or haven't.
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That's simple enough and that
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holds students accountable, that holds teachers accountable.
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Just share objective.
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That's the basics and that's it.
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Now there's lots of different strategies how to get there.
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There's lots of
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different strategies cognitively of how to teach.
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But I really think that's teaching it
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snd ultimately that isn't it.
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Knowing what to do
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and the students themselves knowing by the end if they've achieved that.
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I think everything else in the middle is flexible.
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But you're absolutely right.
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Like when you have that sort of guiding statement, I think that helps a whole lot.
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And then also intentionally scaffolding in this time of like,
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let's come back to that guiding statement.
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We've learned this sort of content, how does this relate back to this?
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And you push this over to your Court
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because I know Kognity the way that you're
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structuring like the texts, for example, it starts with like here's the big idea.
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And then there's multiple times to kind of check back in with that.
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And I assume that's very intentionally based around this sort of metacognition
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as well. Right?
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Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
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The kind of learning principles behind the way that we've designed
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the content definitely is to foster
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that where it's like you said, you have that big idea,
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you have something that's in the beginning
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that's grasping that, like, okay, this connects to what I'm doing.
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I think that in some of the new syllabi, it's also made it easier
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with like adding in the concepts and saying, which concepts
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are you going to be exploring during this time?
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Then obviously
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TOK, there's a lot of work there with helping students with metacognition.
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So pulling in those big questions with TOK
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within the
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subjects also I think enables that.
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And then I feel like when we talk to teachers, there's like
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there's two camps where one's like can't reflect enough, can't stop reflecting.
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And the others are like, if I ask my students
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to reflect one more time, they are going to walk out on me.
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But I do think that that is a huge, huge, important part of it.
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But like you said earlier, Gareth, if it just becomes an extension,
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like if I do all of the same stuff that I was planning on doing anyway, but
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then at the end of the lesson, I'm like, so why don't you reflect about it?
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They're going to be like, oh,
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that's not really fundamentally changing the teaching style.
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That's just an add on at the end.
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So I do think, like you said, John, it has to be in great like ingrained in it.
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You've said something that's just making me smile inside because,
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you know, you said, students think if I'm asked to reflect one more time,
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because I've been there, because part of that
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shaping students to think about that, you do,
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you're forcing them in all kinds of systems to reflect,
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but you want to go to the next level where actually
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they're not feeling forced to reflect all the time.
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They're actually able they want to do that themselves.
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It's innate to them that that's what they do
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and they're not being forced, because then the degree of reflection
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is going to be less rather than, here's five minutes, everybody.
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Let's reflect.
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It's going to be organic as things go on through a lesson.
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But getting the students to that stage,
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take something that comes in from that can come in from primary school
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right the way through.
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But, and, you know, when we get to IB, we'd hope
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students hey're already able to manage their own learning.
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And that's really important
21:28
in IB as well, because they're the model of learning
21:31
they're not.
21:31
So you know sometimes the teaching is less didactic.
21:34
There's much more inquiry.
21:36
There's much more, requirement for the student to own the learning.
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So they kind of need those skills, those metacognitive skills.
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But you know, as they begin the program, really, they're they're going to be
21:46
in a great place to really maximize their experience and enjoyment in the IB.
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And you can really tell the students who have done that,
21:54
and have that sort of natural, innate ability to think about their own learning.
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What did I understand about this and how can I change that?
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And I think those are the students
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who you see him in the study halls and wherever they are,
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they're just already there taking things over.
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They know what they need to do, they move forward on it, and they kind of do well.
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But just as you say,
22:09
if you don't really have that structure in place,
22:11
those are the students who really just kind of come in to things like the IB
22:14
and they just want to know, like, what are the facts that I have to know?
22:17
And how do I turn that back around?
22:19
And you can see such frustration from the students and from the parents
22:22
when they're not getting,
22:23
you know, great results or things aren't coming out the way they need them.
22:26
And so it almost kind of creates this difficult tension,
22:29
I think, as educators, because you see the students who kind of
22:32
they are to get it, they can metacognitive for that matter,
22:35
and they can think through this quite well and they can move on forward.
22:38
But you're also asking them and everybody else to be explicit with that process
22:42
so that you can see it, and then you can guide those
22:44
who maybe need a little bit more support along the way.
22:47
So it's a tricky balance.
22:49
It's just like I think anything
22:50
cognitively where you would say like this amount of people know this thing
22:53
and these people don't know this thing, I have to differentiate this.
22:56
We have to differentiate from metacognition as well. Right?
22:58
Yeah.
22:59
You're really right
23:00
about how you can identify the students that can and cannot.
23:07
We follow a Cambridge IGCSE
23:10
program in
23:10
nine and ten that we were using Kognity for
23:14
and there is a bit of a difference and we're trying to bridge that gap.
23:17
But in terms of how you prepare for the assessments and the IB assessments
23:21
and some of the students really, you know, we know the students
23:25
that in grades nine and ten are not thinking metacognitively.
23:30
And they love just memorizing information.
23:36
They're aware of their learning.
23:37
And have I learned everything, but they're not necessarily aware of
23:39
how did I do that and what would I do if I didn't know everything?
23:43
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:44
And then they're the ones that struggle in IB
23:46
because they're waiting for the teacher to sort of
23:48
just test and test and test them.
23:51
But they need to be testing themselves.
23:53
So that's you see that gap and that's the kind of gap you want to,
23:57
to bridge is that they've all got that, ability to reflect.
24:01
Yeah.
24:01
So you're absolutely right
24:02
when you say you can see the students that can and can't.
24:04
I see it also from the Kognity side, like we're always testing
24:08
and seeing how students are using the products and things like that.
24:10
And one thing that we always see as this kind of correlation
24:14
of the students who are, I guess both of you are familiar
24:17
with the platform of doing those strength tests on their own
24:20
or doing like actually practicing and going in.
24:24
Are there students that are working independently of their teachers?
24:26
And a lot of times there is, yes, in the IB specifically,
24:30
because I think that they're at that stage of their learning.
24:33
If they do have these metacognitive skills where they can say,
24:37
I actually want to know what I know and what I don't know,
24:41
and I want to make sure that I'm practicing
24:43
and that I remember things and that I can keep all of this knowledge
24:49
and keep all of this information
24:51
fresh throughout a two year program, which I don't think you can.
24:57
I think it'd be incredibly difficult
24:59
to do the IB without those metacognitive skills
25:03
and just rely on the teacher telling you what to do.
25:08
Are you an IB educator wanting
25:10
to improve your practice and needing a just a bit more support getting there?
25:13
Have you ever wanted to learn more about a specific aspect of the DP program, or
25:17
ask a question to an educational theorist about a specific IB aspect?
25:21
IB Unplugged is the place for you.
25:24
Simply visit kognity.com/ibunplugged to submit your question to us,
25:29
and have your question explored in more detail in an upcoming episode.
25:32
And now, back to the show.
25:35
Let's pivot into kind of,
25:37
I guess, our next part or our next segment here, and let's talk about
25:40
some of the strategies that really work quite well.
25:42
And I guess
25:43
let's stay with this distinction between metacognition and cognition.
25:45
And maybe let's start with cognitive strategies.
25:47
I know, you know, you did a workshop with the Engage
25:50
Indonesia conference a little while ago, and you referenced
25:52
some cognitive strategies that work really quite well.
25:54
I wonder if you could share what are some examples of those strategies
25:57
in action, either in school or other places that, you know, really work well?
26:01
Yeah.
26:02
Yeah, sure. I mean, cognitive strategies,
26:07
I don't think they're surprising.
26:09
I think they're what most teachers would think, a good practice.
26:11
But knowing that there's evidence behind them
26:13
and how important they are is what's key here.
26:17
You know,
26:19
presenting information in ways that's accessible
26:21
to a wide group of students.
26:23
There's a lot of research
26:25
that information is retained, is accessed if it's presented in a
26:29
they call it dual coding.
26:30
So when information is shared and visually.
26:33
So if you're to actually, you know you could go into Kognity for example
26:36
you'll see information that's there’s a diagram.
26:39
There's the videos. There's a simulation.
26:41
There's the text about it.
26:43
And if you've got an audio narration over that,
26:45
you've got that information presented in various formats.
26:48
And that really is important.
26:53
Helping students manage
26:54
information, you know, if you have a Kognity
26:58
load theory is something very important in cognitive science.
27:02
And Kognity load theory has its disputes.
27:04
There's a lot of discussion about it, but what is true
27:08
is that, students can only manage certain amounts of information at one time
27:12
and process,
27:14
and that might be different from child to child,
27:15
but there's an awareness that needs to be there.
27:18
So basic strategy.
27:20
You know,
27:22
I watched interview lessons
27:24
and a teacher will come in and have an entire slide of
27:28
text, three passages up there and expect the students to read it all
27:32
and then ask them questions, or they'll say, read that page in the book
27:35
and then ask them questions.
27:36
And there are students that can do that, but the majority can’t.
27:39
And the ones that can are not necessarily getting the most out of that.
27:42
So in terms of the science behind that is breaking information
27:46
down, interacting with information, questioning the information.
27:51
We follow what do we call it chunk to check,
27:53
you know, chunk your information down, process it, check that
27:57
it's understood and then do that again and then again and again.
28:00
So, you know, how can students manage information is important.
28:05
And then,
28:07
another question about cognitive science
28:09
is that the research does talk that in terms of memory,
28:14
you know, the retrieval practice is really important.
28:17
Revisiting and retesting information and recalling it is how the memory works.
28:22
And there's a lot of debate about that as well,
28:24
because, you know, are we teaching to test that
28:26
we just need to memorize for.
28:28
Well, in some cases, yes, there is, there are
28:31
there's a lot of modules where kids need to remember stuff
28:33
and have it in their long term memory, and there's no escape from that.
28:36
If in the future we've got testing or assessment models
28:39
that don't require knowledge to be recalled,
28:43
we might not need to follow that scientific principle.
28:45
But if we want students to remember and retain a lot of information, as you know.
28:49
So quizzing,
28:51
and a lot of low stakes
28:51
quizzing without pressures, but getting kids to revisit things.
28:55
What's more effective,
28:56
though, than constant quizzing might be interleaving a curriculum.
29:00
So when they've learned something,
29:04
rather than just re learning that
29:06
Exactly
29:06
again, but maybe in another topic or the next topic,
29:09
that information is used to learn the next topic.
29:13
So there's some sort of revisiting of that.
29:15
And then there's a natural recall.
29:16
And if you can skillfully build a curriculum
29:19
that you know, right the way through, from whatever age to the end,
29:22
there's a lot of revisiting of information and applying it
29:25
in different ways, that recall will happen.
29:29
And that's really important because,
29:33
without those cognitive science principles, students do forget.
29:36
And, you know, I've seen teaching models where topic one is this topic two
29:41
is something else.
29:43
By the time they're in topic ten,
29:44
they've forgotten topic one, topic two, topic three.
29:46
Or they've got this forced drill and rote learning at the very, very end.
29:51
And it needs to move away from that and be a constant,
29:54
revisiting of content, and scale right through.
29:57
So that's kind of,
30:00
application of cognitive science in the classroom.
30:02
You can see how the IB is really pushing in that direction
30:05
anyway, like with the way that they're creating new curricula,
30:09
like the biology curricula or all the sciences, when right now
30:11
they're kind of setting this thing up as more of a roadmap.
30:13
You can see how all the links, how the different topics link together.
30:17
And just picking up on one point,
30:18
you said there with regard
30:19
to like recall knowledge and do we still think that's a necessary thing?
30:22
And I think the more that we build
30:24
in that recall knowledge, the more that students are able to
30:26
then apply that knowledge to multiple different situations
30:29
that come into a new situation, they get this question
30:31
like, oh, I can apply all these different things to it.
30:33
And yes, just
30:34
you say when you skillfully think through that curriculum
30:37
and find those links and those connections between everything,
30:39
it automatically builds in that sort of cyclical learning.
30:42
It automatically builds in that interleaving,
30:44
which, as you started with, is good teaching practice anyway.
30:47
It's a good learning practice.
30:48
And so I think if we really focus on that
30:50
then we can create some great learning opportunities for our students. Yeah.
30:53
That'll be the conceptual approach to IB allows that overlap a lot doesn't it?
30:56
Because you might take the same knowledge from different domains to
31:01
to think about a particular concept.
31:02
So it's yeah, curriculum design is really important in that.
31:06
Yeah.
31:07
I love these strategies that you kind of suggested with cognitive, approaches,
31:11
but I want to also move into metacognitive strategies as well.
31:15
I'll say the learning objective, how have they done it.
31:19
Yeah.
31:19
That's yeah, I mean that needs taught as well.
31:22
And it's scaffolding helped get students to to think
31:26
you just saying we mentioned earlier off you go and reflect on that.
31:30
Well that's quite difficult if you don't know how that's very difficult.
31:33
And that's why students might groan
31:35
because they don't really know how to do it.
31:38
And often we as a school, we after all our tests and assessments,
31:42
we get students to fill in that reflection form and it, you know, and they'll
31:46
they'll answer a couple of questions.
31:47
Do they know what they need to do to improve?
31:49
And everyone says, yes.
31:52
And then when it's like, well, what is it you need to do to improve?
31:54
And they just write, you know, study more.
31:58
Try harder.
31:59
Exactly.
32:00
They do say they don't really know, so they haven't quite got there.
32:03
And that's something we've worked on and taken that forward.
32:06
So you see that kind of change from the lower school when they get to the,
32:09
the senior high that they're in a much better place.
32:13
So that needs trained.
32:15
So simply one thing is being clear about your learning intention
32:20
and your guide area for focus and making sure you revisit that
32:25
with students together. That's simple.
32:30
A great strategy
32:31
is narrating your own thinking, because students
32:35
don't necessarily know how to reflect on their work themselves,
32:39
but if they can see a teacher
32:40
reflecting that kind of models it and shows them how to reflect. So,
32:45
you know, like a basic thing
32:47
you can do in primary school, right till the end is that kind of,
32:51
I do we do you do type strategy that, you know,
32:54
teacher answers that solves a problem or thinks about a situation
32:58
on the board, then gets the class to do it by questioning.
33:01
And do they all understand what they're doing?
33:03
And they're talking through the whole thinking as they go.
33:06
They're narrating what they're thinking about
33:07
and then handing it over the students to try it themselves.
33:10
So this kind of modeling
33:12
how to think, showing the students how to reflect on your learning.
33:16
Did I do this well?
33:17
What did I not do right? Why can't I answer this?
33:19
Which part of this question do I not understand?
33:21
What would I need to do to find that answer?
33:25
That's show
33:27
are you training and model that is really important.
33:31
So getting them to given tasks,
33:33
Getting them to plan how they're going to achieve
33:37
that piece of work, how they're going to achieve the research
33:39
they need to do, where they're going to look,
33:42
getting check in points, how they're doing.
33:44
And getting them to think about how well they've achieved that.
33:49
I didn't see
33:51
the power of it as much as I have done recently is getting,
33:54
you know, when you say to students, just teach each other something.
34:00
Well then they realize they can't see the kind of
34:03
inforced into thinking, well,
34:04
what do I need to find out and how do I do that.
34:07
And sometimes a bit of peer pressure if you've got a nice heterogeneous group.
34:12
But there's, it's quite good to just
34:15
you can see a lot of metacognition happening when students work in a group.
34:20
Because you can hear it.
34:21
You can't always,
34:22
you know, when students are doing some, you can't hear their thinking process.
34:26
And you can't often see a thinking process in a written answer, or a product.
34:31
But when students are working in groups, you can hear it.
34:34
So I think a lot of it's about
34:37
the narration, the teacher narrating their thinking all the time,
34:41
asking students to talk about how they're thinking through something
34:44
and then getting students in groups to talk,
34:48
and find answers and solutions together.
34:50
And that's really how you build that metacognition
34:53
approach in the classroom. Yeah, I love that.
34:55
I love especially the example using yourself as an example in The Teacher.
34:59
And I think many times we'll get this, like when we get a great question
35:02
from a student, one that kind of makes the teacher go, oh, actually, hold on,
35:05
I gotta think that through.
35:06
What is this?
35:07
You know, so sometimes it is sort of organically comes up, but you could
35:10
obviously frontload that if you're a teacher, you can just say,
35:13
I am going to intentionally kind of bring this question up
35:16
and start to work through it.
35:17
And know all these different ways and show the students.
35:19
And then I love what you were just mentioning that last part
35:21
about that peer assessment, sort of peer teaching sort of thing.
35:24
It's something that I'll do with my teaching as well.
35:26
Like if I'm doing a direct instruction kind of thing, I'll pause for a moment
35:30
and have my slide up or whatever, and I'll go, okay,
35:32
look, just take everything I just said and make that a little bit simpler.
35:35
Or what's the teach the person next to you kind of what was this?
35:38
Or how can you make that a little bit better?
35:40
And so kind of pausing as you go throughout and give that space
35:44
and just say in your partner group,
35:45
I want you to explain this thing or here's a graph, try to unpack it.
35:49
What is what's going on with this?
35:51
Some of that I think can be quite useful as well.
35:53
So really cool strategies there. Yeah.
35:55
John, putting you in the hot spot,
35:57
is there, anything that you think you are doing, metacognitive strategy
36:02
wise in your classroom?
36:04
Oh, well, I get everything right all the time. First.
36:06
So you just got to respond.
36:08
Yeah. What he said.
36:09
Yeah.
36:11
No, no, I was just joking, but, No, a big part of it, I think, is just.
36:15
Yeah. What
36:16
Gareth was mentioning creating that time scaffolding and in there and going in
36:20
with a position of humility, I think, you know,
36:23
since you're asked questions, I teach biology and so sometime soon.
36:26
So come in, they'll be like, you're basically a doctor, right?
36:28
Let me ask you this.
36:29
I'm like, I'm basically not a doctor. First off,
36:33
and secondly, that's kind of work this through.
36:35
And, and I'll try to connect it, just as Gareth was talking about before
36:39
interleaving it into previous topics.
36:41
So like, oh,
36:41
if we think about this through the cell biology lens,
36:43
maybe this thing if we think about it
36:45
through the evolutionary biology lens, this thing.
36:48
So I think just kind of going in there and being okay with being wrong
36:52
and, you know, exposing your own learning process, I think is quite useful.
36:55
And that's that modeling thing that you were just talking about.
36:58
I love what you said about humility and from the teachers
37:01
perspective as well, because that goes into the culture of the classroom.
37:06
And I because I don't think it can be
37:07
a truly metacognitive classroom if the culture isn't safe for that.
37:13
And it's, I suppose,
37:14
what is what is Doug Lemov under his Marmite to people.
37:18
What does he he talks about a culture of error
37:20
and that's you know, how do you build a culture of error
37:22
that that growth mindset has to be in the classroom, that safety
37:25
because all all metacognition relies
37:28
on self judgment and and and if you're talking
37:32
and you're exposing that, so you're talking about the teacher
37:36
humility of the teacher and the students
37:39
also within that peer relationships,
37:42
that culture needs to be there, that that ability to make mistakes,
37:45
because that's the most powerful thing to for move, for moving forward.
37:49
So it all goes back to that growth mindset element, doesn't it?
37:51
But the,
37:54
that culture is really important for, for students to be metacognitive.
37:57
Otherwise they feel quite,
38:00
nervous to reflect.
38:01
And then they'll often,
38:04
resist doing that.
38:05
And I've seen that. I've seen that in classroom environments.
38:07
Yeah, yeah.
38:08
I mean, it comes down to that sort of performative pressure.
38:10
And this is now part of my value in who I am,
38:13
and therefore I don't want anybody to think less of me kind of thing.
38:15
And just as you say, I think if as a teacher, you can model,
38:18
I want to question these things and I don't know everything, right,
38:21
right away, then that helps to invite others into that space as well.
38:25
And you can create a really good culture,
38:26
as you say around those things, which is good.
38:29
All right.
38:29
So now I guess kind of for both of you, what's the role of tech in this?
38:33
Because obviously we now exist in an age where there's lots of great technology
38:37
that's available.
38:38
We've spoken about Kognity and some of the strategies that it uses
38:41
with with cognitive science to approach to, to learning.
38:44
But how can teachers be leveraging the technology that's available right now
38:48
to support both metacognitive and cognitive strategies in the classroom?
38:53
Courtney?
38:57
You go first and then I can just say, yeah, what he said.
39:00
No, that was my strategy.
39:04
Tech, you know,
39:07
you go to any educational conference in the world right now
39:10
and there's just it's all about use of tech.
39:13
Because A there's so much tech no one understands, B this tech
39:17
we don't we that's companies just trying to sell tech to us.
39:22
So, and I, you know, I go to edu tech each year in Singapore
39:27
and that I'm fascinated by the, the
39:31
the wealth of options out there.
39:35
And what the role of tech needs to
39:39
is actually link to these cognitive and metacognitive principles.
39:42
So good tech is not just to engage students and past time,
39:47
but actually has to have a value in terms of what it's what it's achieving.
39:51
So and then we've got this whole exposure of AI.
39:56
So for example,
39:56
I was just reading a report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
40:01
They've just finished, a project that they've been working on,
40:06
and they were monitoring students
40:08
doing, like extended essays,
40:11
using AI versus the ones not using AI.
40:15
And they they were scanning brains to see what was actually happening
40:20
during this, and actually have written the word down EEG.
40:24
Let me find it.
40:25
Electroencephalography.
40:27
I don't I don't know how to pronounce that,
40:28
but they were able to see that the, the level of the way
40:32
the neurons were working with for the students that were using AI
40:35
was, was much less there's much less neural connectivity.
40:39
And they've called it cognitive debt.
40:42
And saying how students that are engaging in essay writing, using AI tools
40:45
and things have this cognitive debt.
40:47
So what that means, who knows in terms of what we want to achieve
40:51
with essay writing. But,
40:53
it's definitely something to be thinking about.
40:56
So I think we need to learn what we want to achieve with with tech.
41:01
But I'm going back to the main principles.
41:04
If technology,
41:07
is giving information again in ways that students
41:08
are actually going to be learning and not just passing time.
41:12
Took me a while.
41:13
We invested in virtual reality headsets here, and I,
41:16
I couldn't quite understand the purpose of them.
41:19
Were kids were having a great time,
41:20
like swimming into the sea and whatever have you. But,
41:25
it didn't help them get an A star in IGCSE because it wasn't relevant.
41:29
But then I kind of changed my mindset when I saw that the students were getting
41:33
just really excited by certain topic areas and then motivated to go into with
41:37
the learning.
41:37
So I, I saw the value tech played there without great cognitive principles.
41:43
And you know, and then we need to use
41:45
tech in a way that does so tech that, you know, we spoke about Kognity,
41:49
how it presents information, but also tech that develops metacognition.
41:53
So tech that has functions and tools within it that allows students
41:57
not to just move forward, with a game or whatever information is presented.
42:03
But that allows them that does build in
42:07
methods of reflection.
42:09
And I've seen it in gamification.
42:10
I've seen games like that do require that it's to think back on
42:13
how did they do that
42:14
and why were they successful in that particular scene or situation.
42:17
And that's good because it's building in the metacognition.
42:21
So that, you know,
42:22
what we what we like about Kognity is that is that the feedback
42:26
and real time insights and students getting to see progress,
42:30
and getting them to engage with that,
42:32
but but
42:33
tech's huge I mean, I there's just yeah, it's a lot there's a lot to understand.
42:37
But I think if, if a school's investing in technology,
42:41
which is expensive, they need to really consider what,
42:46
what is the learning gain and what it's what's the evidence base behind that.
42:50
And it's something I do when I, when I go around ag tech
42:52
and I say to the different stalls and I hope that they're all listening.
42:56
I ask them, I say, what's that?
42:57
What's the cognitive principles behind your your tool here?
43:02
And sometimes they have no idea what I'm asking.
43:04
And you think, well, that's not great.
43:07
Be able to justify what that's going to do for learning in a classroom,
43:11
because as a school, it's we can often only invest in 2 or 3
43:15
different sets of technology at a time.
43:17
And we're limited in resources.
43:18
So getting it right is important.
43:22
Today's KogTip
43:23
comes from an IBDP history teacher and Kognity educator.
43:27
They say Kognity brings together strategies, concepts, question types
43:30
and sources in a way that really supports how students engage with IB history.
43:35
For teachers, it's a huge time saver.
43:37
It helps you stay focused on what matters most while making it easier
43:40
to connect content assessment and key concepts in a meaningful way.
43:46
I really like the questions
43:47
that you're asking because I agree that that's really important.
43:51
It's so easy for edtech
43:54
to become gimmicky and be like,
43:57
what's going to be flashy and look really good?
44:02
But then you talk to some physics teachers that are using the same Phet simulations
44:07
that they used, whatever, 50 like ages ago,
44:10
that look like a 90s video game.
44:13
But the but the principles are so sound,
44:17
the Kognity principles are so sound, and it teaches students
44:20
it gets their brain working the right way to think about the right things.
44:24
And it is still like it's still relevant.
44:26
So it's not just about what's the most advanced
44:29
technologically, it's about what's the most advanced cognitively.
44:33
And something that
44:34
when we start partnering with the school and as we continue partnering with them,
44:38
it's always a really big, important conversation for us of what
44:41
are you actually trying to achieve with this?
44:44
And no teachers like, I just want to have some fun.
44:47
Like know there's there are real reasons behind getting technology involved.
44:52
Otherwise you wouldn't you shouldn't
44:56
even be introducing that tech to the students in the first place.
45:00
So I, I completely agree that it's really important
45:04
to be able to say, what are you trying to do?
45:06
A lot of times
45:07
we say do backwards learning design of where do you hope that your classroom
45:11
will be at the end of the school year, at the end of the two year program?
45:16
And then what are the different tools and learning principles?
45:20
They all come into play together of
45:23
if you're a science teacher, it's I know that I want to do these
45:26
practical labs because this is what I'm going to get out of them.
45:31
I know I want to use these technology tools
45:34
because this is what I want to get out of them.
45:37
So I think that it's really important to start with your outcomes
45:40
and your objectives and what you want at the end of your course.
45:43
work backwards and see what are the gaps.
45:47
What are the things that I can't
45:49
or can't do as well in my classroom without technology.
45:53
And that's where you bring it in.
45:55
And I think that especially right now, edtech,
45:59
having a field day with AI and it's it's getting super fun and super exciting.
46:04
But at the end of the day, if it's not holding true to bringing
46:08
actual value to the teachers and to the students, it's another gimmick.
46:13
It's another game, and it's not actually going to be helpful.
46:15
And like you said, there is probably a lot of fun VR things.
46:21
But like, if it's not tied to what's the objective here,
46:25
then we're just running around with goggles on our heads.
46:29
Yeah.
46:29
And that's difficult for schools when you're at particularly independent
46:32
schools that that a lot of the focus is marketing and what parents want to see.
46:37
And you said at the very start, what's flashy?
46:40
And sometimes you either have to invest in flashy because it impresses.
46:44
But what you need to be doing is investing in whatever's working,
46:47
even if it is
46:48
in 1990s physics tool.
46:50
Yeah. So, and yeah,
46:54
this all lends itself really well to, I think
46:56
kind of our next segment, which really has to, is like myth busting.
46:59
And I think often educators and we want to grab onto
47:02
something that looks cool or we think is going to work
47:04
really quite well, but we don't actually have the
47:07
the science behind it or the, the data that says this is worth your while
47:11
and this is actually going to meet that objective
47:13
that you were both just talking about there.
47:14
So what are some of the most persistent,
47:18
learning myths that you see in schools today?
47:20
Gareth?
47:22
I think I'll go from interview into a lot of people
47:25
and hear the same kind of myths, education very often.
47:29
And see online as well, you have educators talking a lot about,
47:32
you know, when if I come to your school, I really going to consider the left brain
47:36
and the right brain of the child, because that's important of how
47:39
they they learn best. And it isn't.
47:43
And that's clear research on that.
47:45
There isn't a dominant side to the brain.
47:47
And if there is, it's it's not going to then give you a preferred learning style
47:51
and that and I say that with strong evidence because the OECD,
47:54
the Innovation in Education report,
47:58
2023 or 2024 or something, has a whole section
48:01
on, on exactly this, the six biggest myths in education.
48:06
And they're,
48:06
they've put that in the OECD report for departments of education
48:09
across the world to take note of and stop putting in their teacher
48:12
training programs.
48:14
So that that's one the what links to the left brain right
48:17
brain thing is the the VAK people still talk about it, doesn't they,
48:22
that students have a preferred way of learning.
48:25
So you have teachers
48:27
wasting hours and hours designing three types of activities
48:31
for different students
48:32
that have told them they learn best this way or that way.
48:34
And it's, without being crude.
48:37
It's it's nonsense.
48:38
And what we do know is that there's there the again, the dual coding,
48:42
we talked about presenting information in a variety of ways.
48:45
Does make information more accessible.
48:47
But it's not that there's a preferred way that a child learns over another way
48:52
and that kind of thing.
48:53
So that's a big myth.
48:55
And you hear that all the time, you know, any any adults do it all the time.
48:58
I learn best doing things or I learn best like this.
49:01
So that's that's something.
49:02
But there's a lot of research out there.
49:05
What else do people talk about a lot?
49:07
Bloom's is interesting because I really like Bloom's Taxonomy.
49:10
I think is very, very useful.
49:12
The education, the scientific base
49:14
for it is almost non-existent.
49:18
But I think it is very useful because it kind of helps organize,
49:22
different ways of approaching learning.
49:25
But I think there's a, there's an often an idea that how Bloom's is set
49:29
up, people think you have to start at the bottom
49:31
and you have to know things fast or whatever before you can ever get to
49:34
evaluating information.
49:35
And actually all that parts of Bloom's
49:38
can happen at any time and can all be successful.
49:40
You can go into kindergarten and kids are learning
49:43
how to evaluate something before they know all the facts. So
49:47
that's kind of
49:47
another one that, my favorite myth out of and too many methods could talk about.
49:52
My favorite is class sizes.
49:54
Yeah.
49:54
You know, it's often assumed, and definitely by parents
49:58
that smaller class sizes, you'll get stronger outcomes.
50:02
For students.
50:04
And that's just not the case.
50:06
It's, it's
50:07
it's down to the quality of the teaching and learning, the what, what assessment.
50:11
If you've got a class of 40 students that,
50:15
you know, they self-regulating themselves, that metacognition is strong.
50:20
The teacher's got great ways of imparting
50:23
information and assessing, understanding and giving feedback.
50:26
You can have much more successful outcomes than a class of three students where the
50:30
the students don't have that ability and the teacher's not teaching
50:33
well, and there's, there's a lot of the EEF actually
50:36
got a whole report on class sizes, which is
50:39
is interesting.
50:40
But also I noticed that with them,
50:43
you know, entirely over the years, analyzing exam data from different
50:46
teachers and class groups over the years, there's there's very rarely a correlation
50:50
with class sizes. It's often down to other factors.
50:53
That's interesting because that one's almost on every
50:56
private schools website.
50:58
It's like, oh, but we have small class sizes.
51:01
Well it's easy and allows you know, it's there are the benefits are that there's
51:06
a, there's a great social connections, between teachers in a small environment.
51:10
Of course, they're getting more feedback.
51:13
If the teaching is good.
51:14
But again, it gets it gets down to the quality of a teacher,
51:16
because you can have a terrible teacher with with one student and no outcome. So.
51:21
Yeah. Yeah.
51:22
That's it's just on that point.
51:23
I mean, I've,
51:24
I've been able to teach class sizes of around 35,
51:26
and then I've also taught a class size of three.
51:28
And no one wanted to take your biology class,
51:31
John.
51:33
Yeah. No.
51:35
I've always kind of had in my head, you know, whatever I'm presenting, there's
51:38
going to be probably a third of the class that already knows, a third of class
51:41
doesn't know it, and a third of the class that is so lost they can't pick it up.
51:45
Right.
51:45
So I just have to constantly think about how am I differentiating
51:48
for the ones who probably already know this and need some expansion?
51:51
How am I differentiating for the kids that definitely can't even access
51:54
this information that I'm trying to present?
51:55
So this knowledge of like,
51:57
maybe at best, I'm only going to get about a third of my classroom right now.
52:00
And I remember thinking that even with my really large groups, and then even
52:03
with that class of three, it just seemed like I had all three right there as well.
52:07
So it's not like with a smaller class size, my differentiation had
52:11
no, I still had to do all the same practices as I did before.
52:15
And yeah, just as you
52:16
said, there's also elements of your overall,
52:20
sharpness, I guess, for lack of term.
52:22
You know, when you're in a smaller class, 2 or 3 there, is that better
52:25
social connection? You know, each other a little bit better, that sort of thing.
52:28
So you walk in a little bit, maybe a little bit more casually.
52:31
Whereas when you're going into a class of 20 or 30 or so, you're thinking,
52:34
all right, I got to be, I'm on because I got to get all these kids
52:37
and there's a relevance of, like, I need to come in a little bit sharper
52:40
than I normally would.
52:41
I'm sure there's many other things there as well, but,
52:44
Yeah, as you said, we could talk myths for a long time.
52:46
I love what you spoke about with, with regard to Bloom's,
52:49
I've often thought it should be Bloom's web as opposed to Bloom's taxonomy.
52:52
That's a that's a good way of looking at it. Bloom's web.
52:54
Yeah, because it's easy to think, like you have to know stuff
52:57
before you can question about it and before you can share things on it.
53:00
But actually, it's like, that's not how we access information normally.
53:04
That's not how knowledge is brought to people.
53:06
So you you can evaluate things, you can question those things.
53:10
That's going to build more knowledge
53:11
and really like more of a cyclical sort of web based thing,
53:14
I think makes a little bit more sense than a pyramid.
53:16
That implies, just as you said, Gareth,
53:18
you have to know this level before you get that level, that level or that above.
53:22
And so with regard to like those myths, how can educators begin to challenge
53:27
and I guess shift those beliefs using those evidence based practices?
53:30
How can we make some big changes in our classrooms?
53:33
I think a lot of that will come comes from leadership, because,
53:37
if teachers have those beliefs or myths, they've got them already.
53:42
And it takes a
53:43
highly reflective teacher with great metacognitive skills
53:47
to, to notice that something's wrong in what they're doing.
53:50
So I think part of that is,
53:53
the schools ensuring that their PD is really evidence based, sharing
53:57
what strategies have they they identify as important for teachers, what you know,
54:02
what to put in the toolkit of things teachers can do.
54:04
But sharing the evidence, we always share the evidence base behind anything.
54:08
And now what I love is when we're and we might have an agenda
54:11
and we share some information of the staff of what we want to happen in school.
54:14
And they're questioning, well, where's the evidence behind this?
54:17
And I like that.
54:18
That's, you know, if we haven't got evidence when we're challenged.
54:21
But I think that's that's very important.
54:24
But teachers themselves, you know, verify what think about what doesn't work.
54:29
You know, every single teacher has failed situations.
54:34
Kids that don't achieve as well as they like
54:36
or things they thought they taught really well.
54:38
And then the kids don't seem to
54:39
understand it when they get the papers back or,
54:42
reflecting on exam outcomes, if you if you discipline at that kind of level.
54:46
So questioning yourself is really important as a teacher.
54:52
What what do you think does have the impact and what doesn't?
54:55
Be wary of what goes online.
54:56
There's a certain professional social networking site that people use,
55:02
which is great.
55:03
And all the professionals connect on it and you get consultants there
55:06
that, that educational consultants that share all sorts of,
55:11
strategies for learning, which some are just
55:14
there are myths or they're outdated or they're,
55:16
there's no evidence behind them, or they might even hinder learning.
55:18
And but teachers lap them up. It's exciting.
55:20
They're presented in lovely Canva, posters and I think
55:24
just questioning question everything.
55:26
Be reflective of what you're doing.
55:28
Do you, as we wrap things up, do you have any last,
55:32
parting advice for any teachers who are looking
55:35
to have more of that metacognitive approach in their classroom?
55:38
Any I know you've given a lot of different tips, but any any last words?
55:44
I think teachers have intuition.
55:47
And, you know, if you do know something is I'm here preaching,
55:51
make sure everything's evidence based.
55:53
Sometimes the evidence based, that is the teachers own evidence
55:56
because they just know things they're doing do work.
55:58
So go with your intuition,
56:01
on things that work.
56:02
But do explore.
56:04
Get excited about education research.
56:06
My top tip would be go to the EEF Education Endowment Foundation website.
56:10
Just because it's so well presented and accessible to understand,
56:14
particularly cognitive and metacognitive strategies, but all kinds of other,
56:17
research and education. They've got,
56:20
great videos, they make posters, they present,
56:23
you know, they're doing their bit to present information
56:25
in so many different ways that is accessible.
56:28
So I think that would be my top tip that just get excited
56:31
about understanding what makes learning happen.
56:34
But at the same time, if teachers know that things are working
56:38
well and they've got their own evidence for that, then trust in that.
56:42
But definitely,
56:44
go back to the theme of this session.
56:46
Just think about the cognitive,
56:49
and metacognitive approaches in the classroom.
56:51
Because, you know, we said earlier, the research says that that's
56:54
some of the most powerful things, if not the most powerful ways
56:57
we can approach learning in the classroom.
57:00
Yeah, I think that's definitely what I'm going to be taking away
57:02
from this conversation, Gareth, is this idea of like
57:04
make sure that you understand what you're doing cognitively in the classroom
57:08
and make sure you understand what you're doing
57:09
metacognitively in the classroom.
57:10
Be intentional about both of those
57:12
and make sure that they both have some presence in what you're doing.
57:15
And then with that, just as you say, question everything.
57:17
Don't be afraid to be humble in front of the students.
57:19
Go in and and think through the process yourself.
57:22
Give them the chance to really think through the process.
57:24
And don't just do something like go reflect now.
57:27
Tick my metacognitive box, but actually really scaffold through that.
57:30
That what you're saying that goes right back to
57:32
we talked about the reflection requires the culture in the classroom
57:37
that the school needs that as a wider as well, I think, within the staff body,
57:40
because the staff need to be able to have the space.
57:43
And trust to reflect on things they're doing
57:45
and the openness to the school to question and seek support and guidance
57:49
when they want to get better at something without feeling that they're going
57:52
against the grain of the school or they're doing something wrong or worse.
57:56
So yeah, culture is important.
57:58
Yeah. That's great.
57:59
Gareth, many positive things here.
58:01
Thank you so much for for sharing your insights here.
58:03
That's been a really stimulating conversation.
58:04
And I'm really excited to be taking a lot of this into my classroom.
58:07
And I hope our listeners are as well. So thanks so much, Gareth.
58:10
Oh thank you. I've I've enjoyed it.
58:12
I think I could have gone for another hour have been enjoying this. Yeah.
58:14
Thank you so much for the time. Yes yes. Yeah.
58:16
Thank you.
58:21
Speaking with Gareth was
58:22
hugely inspirational as a practicing educator
58:25
and also somebody in the classroom and just in schools in general.
58:28
And I think,
58:29
you know, I mentioned some of my takeaways there at the close of the episode,
58:32
things like being intentional about when you're scaffolding for,
58:36
cognitive approaches, when your scaffolding
58:38
for metacognitive approaches, and really intentionally thinking
58:41
about how those are going to be present in your classroom.
58:43
Also, just that importance of creating a, a humble culture,
58:46
a culture of learning, a culture
58:48
that says it's okay to make mistakes and not know everything right away.
58:52
And then, you know, I loved the way he ended that episode.
58:55
They're talking about just the importance of questioning everything,
58:58
you know, question like, is this really true?
59:00
Do I know if this is actually a strategy that's going to work?
59:02
Don't just hop onto it
59:03
because it's, you know, popular and it's got a lot of likes on it.
59:06
It might be something
59:06
that you really need to investigate if this is worth your time or not.
59:10
Those were obviously some of my key takeaways, but what about for you,
59:13
Courtney?
59:13
What what do you take away from that conversation with Gareth?
59:16
I really appreciated the that this episode talks
59:20
about both the cognitive and the metacognitive strategies.
59:23
I like that, and I think that it is really important
59:25
to find that balance between the two because,
59:29
you need both and you can't just be pure
59:32
in the metacognitive space when you also do have a subject to teach.
59:37
And I think that from my side, the takeaway is when I'm thinking about
59:41
how this applies to Kognity as really we've really, I think, done a great job
59:46
and done a lot of work on how to support with these cognitive strategies.
59:50
A lot of the examples that he gave really resonated
59:52
with the way that we structure our tools and our resources,
59:55
and I think that we have done quite a bit to support metacognitively as well.
1:00:00
But I think that especially as the IB moves more and more towards,
1:00:05
supporting in this space, we need to make sure
1:00:07
that we are to and really learning from what our teachers doing.
1:00:11
How can we make sure that it doesn't just become like in a textbook
1:00:15
or in any tool, like just a box that's thrown in there,
1:00:18
but really a fundamental part of the way that are our tools are structured.
1:00:23
So a lot to think about.
1:00:25
I really appreciated his,
1:00:28
he gave a lot of examples of things that you can do in your classroom
1:00:31
with things to think about.
1:00:32
I also think he was quite gracious about you can't just expect that a teacher
1:00:37
that's been teaching for 25 years, like your your experience is evidence too.
1:00:43
And I really liked that too.
1:00:44
It wasn't just dismissing your experience and your intuition,
1:00:49
which is easy to do when you're just focused on the data.
1:00:53
But I liked that that didn't just get thrown away.
1:00:57
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that as well.
1:00:59
So many really great things from this episode.
1:01:01
And we we hope that you enjoyed this one.
1:01:03
And we look forward to seeing you at another episode of IB unplugged.
1:01:07
IB Unplugged as a Kognity podcast hosted by John Patton
1:01:10
and Courtney Marline and produced by Katilina Gaffney.
1:01:13
Be sure to subscribe or follow and share with your fellow IB educators.
1:01:17
If you'd like to submit a topic, request or a question, please do so on
1:01:21
kognity.com/ibunplugged.
1:01:23
Let's keep the conversation going
1:01:25
and support each other in teaching with confidence, creativity, and joy.
1:01:29
See you next time.