International research into how the mind works shows that we are all capable of becoming better learners. Building Learning Power applies this research directly to the work of teachers in classrooms, to provide a practical framework for fostering lifelong learning in all young people.
It is the job of education not to assume that learning will take place but to do everything possible deliberately to help it do so.”
Professor Guy Claxton
Originator of Building Learning Power
To prosper in the learning age, we must learn to embrace uncertainty with robust self-confidence, and approach the future with curiosity and optimism.
Building Learning Power provides a clear direction for this exciting journey; it:
- Recognises that effective learning depends on qualities of attention and emotional reactivity; of thought and imagination; of reflection and self-awareness; and of sociability and relationships.
- Respects the complexities of science and resists easy simplifications, slogans and gimmicks.
- Views teachers as learning-power coaches who explore and extend students’ learning-to-learn behaviours.
- Infuses the development of learning habits and skills into curriculum content.
- Develops a language for learning throughout the school.
- Attends to the kind of language used to frame activities and comment on learning.
- Encourages learning challenges that students can get their teeth into — real, interesting and hard.
- Involves teachers in seeing themselves as learners about learning: taking time to think and ask questions about learning, testing out claims of their own, and customising ideas for local conditions and students’ current interests.
- Infects school life beyond the classroom, linking the professional world of teachers and the school’s relationship with its community.
- Sees education as a preparation for a learning life, with optimism that this can be pursued without a revolution — or at least with only a quiet, local, one.
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