When we learn specific skills our needs fall into this pattern, which is summarised by the mnemonic educare? (educere, meaning ‘to lead out’, is the Latin root of the word ‘educate’). Learning a specific skill requires that the following needs be met: \r\n \r\n*E* Explanation. The students need to understand why the skill is carried out in the way it is, along with any important background information. \r\n*D* ‘Doing-detail’. The students must discover precisely what they are expected to do, and how it should be done. This is the ‘doing-detail’ which students often best learn by being ‘shown how’, for example via a demonstration or case study. These provide models of good practice to copy or adapt, and are useful precisely because they provide ‘doing-detail’. \r\n*U* Use. The students must use – that is, practise – the skill. \r\n*C* Check and correct. Students’ practice must of course be checked and corrected by the students themselves, and usually by the teacher. \r\n*A* Aide-memory. The students need some reminder or other – for example notes, handout, book, tape. \r\n*R* Review and reuse of earlier work is required to ensure that old learning is not forgotten. \r\n*E* Evaluation. Learning must be tested under realistic conditions, if the learner and the teacher are to be confi dent of the learning. \r\n*?* Queries. Learners always require an opportunity to ask questions. The ‘use’ and ‘check and correct’ needs are cyclic, and must continue until the skill is mastered. \r\n \r\nIn our thought experiment we imagined a short series of lessons, so review may not have occurred to you, though you may have thought of including a summary. When teaching covers an appreciable length of time, it is very important to revise or reuse old learning, or earlier work will be forgotten. It is very important to understand that the educare? elements are all learning experiences, not teaching methods. For example, the explanation can be provided in a multitude of ways. It could of course be provided by ‘teacher talk’, but just as effectively by the student: through reading, watching a video, carrying out an experiment, discovering for themselves, etc. What matters is that, at some time or other, the student does come across an explanation of why the activity is done in the way it is. How the explanation is obtained is not important, even if they read it on the back of a crisp packet or they find on the floor of a bus – they still get the explanation, after all!

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How do we learn? Do you avoid using threats to get students to learn?

Common cognitivist or constructivist teaching strategies include: • • • • ‘Teaching by asking’ or guided discovery. ‘Diagnostic’ question and answer, and use of poor answers to explore and correct misunderstandings (‘Socratic questioning’). Explaining tasks that require students to express their understanding to each other or the teacher, especially if these explanations are formally or informally corrected. Group work requiring students to discuss the material, so that constructs are made and peer checking and teaching takes place. This requires high-order tasks and questions. 14 • How do we learn? Students creating ‘mind-maps’ or ‘spider diagrams’ and other summaries that identify the key points and how these parts relate to the whole. See page 127 for an example, and Tony Buzan’s website (www.mind-map.com).

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Use teaching strategies that require all students to make a construct. Passive methods such as teacher talk do not require students to form constructs; active methods do. When students act, they must create and apply their construct in order to decide what to do. Check and correct . Learning is a trial-and-error process, so set activities that require students to check for their own and each other’s learning errors and omissions, and check for these yourself. When students act they usually make a product that should be used to diagnose learning errors and omissions. See also Socratic questioning below. What the learner does is more important than what the teacher does . Teaching is just a means to the end; it’s the learning that counts!

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Teaching is a bit like giving learners a toolkit of skills. Application tasks teach your students how to use each tool ( +, –, ×, ÷, usually one at a time). But synthesis tasks require your students to choose the appropriate tool for the job. This is not easy, and requires careful teaching. Page 259 shows an activity to teach this synthesis skill. It is one thing to teach a carpentry student to chisel, to saw, to use screwdrivers and so on. It is quite another to point at a door that does not close, and ask the learner to fi x it; that requires the synthesis skill of deciding which tools and skills can be used to complete the jo

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