What learning power is
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The idea of building learning power is that it is possible
in a real sense to help young people get smarter.
to help them become more intelligent!
and the real reason for doing that
is to give them the confidence that they will be able to face tricky stuff
of all kinds, problems, challenges, out there in the big wide world
in their real lives, both now and in the future.
the science behind BLP
gives us the confidence that this is a real possibility
There are all kinds of experiments and studies that have been carried out
in the last few years
which show that contrary to some popular opinion
it really is possible to get smarter
It is possible to help young people become more intelligent
and we are beginning to understand what that means
in some degree of detail
Intelligence is not some general purpose pot of fixed-size ability
that the genes or the Good Lord gave you when you were born
and that you carry around with you for the rest of your life
That's a bit of a misconception
Actually the ability to learn is itself very learnable
And it consists of things like
curiosity, the ability to ask good questions,
persisting in the face of difficulty
being resourceful, being able to have a range of different strategies
to call upon, being a good teamworker,
being a good collaborator, being able to be thoughtful...
to be able to stand back from what you are doing, particularly when it is difficult
and think how is it going? how might I be able to do this differently?
it's partly a matter of being able to balance being imaginative
with being able to think clearly, and rigorously, and in a disciplined kind of way
and what we've discovered through the science is that it's possible
in real lessons with real kids
and real teachers: all the constraints there are around
to help them strengthen each of these ingredients
or capacities that go to make up real life intelligence
That's the theory Professor, but how does Building Learning Power work in practice?
What we've discovered is
that the way to build the capacities
of the powerful, confident, real-life learner
is not so much a kind of 'adding on' little bits and pieces
to lessons, but just adjusting
in a way that many teachers find quite comfortable
a number of aspects of the way they design lessons
and indeed the way a whole school is designed
Just changing the way we talk to students, for example
can make a big difference
If instead of always talking about work
in the classroom, "Get on with your work!", "Get back to your work!"
"how's your work coming on?"
If you focus attention on the chat that goes on in a classroom
more on the learning... "how are you learning?", "what's difficult about that?"
"what would make that easier for you?"
then we find that that shifts the focus, shifts the interest of young people
so they begin to be more interested in the process of learning itself
even little things like what you put on the walls
what aspects of students work, let's call it work...
you put on the walls
makes a big difference. In a conventional school,
all you ever see on the walls is the perfect product!
the perfect output, the final result
And the wall's, therefore, show no evidence of the learning process
no evidence of the drafting, or the trying
or the two steps forward and one step back,
which is absolutely integral to the process of learning itself
So there are lots of schools you can go into now
where as well as displaying work that students can be justifiably proud of
they also display the drafts so that students can be proud of their progress
as well as proud of the final product
little things like that can add up to a really significant culture change
in a classroom and in a school
so that the young people themselves come to feel
that something different is going on here
this isn't just about completing tasks and jumping through hoops
This is actually about, as we call it in BLP, building their mental fitness
stretching their learning muscles
in ways that they understand will be useful in exams, for sure,
but also out there in the big wide world, in their footy training
in their dance class, and in their lives beyond school
¿So how do you think it is possible to judge the success of Building Learning Power? ¿What does make it successful?
We are very clear, after twelve years of experimenting and working
with thousands of ingenious and imaginative teachers
that this programme is successful
it is successful because you can hear it from the mouths of students
They've become more engaged, they've become much more articulate
about their own learning
You see it in the raised examination success
students who feel more confident, more resourceful
more resilient, do better on exams!
They don't get thrown by the question they don't immediately recognise
They're more able, because they've learned to
to stay intelligently engaged with something that is a little bit confusing
or they find a bit difficult, and give it their best shot
and their best shot will usually get them some marks
but we also see this in terms of self-report questionnaires
what young people are saying about themselves
and about their own development
and we are seeing it also in students as they go out of school
and after they've left school
in terms of their reports about how "this really helped me"
"this really helped me in my football training, or my dance class, or my apprenticeship"
or whatever it may be, "I've learned how to be more resourceful, more thoughtful, more imaginative"
and I can see how that is helping me gain the confidence I need in my real life
Do you think that this approach will become a sort of very central part of education in the UK, going into the future?
The approach really seems to appeal to teachers and Headteachers
because it's small scale and gradual and developmental
there's nothing here to make it too difficult for people
so there's a real attraction for teachers in terms of its practicality
but also in terms ... lots of teachers tell us... of resonating,
of striking a deep chord with their own real feelings, about what they really want to be as a teacher
and why they came into teaching and education in the first place.
So what we are seeing is a real word-of-mouth spreading of the popularity
of Building Learning Power, as teachers find that it's practical, it's effective
and it also, in a way, helps them live their own values
more fully, and in a more satisfying way, as they go through the working day.
So there's nothing really, once teachers get a taste for this,
there's nothing to stop them growing into the approach
and that can take lots of little risks, and lots of little developments
but we're finding more and more teachers, more and more schools
are being drawn to this approach, and I think it will become not only nationwide but worldwide...
within the next ten years or so
It certainly... if you go to schools in Thailand or Singapore
or Australia or New Zealand, you'll find this approach and approaches like it
also becoming extremely popular, and I feel, therefore, quite positive about the future!