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About This Book

The content, skills, and understandings students need to learn today are as diverse, complex, and multidimensional as the students in our classrooms. How can educators best create the learning experiences students need to truly learn?

How Learning Works: A Playbook unpacks the science of how students learn and translates that knowledge into promising principles or practices that can be implemented in the classroom or utilized by students on their own learning journey. Designed to help educators create learning experiences that better align with how learning works, each module in this playbook is grounded in research and features prompts, tools, practice exercises, and discussion strategies that help teachers to

Describe what is meant by learning in the local context of your classroom, including identifying any barriers to learning.
Adapt promising principles and practices to meet the specific needs of your students—particularly regarding motivation, attention, encoding, retrieval and practice, cognitive load and memory, productive struggle, and feedback.
Translate research on learning into learning strategies that accelerate learning and build students’ capacity to take ownership of their own learning—such as summarizing, spaced practice, interleaved practice, elaborate interrogation, and transfer strategies.
Generate and gather evidence of impact by engaging students in reciprocal teaching and effective feedback on learning.

Rich with resources that support the process of parlaying scientific findings into classroom practice, this playbook offers all the moves teachers need to design learning experiences that work for all students!

Table Of Content

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

The Purpose of This Learning Playbook

The Learning Plan With the Modules

Learning Within the Modules

Collaborating for Great Learning

PART I

CHAPTER 1. WHAT DOES LEARNING LOOK LIKE IN YOUR CLASSROOM?

A Definition of Learning

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 2. WHAT ARE DIFFERENT WAYS TO THINK ABOUT LEARNING?

Three Different Types of Knowledge

Three Parts of the Learning Process

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 3. WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS TO LEARNING?

Acquisition

Consolidation

Storage

Challenges to Learning by Design

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 4. HOW DO STUDENTS LEARN?

Learning Myths

The Science of Learning

Checks for Understanding

PART II

CHAPTER 5. PROMISING PRINCIPLE 1: MOTIVATION

What Is Motivation?

What Does This Principle or Practice Look Like in the Classroom?

How Do We Implement This Principle and Practice Into Our Classrooms?

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 6. PROMISING PRINCIPLE 2: ATTENTION

What Is Attention?

Factors Influencing Attention

What Does This Principle or Practice Look Like in the Classroom?

How Do We Implement This Principle and Practice Into Our Classrooms?

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 7. PROMISING PRINCIPLE 3: ELABORATE ENCODING

What Is Elaborate Encoding?

Components of Elaborate Encoding

Approaches to Promoting Elaborate Encoding

What Does This Principle or Practice Look Like in the Classroom?

How Do We Implement This Principle and Practice Into Our Classrooms?

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 8. PROMISING PRINCIPLE 4: RETRIEVAL AND PRACTICE

What Is Retrieval and Practice?

Timing of Retrieval

Types of Retrieval Practice

What Does This Principle or Practice Look Like in the Classroom?

How Do We Implement This Principle and Practice Into Our Classrooms?

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 9. PROMISING PRINCIPLE 5: COGNITIVE LOAD

What Is Cognitive Load?

What Does This Principle or Practice Look Like in the Classroom?

How Do We Implement This Principle and Practice Into Our Classrooms?

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 10. PROMISING PRINCIPLE 6: PRODUCTIVE STRUGGLE

What Is Productive Struggle?

What Does This Principle or Practice Look Like in the Classroom?

How Do We Implement This Principle and Practice Into Our Classrooms?

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 11. PROMISING PRINCIPLE 7: FEEDBACK

What Is Feedback and What Makes It Effective?

What Does This Principle or Practice Look Like in the Classroom?

How Do We Implement This Principle and Practice Into Our Classrooms?

Checks for Understanding

Where to Next?

PART III

CHAPTER 12. EXPLICIT STRATEGY INSTRUCTION

The Gradual Release of Responsibility

Effective Learning Practices

A Return to Germane Cognitive Load

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 13. LEARNING STRATEGY 1: GOAL SETTING

The Benefits of Goal Setting

Getting Ready for Goal Setting

The Process of Goal Setting

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 14. LEARNING STRATEGY 2: INTEGRATING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

The Benefits of Integrating Prior Knowledge

Getting Ready to Integrate Prior Knowledge

A Process for Integrating Prior Knowledge

Bonus Material: Annotated Reading

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 15. LEARNING STRATEGY 3: SUMMARIZING

Essential Characteristics of Summarizing

Getting Ready to Summarize

A Process for the Explicit Instruction of Summarizing

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 16. LEARNING STRATEGY 4: MAPPING

Three Different Ways to Map

Getting Ready for Mapping

A Process for the Explicit Instruction of Summarizing

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 17. LEARNING STRATEGY 5: SELF-TESTING

Benefits of Self-Testing

What if Learners Make Mistakes?

Getting Ready to Implement Self-Testing

A Process for Implementing Self-Testing

Bonus Material: Cooperative Learning

Checks for Understanding

CHAPTER 18. LEARNING STRATEGY 6: ELABORATIVE INTERROGATION

Benefits of Elaborative Interrogation

Getting Ready to Implement Elaborative Interrogation

Bonus Material: Jigsaw

A Process for Implementing Elaborative Interrogation

Checks for Understanding

PART IV

CHAPTER 19. GENERATING AND GATHERING EVIDENCE

Planning for Evaluation

Success Criteria and Evaluation

Planning to Gather Evidence

Planning to Collect and Organize Evidence

Making Sense of the Evidence

Conclusion

References

Index

About the Authors

John Almarode

Dr. John Almarode is a bestselling author and has worked with schools, classrooms, and teachers all over the world on the translation and application of the science of learning to the classroom, school, and home environments, and what works best in teaching and learning. He has done so in Australia, Canada, Egypt, England, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, South Korea, Thailand and all across the United States.

He is an Associate Professor of Education in the College of Education. In 2015, John was awarded the inaugural Sarah Miller Luck Endowed Professorship. In 2021, John was honored with an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia. At James Madison University, he continues to work with pre-service teachers and graduate students, as well as actively pursues his research interests including the science of learning, the design and measurement of classroom environments that promote student engagement and learning.

The work of John and his colleagues has been presented to the United States Congress, Virginia Senate, at the United States Department of Education as well as the Office of Science and Technology Policy at The White House.

John began his career in Augusta County, Virginia, teaching mathematics and science to a wide-range of students. Since then, John has authored multiple articles, reports, book chapters, and eleven books including Captivate, Activate, and Invigorate the Student Brain in Science and Math, Grades 6 - 12 (Corwin Press, 2013), From Snorkelers to Scuba Divers (Corwin Press, 2018), both with Ann Miller, and Visible Learning for Science, with Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie (Corwin Press, 2018). He recently finished a book focusing on clarity, Clarity for Learning, with Kara Vandas (Corwin Press, 2019), as well as Teaching Mathematics in the Visible Learning Classroom, Grades 6 - 8, and Teaching Mathematics in the Visible Learning Classroom, Grades 9 - 12 both with Doug Fisher, Joseph Assof, Sara Moore, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie (Corwin, 2019), all with Corwin Press. Teaching Mathematics in the Visible Learning Classroom, Grades K - 2 and Teaching Mathematics in the Visible Learning Classroom, Grades 3 - 5 with the same author team plus Kateri Thunder hit the shelves in March of 2019. He is also the past co-editor of the Teacher Educator’s Journal.

In 2019, John and his colleagues developed a new framework for developing, implementing, and sustaining professional learning communities: PLC+. Focusing on sustained change in teacher practice, the PLC+ framework builds capacity within teacher-led teams to maximize student learning. The books, PLC+ Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design, The PLC+ Playbook, Grades K - 12, The PLC+ Activator’s Guide will support this work in schools and classrooms.

John and his colleagues have also focused a lot of attention on the process of implementation – taking evidence-based practices and moving them from intention to implementation, potential to impact through a series of on-your-feet-guides around PLCs,Visible Learning, Visible Teaching, and the SOLO Taxonomy. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, John and his colleagues developed the Distance Learning Playbook for College and University Instruction (SAGE). In November of 2020, Student Learning Communities (ASCD) was released, followed by Great Teaching by Design (Corwin Press), The Success Criteria Playbook (Corwin), an educational textbook on teaching science in the inclusive early childhood classroom, Inclusive Teaching in the Early Childhood Science Classroom (Routledge), and A Quick Guide to Simultaneous, Hybrid, & Blended Learning (Corwin).Continuing his collaborative work with colleagues on what works best in teaching and learning, How Tutoring Works, Visible Learning in Early Childhood, and How Learning Works, all with Corwin Press, were released in 2021.

Douglas Fisher:

15_author_1607410645_كتاب التعلُّم عن بُعد_Douglas Fisher.jpg DOUGLAS FISHER, PhD, is Professor of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College. He has served as a teacher, language development specialist, and administrator in public schools and non-profit organizations, including 8 years as the Director of Professional Development for the City Heights Collaborative. Doug has engaged in professional learning communities for several decades, building teams that design and implement systems to impact teaching and learning. He has published numerous books on teaching and learning, such as The Teacher Credibility & Collective Efficacy Playbook and PLC+.

Nancy Frey:

16_author_1607410628_كتاب التعلُّم عن بُعد_Nancy Frey.jpg NANCY FREY, PhD, is Professor of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College. She has been a special education teacher, reading specialist, and administrator in public schools. Nancy has engaged in professional learning communities as a member and in designing schoolwide systems to improve teaching and learning for all students. She has published numerous books, including The Teacher Clarity Playbook and Visible Learning for Literacy.