Reflecting on learning and teaching

Thanks to Hyperorg for this note about a talk that Dylan William gave on learning and technology. It’s FULL of useful insight, and quotable notes, like:

"That’s true—teachers do not create learning, and yet most teachers behave as if they do. Learners create learning. Teachers create the conditions under which learning can take place."

or again:

"Neil Mercer of the Open University has shown that when kids engage in meaningful dialogue in science lessons, their IQs on Raven’s progressive matrices—which are purely spatial IQ tests—go up. There are other kids in the same classroom, who are trying to avoid being asked a question. Those kids are foregoing the opportunity to get smarter. So if any teacher is allowing kids to choose whether to participate in the classroom discussion or not, you’re actually exacerbating the achievement gap. That’s why we need pedagogies of engagement, where we create learning environments where there’s a high cognitive demand, which are inclusive of all students, and where participation is obligatory."