Marcus Luther and I explored some of the principle ideas in my book, Teaching Meaning.
Nick Covington and I explored themes on enactive cognitive science, cybernetics, and meaning making, and how they mark a difference from mind-as-computer pedagogies.
Drew Perkins and I explored the problems of suggesting that knowledge equals understanding.
Claude Shannon’s groundbreaking information theory focused on getting a message from A to B. It’s now one the major underlying theories of the computers we use every day. Its principles also tell us something fascinating…
Stafford Beer, a systems theorist, regularly claimed that a system’s purpose is what it does. There was no point claiming, he thought, that its purpose was what it consistently failed to do. In this post,…
Recently, a claim has emerged: if leaders are frustrated with teaching outcomes, the fault isn’t the teacher, but the specific techniques (like turn and talk) they’ve been trained to use. And the proposed solution? Swap…
When Engelmann developed his popular Direct Instruction1, his principle was that students were capable of learning anything. This seems like a good rule to follow; it removes blame from the student. If they didn’t manage…
Around 2012ish, a new movement rode into the UK (school) educational scene. It came with the banner of “evidence-based”, to counter the previous movement. I’m not writing to contend whether the movement was right or…
Variation theory isn’t a theory of how memories are stored. Nor is it a theory of how learning can be impeded (like cognitive load theory); it doesn’t tell you what to avoid doing. Crucially, it…