Education Talk Radio

I'm David Cicero, and this
is Education Talk Radio.

What actually causes students to learn?

Sounds like a simple question, but it gets
harder when you consider just how many

things we can change about the learning
experience, and how many choices advancing

technology is putting in front of schools.

So before we ask what technology
might allow us to change, maybe we

need to understand what the evidence
tells us about learning itself.

What's actually producing the learning?

And what do we risk losing as more
of the experience becomes optional?

My guest today has spent decades
studying those questions.

Dr.

John Hattie is the researcher behind
Visible Learning, an enormous body

of research examining the influences
on student achievement across

hundreds of millions of students.

John, welcome to Education Talk Radio.

Thanks, Dave.

It's good to be here.

So, so, so, so glad to have you.

So I'm gonna just go
ahead and jump right in.

So for, for someone listening who hasn't
encountered your work before, when we

say that you've studied what influences
learning, what does that actually mean?

And what is the evidence
we're talking about?

As you kind of ha- said in the opening
comments there, that we actually know

an incredible amount about learning and
about how to enhance kids' achievement.

In fact, hundreds of thousands of
studies have been done on this.

And so what I, I've tried to
do is to collect those hundreds

of thousands of studies.

Um, and- What intrigues me is
that virtually all of them show

that we're pretty successful
at changing kids' learning.

And what intrigues me is that when
I talk to teachers, they all tell

me about how they increase learning.

In fact, David, I, I don't know about
you, but I've never met a teacher

yet who said they were below average.

And kind of interesting
profession we're in.

And then in the academic community,
uh, we study what's happening out

there, we write our articles, and
it, it's just that overwhelming

sense that everything's working.

And I was a kid once.

It's not true.

You, you had teachers, David, that
differed in terms of their impact on you.

Some for good, most for good, many for
not so good, some pretty disastrous.

And that's the reality that kids
face, and it didn't make sense to me.

And so I thought that maybe the
question we're asking is wrong.

The question we're asking is, what
makes a difference to influencing

learning and achievement?

Maybe the question should be,
what are the relative influences?

What works best?

What doesn't work?

And after I started doing this and
collecting all those studies, it certainly

became obvious that 95% of things that we
do to students improves their learning.

So that question isn't very useful.

It's changing it to what's best.

And so what I was doing is, you
know, of course I can't sit down

there even in one lifetime and,
and read 100,000 plus articles.

I used a, a tool called meta-analysis,
which is what other people have done,

not me, to collect articles around a
particular topic, and use this very

simple notion of calculating all the
effects in terms of an effect size.

How big is the effect?

And then they ask, and
what moderates that effect?

Like, is the effect different
from every kind of influence in a

elementary school to a high school?

Is it different for people in, um,
western Michigan, for people in

Florida, for people in Melbourne,
Australia where I live, or Shanghai?

Does it differ in maths
and English, et cetera?

And those moderators are
obviously pretty critical.

And again, what stunned and
surprised me is there are very few

of them that make a difference.

What tends to work best tends
to work best everywhere.

And, and then the third thing that
I tried to do is the why question.

Wh- why is it so?

Why is it these influences are
having a high effect, these are low?

So I've used this meta-analysis tool
that, um, Gene Glass invented in

1976, uh, that literally are now up
to 3,000 meta-analyses that people

have done in the area of education,
specifically looking at achievement.

And I'd like to get up front, David, and
comment that I've looked at achievement.

We've actually just, um, finished
a, a meta synthesis looking at the

effects on self-beliefs, on motivation.

And a group's looking at emotion, and
other people are doing other outcomes,

and there are many other outcomes
of schooling besides achievement.

But that's what my focus has been about,
and I make no apology for that, 'cause

that's a critical part of what we do.

So it's synthesizing the evidence
out there to try and work out

what the relative influences are.

What are the ones that really work?

Which ones are pretty average?

Which ones have smaller effect?

And which ones have negative effect?

So that's what the game has been.

Mm-hmm.

So when you step back and you, you
start to look across all that evidence,

what would you say, or what do you
think schools most need to understand

about how learning actually happens?

And I think that you touched on it a
little bit there, that, that the best

things tend to work the best everywhere.

What else would you say, though?

Well, yeah, you, you, you phrase it
in terms of the learning, and yeah,

that's really fascinating because
the dominant conversation in teacher

education, in schools, in policy,
um, amongst teachers' professional

learning is it's not about learning.

It's about teaching And I think
that's just wonderful that we have

such an incredible focus on teaching.

But our kids are obsessed with learning.

They know that every teacher
they get is gonna be different.

So their obsession is learning.

And it's really interesting when you
ask teachers to describe excuse me,

what their theory of teaching is.

They, they, they could
wax lyrical for hours.

But, uh, when we ask you, like let
me ask you, David, how do you learn?

How do I learn?

Well- Yeah … honestly, I, I learn best
by, uh, tackling a problem in isolation.

I learn best by reading, really digging
in and wrestling with deep problems

and asking questions of my own.

Typically, that produces
the best learning for me.

Uh, notice what you did then.

You, you immediately changed the
question to my best learning.

And then…

And I, I don't know you very well,
David, but I have a hunch that what you

taught me is actually not what you do.

That's what you do first.

Because you're a teacher and an educator,
you've learned that if that reading

and that deep problem-solving didn't
work, I bet you've got other strategies.

You might go and listen.

You might go and talk to someone.

You might take a course.

A lot of our learners, they don't do that.

They think learning is
you have one chance.

If you don't get it right, you're done.

And they don't have
alternative strategies.

And I think that's really fascinating.

And when I ask teachers about
their theories of learning, it

isn't a very rich conversation.

And then I won't put you on the
spot here, but if I said to you

then, "Well, you know, who are your
learning theorists that you follow?"

Like, the answer I typically get is
Piaget, who wrote his work 102 years ago.

There's been an incredible amount of
work on learning that goes out, o- on out

there, and we're not very good at that.

So I'm absolutely fascinated.

And, you know, I call my work
visible learning, not because

the learning's visible.

It's not.

It's in your head.

But how do we make that learning visible?

And like, looking at
the strategies you use.

When you go into a class of kids,
a lot of those kids are sitting

there saying, "How did you do that?"

They wanna know the how, and we don't.

We talk to them about the content.

Now, I'm greedy, David.

I want both.

I want the content and the learning.

And so that's where, um, you know,
this, this whole work is coming to is

how can we make better understanding
so that teachers can help kids go

through that process of learning about
what they think is precious so that

they have an enjoyment in doing so?

And kind of what you hinted at
in, in your comment of learning-

It's actually a struggle.

It's hard work.

Makes your head hurt.

And surely that should be the optimal
words that we use in our language.

I want kids to say, "I struggle to
learn," 'cause it is a struggle.

If it's not a struggle, it's too easy,
and you probably didn't learn much.

And when you go in and do a task that
you already are capable at, you already

know how to do, can get pretty boring.

And when we ask kids, and you know,
we've done this with about 200,000 or

300,000 kids, we ask them, you know, "How
are you feeling right at this moment?"

And the dominant feeling in
school, sadly, is boredom.

The work's too easy.

There's no struggle.

The sort of beginning part of, you
know, my preparation to, to have this

conversation was this idea that we've
got advancing technologies in the

classroom and, you know, we have a lot
of questions on how to integrate them.

And one of those questions is, you know,
what, what will we lose if we let, you

know, let's say AI into the classroom?

You know, how should … What
should we especially care for in

the learning and the teach- or,
and/or the teaching experience?

And so I think that what you hit on just
now is, you know, we're talking to a

lot of students and, and they're bored.

There's, there's no struggle there.

Yeah.

I'm wondering, you know, as we
began, you know, more and more to

have the option of changing what
teaching and learning looks like.

If I'm a school principal and,
or a curriculum director, and I'm

thinking, okay, where does this fit?

Where do I put this technology?

How does it affect student learning?

How does it affect teaching?

I need to start to think about, you know,
a useful way to identify when struggle is

a part of the learning mechanism, right?

Or if it's simply friction
that I can take out of that.

From your perspective, is
that the right question?

And I'm wondering if you can help us
understand how to identify that, when

struggle is a part of that learning
mechanism, and when technology might

be able to sort of be inserted there
and let the student move forward.

What, what fascinates me is to
look back over our history of

schools, and, you know, we are
very good at resisting innovations.

Um, uh, when c- when computers,
or when calculators first came, I

remember the hue and cry of maths
teachers saying it's gonna ruin

kids' ability to do maths, et cetera.

They're gonna devolve to calculators and
computers and all that kind of stuff.

And then we realized that we
had to teach them a n- new

skill, the skill of estimation.

Um, when the computer does it,
you still have to know whether

you can believe it or not.

And if you look at, there's been 400 plus
meta-analyses on the effects of computers

in schools over the last 50 years,
showing a very low effect overall of that.

Um, primarily because when we've
introduced them, we've introduced them

to be more efficient, not more effective.

Like, there's no great evidence
that computing has changed

the nature of our teaching.

We still teach as we taught 150 years ago,
and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

We, we do it that because it kind of
works, but we haven't used technology

other than as a better way of doing
effective things, like we get kids to

create videos rather than do plays.

We get kids to, um, do a lot of things
Word rather than write handwriting,

and has that improved things?

Yeah, in terms of the effectiveness of
what we can get through dramatically.

And the other hardcore reality
is that kids are gonna go out

into a world of computers.

And so when AI comes along, um- Many
systems are thinking of banning it,

and I know some systems have, and you
think, "Yeah, how's that helping our kids

when they go out into the workforce?"

And so what fascinates me, and,
and I think the difference here

now with AI is, unlike computers,
it was a very slow introduction.

Um, I don't know about you, but I was
around in the '70s when they started, um,

using them in, in, in terms of some use
in schools, not much, and then the whole

wave of the, the, uh, desktop machines,
and then the web came along, et cetera.

It was a slow intervention.

AI's gonna be fast, and I
think we need to get out front.

So my question is, what skills do we need
to teach our kids to use AI effectively?

And, you know, you i- in your
commentary just then, you hinted some.

Um, you know, we have to sit back, we have
to problem solve, we have to go deeply.

And I, I, I really wanna press
upon everybody that let's have

the discussion now about the
skills we need to teach our kids.

I, I know that AI can be incredibly nasty.

We've actually written a paper on
the web about the downsides of AI,

absolutely, but there are marvelous
upsides if we can get it right, and

we've gotta get it right because kids are
going to use AI in ways we don't like.

They are going to offload
their thinking to AI.

They're already doing it.

Um, and I think that
we need to be smarter.

Like, let me give you some examples.

One of the absolute critical skills
when you're using AI effectively is

probative questioning, a particular kind
of question that probes more deeply.

And when I go into schools and, like,
we have 20,000 hours of classroom

observations that we use to understand
what's happening in schools now, and I

ask, "What's happening to questioning?"

Well, teachers are the people
that ask the questions.

They ask between 150 que- 90% of the
questions they ask are about the facts.

Every question they ask, the kids
know, they already know the answer to.

How many questions does a k- a kid know?

How many questions does
a class ask per day?

Not a kid, a class ask per day about
their work they don't understand?

So I'm ruling out procedural questions.

What page am I on?

Can I go to the toilet?

The answer's two Now that's hopeless.

We've got to turn it on its head and say,
how do we teach our kids to ask questions?

And if you look at the literature out
there, you won't textbooks or professional

learning on student questions.

You'll find a lot on teacher
questions, and that's wonderful.

But on student questions,
no, it's not there.

So primitive questioning is
an absolute necessary skill.

Like, you know if you go and
I ask or- and ask the wrong

question, it'll give you an answer.

And sometimes we can be convinced
by the answer, even though it's the

wrong answer to the wrong question.

And then how do you follow up?

Let me give you another one.

Quality control.

Like right now in your school,
who's in charge of quality?

Who decides what's being taught, when
it's being taught, how it's being

taught, how long it's gonna be taught
for, what the activities are, what the

assessment is, what the assignments
are, what the grading is, what the

marks are, what the feedback is?

The teacher.

That's hopeless.

In AI, we gotta teach the kids
those skill- quality skills.

We gotta teach them, how do
you know it's right or wrong?

How do you know it's good enough?

How do you know how to follow up and
seek feedback on what you're doing?

Absolutely critical skills.

And my worry, David, is we're gonna
sit around and worry about the ethics

of AI and the safety of AI, all
important questions, while in the

meantime AI is developing so fast, and
the kids are ahead so far that we're

not helping our kids understand it.

So I think that we've gotta have
a very quick, early, and robust

discussion about the skills.

We need to be better at teaching
those skills to our kids, teaching

those skills to ourselves.

And how do we use it correctly?

'Cause they're gonna use it
incorrectly otherwise, and we're

gonna have to set up regimes to
stop them cheating, as we call it.

Um, I don't want kids to
offload their thinking.

I want exactly what you said.

I want them to struggle, but maybe we need
to get them to struggle about probative

questioning, about quality control.

And I know that adds another
dimension to what we do in schools,

but that's exactly what's happened
with the introduction of AI.

It's added another dimension
of what we need to worry about.

And yes, I want us to pause and stop and
say, "Well, what do we need to stop?"

And you probably remember when
Word became available to kids.

Oh, now kids will cheat because they
can get their spelling corrected.

I think the best thing that
ever happened to kids who can't

spell is that red wiggly line.

There's a mistake here.

Fix it.

Um, and there were skills we taught
the kids to do it, and this is what I

want to have a discussion about now.

Banning it is putting
your head in the sand.

It's not going away.

It's not gonna be uninvented.

And yes, kids are gonna use
it inappropriately if we don't

have that robust discussion.

So that's my argument about it, and
that's what I'm trying to explore.

And I have to say, David, I'm
not getting a lot of success.

Everyone wants to talk about
it in terms of its evil side.

Everyone wants to talk about it in terms
of the cognitive offloading it does.

Everyone wants to talk about it in
terms of other things that it can do,

the efficiency, which I'm happy with.

It is very efficient in doing many things.

It's, for me, it's like having four
graduate assistants do my work with me.

It's marvelous.

So part of the conversation that I've
been following and really hunting down,

I've-- and this is kind of a-- I kind
of got two questions here, I think.

Okay.

Um, because you've sparked a…

You, you, you've got the, uh, the,
the gears turning here a little bit.

So I think that when, when I interpret the
s- sort of slow walk towards implementing

AI into the curriculum, and whether that
be taking time to write policy or whether

that's, you know, potentially some sort
of ban for some period of time, what

I'm seeing is they're, they're looking
at the way that we, quote unquote- Mm

used to teach or the
way we teach now, right?

And we're saying, "Okay,
let's map this," right?

We might think about, okay, what
makes for good learning experience?

Feedback, collaboration,
student ownership.

Okay.

What parts of this- Yeah … should
we allow AI to influence,

and what parts should we not?

Or, you know, h- how do we
basically integrate AI into

what we're already doing?

And maybe how can it enhance
what we're doing well or the

most important parts of that?

And so I, I guess I'm trying
to formulate my question here.

It sounds like you're adding
a new dimension here saying-

We need to teach students how
to ask better questions of AI.

And so that leads me to, to
wonder about a couple things.

One, do you see those ways we know
learning works changing or morphing?

And then what becomes the role, how
do you foresee the role of the teacher

changing over time after students
potentially, let's say we followed your

advice or, or down that path saying,
"Hey, students need to be questioning

AI," be really good prompters.

Do you see the role of
the teacher changing?

So there's sort of two
parts to that question.

The ways that we know learning to,
to happen best, do you see That not

becoming outdated, but morphing,
and how do you foresee the role

of the teacher moving forward?

Well, going to that latter question
first, like, the, the cliche that

others have used and I would certainly
adopt is that I don't think for a

moment that AI will replace a teacher.

I think a teacher using AI will
replace a teacher, and I think

it's how we can optimize that
teacher effectively using AI.

But I think that the, the role
of the human will always and

should always be in the middle.

I don't think AI, for example, is,
should be let loose to decide on

what we value in terms of what our
success criteria are in our lessons.

I think that's a human judgment.

Um, there is precious knowledge, and
the precious knowledge differs, um, in

Michigan from California, right across
your country and across the world, and

that's a, a decision about what we value.

I think that's gonna be forever.

And there are many other
attributes of school which

requires a human, not a machine.

And all those systems, and they're
already set up in your country, schools

that are now AI run and generated.

It's like with those that were set up
where computers ran and generated them.

Oh my gosh, what a fundamentally way
to bore the pants off our kids if

they're gonna sit in front of a screen
all day doing that kind of stuff.

They don't wanna sit in front of
a screen and do all that all day.

So I don't think there's any
chance of AIs replacing teachers.

And if, um, as, as Skinner,
the behaviorist commented many,

many years ago, if a machine can
replace a teacher, for goodness

sake, get rid of that teacher.

Um, I, I think teachers will forever
be a crit- critical part for all

the good reasons that we know of.

And then going to the first part of your
question about the nature and changing

nature of learning, like, in the learning
process, and certainly in the theory

of learning we use, we distinguish
between what happens when you first are

exposed to a new idea, and the kind of
strategies you need to use then, and

the strategies you need to use then as
kind of an outlining, a summarizing.

What are the big ideas here?

'Cause yeah, w- we're little brains.

We can't accommodate more than five to
seven things in our brain at any one time.

So how do we actually plan an oversight?

And I think we should be teaching
our kids regardless of AI.

We should be teaching our kids, um,
how to summarize, how to outline.

This is not us giving them outlines.

It's teaching them to do that so
they can have the coat hangers.

And then there's a re-learning, which
is the overlearning, the consolidation.

How do we consolid- 'Cause we
can't hold it all in our brains.

We have to consolidate it.

And that is one of my worries with
AI is we'll get the machine to do all

that work, and we won't go through
that consolidation pros- that retrieval

practice, that, um, rehearsal,
sometimes the rote memorization,

the notion of spacing things up.

Those are pretty key for
us to get an understanding.

And then we go to the deeper
problem-solving and how we can

look at the critical thinking, the
problem-solving, the connections.

Then how do we consolidate that
so that we can transfer from

one situation to the other?

So then you ask, "Well, can AI do that?"

Well, yeah, it can do the lot And this
is where this whole notion of cognitive

outsourcing to AI is a serious worry.

Is if the kids are gonna say, "Well,
that's the problem, let's put it in an

AI, then let's just fix what AI says,"
then I think we're, we're missing a

key element in our learning process.

Now, the key here to me is when
do you let kids do that, and

when do you not let them do that?

And it's a mixture for me.

Sometimes I want to say,
let's get the AI to create it.

Like, one of the exercises I use is I say,
"Go and, and ask AI, for example, what,

what does John Hattie say about feedback?"

Then I'll-- the assignment isn't that.

The assignment is I
want you to critique it.

And it means the student then has to worry
about, well, what actually did he say?

Is it correct?

And, you know, I've done this exercise,
and AI is not bad at mimicking what I do.

But sometimes it comes up with
some howlers, sometimes it comes

up with missing whole things.

It's not up to date.

It doesn't, uh, includes what I
said 20 years ago as to what I've

been saying in the last five years.

And this is the skill we're gonna
have to teach kids, is how to critique

it and y- that quality assurance.

So I think there's a place for
doing … But I'm with you in the

sense of this, what you're hinting at.

There is a place where I want
kids to actually learn the

skills of doing it without AI.

And like about a year ago,
I was asked a question.

I had no idea.

Someone said to me, "Is it…"

I, I've got twins, all right?

And the teachers, the schools
decided to separate them.

But is that a good thing or not?

Now, I have no idea.

I don't know the research.

I've never looked it up.

It's never been a topic of interest.

So I went onto one of the AI machines, and
I got it to create what turned out to be

a pretty impressive essay on whether you
should separate them or not separate them.

And then, hopefully I did the right
thing, I then went and checked

the references, and I read the
articles, and I went back and found

some more, and it was pretty okay.

But my point here is I needed to know
a lot before I could trust the AI.

This was a decision that this parent
was gonna make about their kids, which

is obviously critical, and I wasn't
gonna depend on a machine to tell me.

So one of the things that really comes
out of this, David, is that we need to

teach our kids a lot about the content
for them to y- successfully use the AI.

So my question is when you use it,
when you don't use it, and I'm not

a fan of defaulting to it, and I do
think we need to be smarter about

what it can do and what it can't do.

But you can hear my obsession.

We need to teach kids quality
control as they go about this task.

So who, who makes all these decisions?

A human.

When you, when, when you first
began that explanation there-

Yes … you said, what do we value?

And that that will be- Yes … pr-
you know, potentially different

from, from country to country- Yes

and in some sense or at some level,
maybe even, you know, district to

district in a, in a single state.

But how do we determine what we value?

What framework do we use?

Are we thinking about what
we want students to become?

Are we thinking about what type of
learning experiences we wanna create?

You have decided each
district, heaven help you.

Each district decides what is in
the curriculum, what it's about.

And you know that this can be a very hot
topic at election time, sometimes about

the things around the edges, like at the
moment here in Australia, um, relationship

and belonging, and, and we had the
massacre last year and, um, amongst the

Jewish population in the Bondi Beach.

That's been a hot topic of conversation
about how we teach that in our curriculum

and whether our curriculum is good
enough, um, about males respecting

females, and et cetera, et cetera.

And those are democracy decisions,
and I think that's the right

place for it, is to do that.

Because, you know, if you got every
teacher to decide on what they're gonna

teach, they would, everyone would differ
Schools are contracted to deliver a

certain curriculum, and I think this
is where democracy has a big part.

Um, so that, that's the first part.

And, and you know, and certainly I know
across every district in the US it's

slightly different, but, um, Michael
Porter did a great study a few years

ago where we looked at how aligned,
for example, your maths curricula are.

And he graded on a scale of zero, no
alignment across the districts, thousands

of districts in the States, to 100,
perfect alignment, and the average was 11.

There's not a lot of alignment
about what you value.

It differs a lot.

I think that's a very
healthy conversation.

Um, in some other countries where they
don't have democracy, they're told,

and you know they're told to not do
this and to do this, and there's a

bit of a fear of that in our system.

But I do think that's the place
of a democracy, and that's why I,

I, I would be very, very concerned
if a technology decided on what

it is the kids should learn next.

But you also used a phrase in there,
David, I'm not a fan of, and that

is what our students will become.

Here's the good news.

Here's the bad news.

I don't think we are responsible for
helping kids become better adults,

better people I don't think we are
gonna create the future for our kids.

Our kids are gonna create their future.

Our job is to worry about right now
in terms of what we see as valuable to

try to encourage the kids to adopt some
of those ideas, to think about them.

And you know they're gonna change them,
you know they're gonna modify them as

they get older, and I want them to be
smart about doing that, hence the values

and the principles that we wanna teach.

We have one chance to communicate what
we think is precious to our students.

Let's get it right.

Let's, let's trust that we've done a good
job so that when they create their future

and the future for others around them,
that they do a better job than we did.

In, in the beginning you mentioned that
you were a part of, or I'm not sure if

you were just starting this research
or how far along you are in your

collaboration or, or participation- Yeah

in it, but you mentioned research on-
Yeah, well, so … how self-belief?

Like, o- one of the fascinating
is that, now take gifted kids.

Why is it, David, the majority of gifted
kids do not, do not become gifted adults?

Less than 2% of child prodigies
go on to be gifted adults.

'Cause we don't give, teach
them the confidence to take on

challenges outside their area of
expertise, and they fall over.

And I think that's a really critical
one, is about how we teach kids to have

the confidence to aim high, to have
high expectations, and to realize them.

And that whole self-belief,
the self-belief about, um,

you know, we've heard Carol
Dweck's work on growth mindset.

Have they got the self-belief and
the confidence to take on challenges?

We're looking at the kind of emotions.

Like, do … Like, one of
my favorite emotions is aha.

When kids get that aha moment, where
they make connections, and sometimes

you can actually physically see
them do that, which is exciting.

We also know many other emotions.

Like, you ask kids, are
they happy at school?

Now, surely happy.

It's a strange emotion.

It's very situational.

It's very moment by moment.

But we sure as hang don't want them
to be bored, turned off, angry,

and all those kind of emotions.

And then we're also looking at motivation.

Uh, what, what is … Why do
kids do this rather than that?

And so what a team of people have
been doing, and I've been part of

some of this, is doing what I did
to achievement is this outcome.

They're looking at that.

And we're in the process of writing
that up at the moment, um, to try and

say, how do we broaden this discussion?

'Cause w- everyone knows, everyone
knows that the, th- most kids don't

go to school because of achievement.

They go to be with their friends.

They go for social things.

So how do we capitalize on that to do what
we think is valuable, achievement as well?

So to me, it's not either.

It's not or.

Ch- achievement or these things.

It's and.

So yeah, we're looking at those other
attributes too, and that one of confidence

to take on challenges is probably one
of the most critical ones that teachers

need to worry about because otherwise
kids very quickly turn off, very quickly

have low expectations, and very quickly
attribute their failure to their low

ability as opposed to our skill to
teach them In my conversation with, uh,

Professor Jollimore, he had mentioned to
me that he was astounded to learn that

many of his university students didn't
really understand the difference or…

And I'm sorry, not the difference.

Well, yes, but the
difference was part of it.

They didn't really understand the
difference between understanding

something and not understanding
something, and they weren't sure that

one was worth more than the other.

Right now we have teachers that teach
and they have a belief about learning.

I'm wondering what students' beliefs
about learning are, and if we should

be having those conversations.

Um, David Watkins and John Biggs have
looked at that in terms of what the Asian,

East Asian students' concept of learning
is compared to, um, us in the, the West,

and it's quite profoundly different.

Um, and so yes, that notion.

But one of the difficulties, uh, well,
one of the findings is that in various

different circumstances kids have
different views of what learning is.

Like in some subjects they see
learning as a chore, as a task to

know lots of information and facts.

In other subjects they wanna get down
and deep or dirty and problem solve.

So it's pretty hard at times to
have a student concept of learning.

They, they are quite variable.

Much, much more variable than we are
in terms of our concepts of learning.

Um, but they also learn, uh, like,
uh, I'm at the luxury stage of

life at the moment, Da- David.

I'm a grandad, and I'm watching
my grandchildren start school,

and one of them learnt on day one.

She was ki- like I, I had the
luxury of picking her up, uh, after

school and, and, and, um, asking
her, you know, "How was it going?"

And she said, "Oh, I had a great day,"
and she told me all the wonderful things.

And I said, "Well, what was
the best part of the day?"

And, "Lunch."

Um, and then after a while the
back of the car got very quiet,

and I realized there was a problem.

And I said to, said to Emily,
"Well, what, what are you thinking?"

Right.

And she said, "I hate school
I said, "Ooh, tell me more."

And she said, "I can't read."

And I realized that what she had
learned on day one is that other

kids can do things she can't do,
therefore she was dumb and stupid.

And now being smarter than the
average five-year-old, I said,

"Emma, if, if, if you could read,
there's no point going to school."

And being smarter than the
average grandad, her reply

was, "Well, yes, Grandad.

Does that mean that when I learn
to read I don't have to go back?"

So her concept of learning very
much was you had to know lots.

You had to have a lot of information.

You had to do what everyone else can do.

And so this is a lot of what the
concept of learning of kids is

like, is it's relative to others.

They are very good at comparing.

If for no other reason that they of-
often don't have … Like when they

play their video games, their comparison
is can they get to the next level.

And they actually work with other
kids who have got there to get there.

But we don't do that in school.

Kids who get there, we say they're
the smart ones, and they move

on, and the kids that who don't.

And so I, I think you're right, that our
concept of learning, um, we need to worry

about it from a kid's point of view.

We need to worry about what
their notion of learning is.

And sometimes I want them to
have a concept of learning that

it's to know lots of stuff.

Sometimes I want them to know
that it's about problem-solving.

And I need to be more specific, that here
today the concept of learning is this.

Um, like i- in our work, our concept
today is we want you to consolidate.

There is a time where we want you
to rote memorize certain things.

When I'm first explaining it to you,
I don't want you to rote memorize.

That's a disastrous strategy.

So I think there, this notion about
how we are smarter at learning.

And I wanna go back to where we
started this part of the conversation,

David, with another finding from
our 20,000 hours, and that is what

percentage of time do teachers talk?

89.

Sometimes I want teachers to shut up.

I want kids to talk.

Now, it turns out there's a right
and wrong time for kids to talk.

When it's about the content, that's
not the time for kids talking.

When it's about how you go about learning
and how you consolidate the deep learning,

that's when I wanna hear self-explanation,
self, um, self-justification, et cetera.

And so this is where, you know,
teaching we know is a complex act.

This is where we need to be smarter, and
we call our model the alignment model.

How do you align what you do
with the right phase of learning

to bring these together?

And so when we come to technology,
which has been a bit of a focus, I think

there are some alignments then that
when you're doing, using AI to create

something, the nature of what learning
in can be quite different than when you

use AI to help you critique something.

Now, I worry that if we don't teach
those skills, kids will just give

it over to the machine, and that
is not gonna be a healthy student.

That's not gonna be an educated person.

I, I mentioned Piaget before.

He had the best definition I
know of an educated person.

It's you know what to do when
you don't know what to do.

That's what we need to worry about.

Thanks for joining us on Education Talk
Radio, a part of the B Podcast Network.

If there's a topic you'd like us to
tackle or have a guest idea, send me

a message at dciceroedutalk@gmail.com.

Thanks for listening, and
we'll see you next time.