University of Amsterdam Graduate School of Teaching and Learning Text books need classroom based reconstruction by teachers and students

Statement: MTE Text books are so well structured that students can work autonomously through the lessons. Counter statement: Therefore, MTE text books restrain students to develop learning skills Learning to learn I

Learning to learn II Statement: MTE text books keep students in secondary school simple

Learning skills versus scaffolding in MTE text books Learning skills to acquire: Memorising Give concrete form to Abstracting, generalizing Relating Applying Synthesizing but MTE text books restrain acquiring learning skills by Presenting explicitly – definitions – examples – abstractions – relations – applications – syntheses

Facilitating learning to learn Four ingredients 1 Leave out learning scaffolding from text books: facilitate students to build their own scaffolding 2 Reformulate exercises: from tasks/exercises into learning tasks 3 Facilitate students to decompose tasks 4 Make communication and learning to communicate observable

1.Teach students to create their scaffolds Leave learning scaffolding from text books: facilitate students to build their own scaffolding – Example: Additional task to an exercise for a student: – Write an manual additional to this exercise/task, in order to facilitate success to a student involved in this task

2. Reformulate exercises: from tasks or exercises to learning tasks Make this exercise Read this text Execute this assignment Answer these questions Practise 1 Learn to do this exercise 2 Learn to read this text 3 Learn to execute this assignment 4 Learn to answer these questions 5 Learn to practise

3A. Facilitate students to decompose tasks to orientate on the task to plan the task to execute the task to direct attention to the task to monitor the task execution to evaluate the task execution to reflect upon the orientation, planning, execution of the task

3B. Facilitate students to learn decomposition skills Decomposed tasks to orientate to plan to execute to direct attention to monitor to evaluate to reflect Learning decomposition skills to learn to orientate to learn to plan to learn to execute to learn to direct attention to learn to monitor to learn to evaluate to learn to reflect

4. Make communication and learning to communicate visible The most important activity in the classroom is learning. But learning is invisible in most instances. So try to make reading, writing, and learning to write and read visible by – demonstration – by teacher and/or peers (thinking aloud); task: – pupil’s task; observe and/or describe and/or evaluate/reflect the writing/reading/learning behaviour.

1.Key questions to answer for students when working with text books 1. What do they (text book authors) want me to learn from this unit? 2. How do they want me to learn? 3. Which routes are provided? Do I have to do this all? Can I skip things? Can I do something extra’s if necessary? 4. How do I know that I have reached a sufficient level? How do I know I am finished with this unit? How can I check my learning/make a self test? 5. Where can I use the acquired knowledge/skill (in this text book? in life?)