What if everything you

knew about how to design

an English curriculum was

wrong?David Didau

researchED English & Literacy #rEDEng7th November 2015

Research I’ve found useful• Bjork: Desirable difficulties (memory)

• Meyer & Land: Threshold concepts (organisation)

• Siegler: Overlapping waves (progress)

3 predictions• Students will forget at a predictable

rate

• Students will get stuck at predictable points

• Students will not make progress at a predictable rate

3 problems• Learning is invisible

• Learning is liminal

• Learning is unpredictable

Learning is invisible• Learning is the long-term retention

and transfer of knowledge and skills

Performance

Learning

Onomatopoeia

MIMICRY

The (New) Theory of Disuse

Retrieval strength

Stor

age

stre

ngth

Your phone number

Phone number

Childhoodaddress

What you learn today

“As learning occurs, so does forgetting…”

Learning vs. performance

• The higher the retrieval strength, the smaller the gains from additional study or practice

• Forgetting creates the likelihood of increased learning

• If learning is difficult, retrieval strength will decrease in the short term but will increase in the long term

Desirable difficulties– Spacing– Interleaving– Variability– Testing– Reducing & delaying feedback

Hermann Ebbinghaus, 1885

The spacing effect

The Testing EffectWhich study pattern will result in the best test results?

1. STUDY STUDY STUDY STUDY – TEST2. STUDY STUDY STUDY TEST – TEST3. STUDY STUDY TEST TEST – TEST4. STUDY TEST TEST TEST – TEST

Blocking vs interleaving

Topic 1

Topic 2

Topic 3

Topic 4

Topic 5

Topic 6

Term 1

Term 2

Term 3

Term 4

Term 5

Term 6

But what should we interleave?

Learning is liminal

Not knowin

gKnowing

What we think progress looks like

Learning is messy

What it actually looks like

Overlapping waves theory

1. At any one time children think in a variety of ways

2. These varied ways of thinking compete with each other

3. Cognitive development involves gradual changes in the frequency of these ways of thinking, as well as the introduction of more advanced ways of thinking.

Threshold concepts in English

• Understanding the relationship between grammar and meaning

• Understanding the effect of context, both on writers and readers

• Understanding the need to use supporting evidence for ideas

• An awareness of the ways in which language can affect readers

• Understanding how the structure of a text can produce different effects and meanings

• Understanding that texts can be subjected to analysis to reveal a variety meanings.

Interleaving threshold concepts

Writing WritingReadingAw

aren

ess o

f im

pact

Spel

ling,

pun

ctua

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&

gram

mar

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ce

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g te

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Awar

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s of i

mpa

ct

Spel

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pun

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&

gram

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Und

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Awar

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Anal

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The best of both worlds?

Key messages• Improving learning is more important

than improving performance

• Threshold concepts might help us space & interleave more effectively

• The unpredictability students’ progress is predictable

There’s nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.

@LearningSpylearningspy.co.uk

ddidau@gmail.com