Science of Understanding Learning: Evidence Informed Practice

The SOUL project provides schools with an opportunity to connect with the latest, powerful research in how we best learn that will assist teachers and leaders to amplify learning in their schools. Leading educational neuroscientist and research partner Dr Jared Cooney Horvath will launch the project on 19 February with an introductory full day workshop. Schools will be inspired to reflect on current practice and explore next steps armed with new insights into science of understanding how we best learn.

Applying it in your school: The Micro Projects

Following this session, participants and school teams are invited to engage in ongoing school based action research and ‘micro projects’ that can be connected to a range of strategic directions in a school such as teacher performance and development or leadership of learning. Support for this work from initiation to implementation and evaluation will be provided by the AISSA staff and Dr Horvath.

The ‘micro project’ approach will introduce schools to a simple and easy to follow framework for educators to gather evidence of impact in their own classroom.

Jared Cooney Horvath (PhD, MEd) is a neuroscientist, educator, and author of the  best-selling book Stop Talking, Start Influencing: 12 Insights from Brain Science to Make Your Message Stick and the recently released, 10 Things Schools Get Wrong and How We Can Get Them Right.  He has conducted research and lectured at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, the University of Melbourne, and over 150 schools internationally.  He currently serves as Director of LME Global: a team dedicated to bringing the latest brain and behavioural research to teachers, students, and parents alike. Links to many of his well-known 5 Minute You Tube Videos, From Theory to Practice can be viewed here.

Sessions will cover:

• foundations of thinking and 12 principles of human learning
• the learning trajectory – surface, deep and transfer
• assessment and feedback for deep learning
• Cognitive Load Theory/Memory/Retrieval/Spaced/Interleaving Practice
• leading learning for impact.

The sessions will be a combination of three full days in person (where restrictions permit) and a combination of two half days and Zoom sessions over 2021 and early 2022 with Dr Horvath and AISSA Senior Educational Consultants to support implementation of ‘micro projects’ at the school level.