Metacognitive approaches have great potential to boost student progress. In this five-article series, Helen Webb explains the teaching and learning model at Orchard Mead Academy and how it translates to classroom practice. In part two, she considers memory and attention


Metacognition and self-regulation are rated by the Education Endowment Foundation’s Teaching and Learning Toolkit as “high impact for very low cost, based on extensive evidence” (EEF, 2021).

It is a golden thread that can be weaved into all aspects of our classroom practice. In this series of articles, I describe the rationale behind our whole-school teaching and learning model at Orchard Mead Academy, our behaviour for learning model, our recent professional learning, and how this offers an integrated metacognitive approach in the classroom.

Learning at Orchard Mead is underpinned by the philosophy that teachers and students should know explicitly “why” they are doing “what” they are doing and “how” they can do it more effectively.

This supports both teachers and students to plan for, monitor and evaluate their learning more effectively. It also allows our staff to have greater certainty, clarity and confidence in the choices they make in the classroom and how they articulate these decisions and model their thinking to students and colleagues.

This second article focuses on our professional learning of memory, attention and cognitive load, and how this has increased our understanding of cognition and pedagogy and also informed our model of FAST behaviours for learning.


Metacognition: A teaching and learning model

Article 1: An integrated approach to metacognition: Models for teaching, learning and behaviour: Published January 11, 2023.
Article 2: Memory, attention and FAST behaviours for learning. This article.
Article 3: Learning more: I do, we do, you do. Published January 25, 2023.
Article 4: Checking for understanding: Cold calling and mini-whiteboards. Published February 1, 2023.
Article 5: Challenge, reviewing and reflecting on learning. Published February 7, 2023.


Learning and memory

When developing our model for teaching and learning, it was important to define our understanding of learning and memory.

According to the educational psychologist, Paul Kirschner, learning is a change in long-term memory (Kirschner et al, 2006). In other words, for pupils to learn they must store new information in their long-term memory, or they must alter the information that is already stored there, either by connecting it to new information (building more complex schemata that speed up pupils’ thinking) or by adding further layers of meaning to it (thus deepening a pupil’s understanding and aiding transferability).

Willingham’s (2009) Simple Model of Memory separates memory into working and long-term memory. For information to be transferred into long-term memory – there are several stages:

  • There is an input of information that students need to pay attention to, e.g. students listen to a teacher explanation, which might be supported by a diagram, set of key points, or a worked example that they see illustrated on a whiteboard.
  • A small amount of that information is then transferred into the working memory as students think about what they are seeing and hearing.
  • Through repeated cycles of learning and remembering, that information moves from the working memory into the long-term memory.


Memory model: Willingham’s Simple Model of Memory as interpreted by Oliver Caviglioli (@olicav)


Cognitive Load Theory

This concept, proposed in 1988 by Dr John Sweller, suggests that our working memory is only able to hold a small amount of information at any one time and that instructional methods should avoid overloading it in order to maximise learning.

To reduce cognitive load in the classroom, teachers need to be clear on:

  • What it is you want students to know (declarative knowledge) or know how to do (procedural knowledge).
  • How that information is best explained and presented to students so they can learn (and remember) that information more easily.

When you are in front of a class, it is easy to get side-tracked with “hinterland” knowledge – entertaining students with interesting, but potentially distracting anecdotes or with unnecessary facts, or you may simply just get lost in the waffle of overly lengthy explanations.

You may also be guilty of sharing excessively busy PowerPoint presentations packed with an overwhelming volume of text or the inclusion of irrelevant images, icons or animations.

Remember – students learn what they think about; they think about what they pay attention to. As such, how do we focus students’ attention on what is most important in the classroom?

In answering that question, at Orchard Mead, we have taken two important steps:

  • Explicitly teach students the importance of paying attention and how to do it better.
  • “Cutting the fluff!” Being really precise about what the learning goals of the lesson are.


How do we teach students about attention?

In my first article in this series, I introduced our FAST “behaviours for learning”, an approach inspired by Southam College (Richter, 2021). Our students are explicitly taught to:

  • Follow the speaker
  • Answer questions well
  • Sit up straight
  • Take responsibility

To clarify expectations for each routine students are repeatedly taught the “what”, “why”, and are given examples (how) and non-examples (how not). For example:


Routine 1: Follow the speaker

Why:

  • It’s easier to understand what is being talked about
  • You’ll learn and remember more
  • It’s polite and respectful
  • It’s an essential skill for every relationship, job interview and career

How:

  • Look at the speaker
  • Look at the PowerPoint
  • Turn to the person who is answering a question
  • Show you are actively listening (e.g. with a nod or a smile)

How not:

  • Looking around the room or out of the window
  • Looking down
  • Looking at other students
  • Following the speaker while talking or doing something else
  • Fiddling with something (e.g. a pen) or doodling


A shared language

The same direct instruction approach is used for both staff and student learning: new information is shared in small steps with checks for understanding along the way.

Students are given activities to “practise” these skills directly in tutor time and in “stop the clock” activities taught by class teachers at intervals throughout the term. Students are also given a variety of assessment for learning and retrieval activities to help them monitor and reinforce their learning.

FAST has created a shared language that supports consistency around the school. If you walk into any class, every student should be able to show and tell you how to be a FAST learner.


What do you want your students to pay attention to?

What is the point of your lesson? Exam board specifications, past papers and mark schemes usually provide a strong guide to exactly what students need to know and be able to do and as such are usually the starting point to most strong schemes of learning and lesson plans.

If the goal is to improve student outcomes in examinations and support students in their independent studies, teach that and omit everything else.

You may want to consider the following:

  • What are the basic items of knowledge that students need to be able to think effectively in your subject?
  • How do you articulate this to students?
  • What are the questions that come up again and again?
  • What do students need to understand to be able to access the more challenging aspects of your course?
  • What knowledge is going to yield the greatest benefit to your students?
  • How well do you signpost to students the relevance of the information that you are sharing with them?
  • What specifically do you want students to know or know how to do by the end of this lesson?

One issue you may want to reflect on are shared resources. Well-intended PowerPoint presentations and activities are prepared to reduce teacher workload and promote consistency across departments. However, these occasionally need to come with a health warning – they are sometimes produced in a hurry within limited PPA or gain time.

They may have been edited and re-edited by various members of staff and as such they evolve and can be prone to straying from the original point and key learning goals of the lesson. They may also get cluttered with irrelevant icons, information, animations or pictures, which also distract and add to cognitive load. As such, consider:

  • How well do all your own/faculty presentation slides, resources and activities relate to the key learning goals of the lesson/exam board specifications?
  • Do your presentation materials add to or reduce the cognitive load of the lesson?
  • What quality assurance processes do you have in place to monitor your team’s teacher resources?
  • How well do you, your team and your students know what is “stuff” and what is “fluff”?
  • What is the likelihood that students will get distracted by surface detail and miss the point of what you are trying to teach them?
  • What will a planned assignment actually make a student think about (as opposed to what you want them to think about – as this is what they will remember)?

The third article in this series will reflect on our teaching and learning model – the Orchard Principles of Instruction – and how we teach more effectively so that students can learn and remember more.

Specifically, I will focus on how we use “I do” to give great explanations using a direct instruction approach, “we do” to provide an extended handover and “you do” to provide plenty of practice to improve learning.


Further information & resources

  • EEF: Metacognition & self-regulation, Teaching and Learning Toolkit, last updated July 2021: https://bit.ly/3zJ5ruN
  • Kirschner, Sweller & Clark: Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching, Educational Psychologist (41), 2006.
  • Quigley, Muijs & Stringer: Metacognition & self-regulation: Guidance report, EEF, first published April 2018: https://bit.ly/3zKVE7w
  • Richter: Improving behaviour through explicit teaching: The FAST approach, Southam College presentation at ResearchEd (via slideshare.net) 2021: https://bit.ly/3T4rumA
  • Sweller: Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning, Cognitive Science (12,2), 1988.
  • Willingham: Why Don’t Students Like School? A cognitive scientist answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for the classroom. Jossey-Bass, 2009.

Further listening from the SecEd Podcast