University of Amsterdam

1
Text books need classroom based reconstruction by
teachers and students
2
Learning to learn I

• 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

3
Learning to learn II

• Statement
• MTE text books keep students in secondary school
  simple

4
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

5
Facilitating learning to learnFour ingredients

• Leave out learning scaffolding from text books
  facilitate students to build their own
  scaffolding
• Reformulate exercises from tasks/exercises into
  learning tasks
• Facilitate students to decompose tasks
• Make communication and learning to communicate
  observable

6
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

7
2. Reformulate exercises from tasks or exercises
to learning tasks

• Make this exercise
• Read this text
• Execute this assignment
• Answer these questions
• Practise

• Learn to do this exercise
• Learn to read this text
• Learn to execute this assignment
• Learn to answer these questions
• Learn to practise

8
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

9
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

10
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
• pupils task observe and/or describe and/or
  evaluate/reflect the writing/reading/learning
  behaviour.

11
Key questions to answer for students when working
with text books

• What do they (text book authors) want me to learn
  from this unit?
• How do they want me to learn?
• Which routes are provided? Do I have to do this
  all? Can I skip things? Can I do something
  extras if necessary?
• 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?
• Where can I use the acquired knowledge/skill (in
  this text book? in life?)