GAIL ELLIS: ’Teaching Our Learners How to Learn’ (with an introduction from Andy Mackay)

’Learning to learn’ is an important aim of most curricula throughout the world, but often remains at a more abstract level in official documents. One of the main reasons for this is a lack of practical guidelines and training for teachers. Observations also reveal lessons which often lack a transparent structure with a clear beginning, middle and end. In this talk, Gail discusses the theoretical and methodological concepts of learning to learn and demonstrates how the ‘plan do review’ routine provides the teacher and students with a framework which combines both metacognitive and cognitive strategy development. In this way, students are guided to reflect on what and how they learn, as well as to self-assess their performance and gradually take on more responsibility for their own learning.