Why Do Some Students Understand and Others Don't?
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By Julian Dance —
Tags: Cognitive Science, Learning Science, Misconceptions, Knowledge in Education, Learning & Memory, Science of Learning, Education
After nearly twenty years in the classroom, I've become fascinated by a simple question: why do some students develop deep understanding while others struggle despite working hard? Looking back at a career's worth of books on teaching, cognitive science and misconceptions, I realised they were all helping me explore the same challenge.
By Julian Dance, Co-Founder of SideCog, Head of Science and Head of Big Ideas Reflections After Twenty Years in the Classroom As I prepare to leave classroom teaching at the end of this term, I've been gradually bringing my books home. There are too many to do it in one trip. Every few days I seem to arrive home carrying another small pile from school. Some haven't been opened for years. Others are full of notes, folded corners and post-it notes. A few are so battered they look as though they've survived a small war. Looking through them recently, I realised they tell a story I hadn't really n