Sharing Best Practise Wellington

I had a fabulous day attending “Sharing Best Practice July 2023” in Wellington. Despite the freezing and rainy weather in Wellington (who would have figured!), there was a great turnout of people at Tawa School. The event ran smoothly, thanks to the hard work of the Tawa School team. The workshops were fantastic and presented by passionate teachers, and the keynote speakers were exceptional.

To keep the momentum going, I thought I might share what I learned on Saturday, starting with my notes from Dr. Michael Johnson’s keynote speech (please note – these are my brief notes only, Dr. Johnson covered a wide range of topics during his speech). The points that stood out for me were when Dr. Johnson spoke about the science of learning and how cognitive psychology can provide educational insights. He emphasized that fundamental literacy knowledge needs to be taught, not just caught. Teachers should lead literacy learning; basic structure is essential for relevant education. Without foundational skills, a student cannot progress with their literacy.

The ultimate goal of cognitive learning is to achieve automaticity, where the information taught is transferred from short-term to long-term memory. Dr. Johnson also discussed cognitive overload, where too many tasks or too much information can overwhelm a learner, leading to confusion and frustration. Teachers need to manage the cognitive load to avoid overwhelming their students.

I have included a few images in this post, as I mentioned, Dr. Johnson touched on many other points. Do you have any highlights from the keynote or anything else you would like to share? I would love to hear.

To learn more about Dr. Johnson, visit https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz/…/dr-michael-johnston/.