The Learning Success Blog

John Spence is an international business thought leader and influencer, and also a guest lecturer at universities such as Harvard, Stanford and The University of Pennsylvania.

According to John, reading is the path to success at school and in business. John is an avid reader, and claims that reading has made a lasting impact on his life and career. He reads 100 to 200 books a year.

I caught up with John on the Learning Capacity podcast to find out more about his story, and what insights he has for Australian & New Zealand students, parents and educators.

Listen to the podcast:

Simon Brooks spent many years implementing Cultures of Thinking in his classrooms.

He now helps teachers implement the framework in their schools. He’s worked closely with Ron Ritchhart and the Cultures of Thinking team at Harvard University’s Project Zero.

Whilst change can be a challenge for many, Simon’s passion to see children truly learn enables him to effectively share the long term benefits of Cultures of Thinking.

I caught up with Simon on the Learning Capacity Podcast to find out how he starts the conversation with schools and their teachers.

Listen to the podcast.

It’s a sensitive issue, but disadvantaged students are definitely worse off.

A new analysis of NAPLAN  results shows a clear link between disadvantage and lower student achievement.

This is a national issue which affects us all.

Dr Peter Goss from the Grattan Institute spoke to me about it on the Learning Capacity podcast. Listen to him explain how we can use NAPLAN data to help identify where help is needed most.

Listen to the podcast.

Templestowe College principal Peter Hutton is creating real education revolution. He’s introduced radical innovations that some would either welcome or reject. 

Now in its sixth year of its transformation, Templestowe College has gone from being a basket case on the verge of closing, to a thriving school where they have to turn away new student enrolments, and even applications from teachers desperate to get in. 

Why aren’t more schools like this?

I spoke to him during a break in the Improving Initial Teacher Education conference in Melbourne recently. Listen to the conversation on the Learning Capacity podcast. 

Listen to the podcast.

Have you ever wondered what doesn't work and what works best in education?

Well, Professor John Hattie has and in 2015 he wrote about it in two papers:

• "What doesn’t work in education: The politics of distraction".
• "What works best in education: The politics of collaborative expertise".

John Hattie is the Director of the Melbourne Educational Research Institute at the University of Melbourne.

He’s also the Chair of the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leaders, and co director of the Science of Learning Research Centre.

His work is known worldwide. 

The titles sound provocative and controversial. But the message is quite simple. One year of input should equal one year of progress, for all students, no matter where they start.

It sounds obvious, but John Hattie argues we are too easily distracted from the real issues. And we don’t harness the power of collaborating with our best educators to create what he calls a "coalition of the successful".

I caught up with John at the Improving Initial Teacher Education conference in Melbourne, in April 2016. He spoke to me on the Learning Capacity podcast where we dug a little bit deeper into these two papers.

Listen to the podcast.

Mimma Mason is the Cogmed Manager for Pearson Australia, and has previously explained working memory on the Learning Capacity podcast.

But she also spends much of her time helping people understand the emerging field of educational neuroscience. Is it another band wagon, or pop science?

We’ve asked this question before, and it seems like the consistent message is that educational neuroscience is now increasingly informing educational practice and research.

So if it’s for real, how do we implement it? And what does this mean for future teacher education and professional development?

Mimma helps us understand what to make of it all in a discussion on the Learning Capacity podcast. 

Listen to the podcast episode:

Dr Ron Ritchhart’s work on Creating Cultures of Thinking has helped transform the process of learning in classrooms around the world.

Creating Cultures of Thinking has developed from Ron Ritchhart's work as a part of Project Zero at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education.

Project Zero is a 50 year old organisation that began with just a few researchers, and now has over 30 employees.

Ron spoke with The Learning Capacity podcast and talked about his book, Creating Cultures of Thinking: the 8 forces we must master to truly transform our schools. It’s challenging, and in some places confronting, but the stories he tells are quite compelling.

Listen to this Learning Capacity podcast episode:

Cameron Paterson is a teacher at a private school in Sydney, Australia. He first came across Harvard University's Project Zero a little over 10 years ago.

The ideas resonated with Cameron. He was attracted by the progressive nature of the thinking in the Project Zero team. Since then he’s studied learning and teaching at Harvard University and has completed a Masters degree. 

He’s worked extensively with Dr Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church in Creating Cultures of Thinking within his own school.

For Cameron, creating cultures of thinking is not just a passing idea or educational fad. It's backed by research and case studies from around the world.

The Learning Capacity Podcast spoke with Cameron who shared his experience using thinking routines in the classroom, and how he’s made it real and successful.

Listen to this Learning Capacity podcast episode:

Mike McKay is a retired superintendent of the Surrey County schools district in British Columbia, Canada.

He was a public educator for 35 years. The area he supervised has over 160 languages spoken. 

You can imagine it would be difficult to measure the potential problems with language and reading development in such a large and diverse region. 

But back in 2008 he attended a conference hosted by Scientific Learning Corporation, where he saw the research behind the Fast ForWord programs. 

When he came back, he asked his board to trust him, and give him $300,000 to get started. It was bold pitch. Mike tells the story of how things have panned out in this Learning Capacity podcast episode:

Gabbie Stroud loved her job as a primary school teacher.

Eventually, what she calls the changing nature of teaching led to burn out, and her decision to leave the profession.

In an essay she wrote for the Griffith Review, she talks of her frustrations, but also of a future for education filled with hope and guided by a few dangerous ideas. 

While Gabbie is not in the classroom now, her passion for education remains strong, and she calls for things like profound commitment to teachers, trust, and renewed thinking on things like creativity, imagination and ingenuity.

And she does this for the sake of a student she calls Australia. In her essay she asks, “Who would teach her? How would she learn?" In an episode on the Learning Capacity Podcast, I continue this discussion with Gabbie as we search for the answers to some big questions.

Listen to the discussion: