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Learning is memory because both are dependent on a change in us. But learning is more importantly the process of change itself not just the result of the change. The change is dependent on meaning.

I once had a pupil who spent a whole weekend doing this whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2022/11/dual... for the whole vocab list. She got an A.

@theniceman.bsky.social how would you advise to revise a GCSE language?

How do we help pupils to understand- we tell, we show, we ask. If they are paying attention, will they then understand? We know the answer is uncertain. But how much of our time and actions is spent on assuming telling and showing is enough?

A theory of how learning works... in theory. But does it work on real human beings? Or does it try to demand that the pupils conform to the theory...? whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2026/02/sphe...

From last week: An important post for our times in which transmission and retrieval have over-dominated the discourse.

Best seller over in the USA? ● Teaching Meaning: What Works When Telling Isn't Enough

🔤 ☑️ 📡 💭 ❌ 📡 Message sent but is it understood?

Christian is 100% focused on teaching as an interaction where meaning making and understanding is always foregrounded. His ideas are explained using a deep understanding of a broad range of cognitive science disciplines and from a refreshingly novel and eye opening perspective.

Is anyone in a school that has managed to establish making and using flashcards a regular part of the pupils’ routine? What logistical decisions and resources were needed to result in pupils making, organising and regularly using flash cards? (Apart from just telling them to do it)

I would extend this by proposing giving some thought to provisionally getting some sort of measure of how much of any particularly learning event we can accurately describe with our currently understanding of learning. I propose it is closer to 0% than to 1%.

The realisation that the beauty is really in the ongoing conversation and the reward of finding the solution pales in significance.

A lot of people live & breathe the Science of Learning. Others are just beginning their journey of seeing T&L through the perspective of SoL. Many others have understood SoL, appreciate it but realise it is just one way of seeing T&L. Others just have a totally different perspective. ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

Christian is one of the only teachers who is providing a totally different way of thinking about teaching. It is a much needed alternative perspective that focuses on the meaning making that happens between the individuals in the classroom and the teacher. I am very grateful for his voice.

This can get worse. Havind read @head-teach.bsky.social excellent latest post seems a good time to share this again. On why we might be making terrible mistakes around how we're framing the new drive to inclusion. bennewmark.wordpress.com/2026/03/26/t...

If you have ever taught biology, it is obvious that this explanatory model building approach is so much better than just teaching the facts, descriptions and explanations. youtu.be/Ux2-Y_6IryM?...

“Serendipity doesn't come from efficiency. It comes from spending time in the space where the problem lives, getting your hands dirty, making mistakes that nobody asked you to make and learning things nobody assigned you to learn.” Masterful piece. Read it!!

Learning is an agential action by nature. Should we focus on this and bring attention along for the ride or should focus on attention and hope agential action survives?

Sense making. If we explicitly reveal the heuristics they are using to make sense of what we are saying & we then incorporate their stories into our explanations. Maybe this will help them make sense of what we are teaching.

Sense making. If we explicitly reveal the heuristics they are using to make sense of what we are saying & we then incorporate their stories into our explanations. Maybe this will help them make sense of what we are teaching.

As requested, I've started a substack so people can subscribe and get emails. My personal site will still be my home. Here's my latest post, an important one for all educators: christianmooreanderson.substack.com/p/the-illusi...

I think every teacher benefits when they can shift their attention and source of feedback to what learning is happening right now.

This is truly bizarre. The knowledge camp were in favour of creating meaning not mechanics of decoding all along. Only difference is they labelled it knowledge not skill. Turns out everyone is right after all!

Words do not contain meaning Meaning is constructed by the learner through experience, models, and situations. Teachers cannot assume that pupils attach the intended meaning to words, even if they recognise or can define them. /1

Learning is not a change in LTM. Learning is not the change in memory itself, but the process that leads to that change. /1

Dual coding is not pictures. Visuospatial representations are powerful not because they are pictures, but because they map directly onto the spatial and action-based structures through which we experience and understand the world.

Prior knowledge is not a fact Facts are propositional but 99% of our cognition, our knowing, is non propositional. So what do we mean when we invoke prior knowledge?

Dialogue is not talking Opening dialogic space creates a space in which participants can reveal, discover, and reshape what is salient and meaningful to themselves and to each other in the situation at that moment in time.

Narrative is not just stories Narrative communication allows meaning to be constructed through simulation, experience, and situation modelling rather than purely through propositional statements. Propositional comm. isolates facts & relationships. Narrative comm. lets you experience a situation.

When ought ought not be ought because sometimes is is right and ought is wrong. Beware of oughting.

How do pupils make sense of what you are teaching? How do you make sense of something you are trying to make sense of? If you are honest how much of that sense making do you think you can actually accurately verbalise? What practices encourage sense making?

Beware of lowest common denominator teaching & learning policies Thinking of teaching and learning approaches as things to 'implement' in a school, rather than as things which evolve organically in the practice of reflective professionals and/or (in the secondary phase) reflective ...

What does the phrase ‘making the learning relevant’ mean to you? I’m not sure if there is a more important concept when it comes to learning.

#EduSky My response to an aspect of a blog by Paul Kirschner: www.onteachingandlearning.com/blog/paulo-f...

The best thing I have read about Direct Instruction.

Each tool has affordances and constraints that results in tendencies. If you walk into a classroom with the intention of delivering a lesson, PowerPoint will be a tool that fits well. If you walk into the classroom with the intention of mutual exploration of the content, ppt tends to fall short.

Let’s be interested in what they think 😃

I’m not sure what action is happening in the classroom if it is not described & defined as dialogical. The teacher is in dialogue with themselves, the domain of knowledge & the pupil. The pupil is in dialogue with themselves, the domain of knowledge & the teacher. Let’s frame it dialogically.

Really nicely delineated by Christian. Rehearsal deliberately strengthens specific isolated associations. Meaning making and building understanding both extend beyond specific isolated associations. It is good to get this clear.

Efficiency as a guiding principle tends towards hubristic and dismissive certainty. The process of play is unpredictable, unexpected and joyous. I enjoy teaching.

Hi I teach physics but my main interest is to understand learning and its implications for teaching. To better understand I tend to ask questions that challenge our thinking. #FFBWeds

If you have any interest in cybernetics, I think Harish is pretty awesome. harishsnotebook.wordpress.com/2026/02/28/a...

@learnwhatyoulive.bsky.social sorry Katie I didn’t get back to you about chatting about independent study. Let me know if you would like to. [email protected]

Christian provides a totally different way of thinking about teaching and learning. Each exploration into his thoughts helps sharpen your focus on the meaning that your pupils are making.

We all agree teaching is not learning. But learning does happen even when a teacher is purely explaining and the pupil is just listening. so what is the pupil doing? I propose they are enacting action within their imaginal situation. The stimulus is linguistic but the imaginal situation is not

@harishjose.bsky.social Hi Harish I believe change & hence learning happens via action. But learning that happens in my classroom is not via action in the physical situation, not even the micro physical How does cybernetics describe the particulars of the situation in which this action takes place

When we generalise the principles of edu cog sci we arrive back where we all started. If we take the particulars and put them into practice, yeah they work some of the time in some situations but believing they meaningfully describe more than a fraction of learning is delusional.

@cmooreanderson.bsky.social To me, this is the description of the imaginal situation in which our pupils are acting, from which change is occurring.