Product reviews for Full On Learning

Any teacher will tell you that education is a two way process, that talking at students will neither engage them nor educate them, but will more than likely bore the pants off them. Research has shown more and more that interactive teaching will achieve the greatest success, in the words of Alfie Kohn: -˜Learning is something students do, NOT something done to students' and this is one of the reasons why Zoe Elder's book -˜Full on Learning' is so useful and well thought through. It is simple and accessible, encouraging the reader to engage with modern thinking on ways of learning and encouraging the next generation to be active and engaged decision makers, prepared to work confidently both independently and collaboratively in innovative and creative ways.

Elder works from the premise that all children can achieve, whatever their ability and that by thinking about our long term plans for our students, for example what type of learning do we wish them to achieve? What type of thinkers will be most valuable in the world today? Once you have made that decision you can move forward with a style of teaching that is appropriate for the individual.

Full of the now familiar jargon of teaching manuals this book nonetheless is refreshing in its presentation. The ideas are often illustrated with clear diagrams and the tabular format of many sections helps to make it attractive to read and easier to follow at the end of a long day in the classroom. Teachers generally are tired at the end of the day and for many -˜A Casual Vacancy' might seem more attractive bed time fodder than -˜Full on Learning' -” after all for many of us full on learning is an everyday occurrence!

Although perhaps in places Elder's ideas are buried in too much pedagogical detail, the concepts themselves are often excellent, taking both old and new practical ideas, often reinvented for the digital world. She recognises that our teaching world is not so much about -˜knowledge acquisition' but more about -˜knowledge creation' as in the digital world we inhabit knowledge has been -˜democratised'.

There are many excellent teachers in the world but none of us is ever too old to learn something new or refresh the things we thought we had down pat. This book does just that. It helps to refocus the things we are acquainted with, such as the art of questioning; outcome focused planning; allowing learners to shape their own learning and many other familiar concepts in the context of an ever changing technological world, where the skills that the next generation need are often very different from those learned by ourselves, our parents or in many cases our own children.

In his foreword Ian Gilbert says that teachers are accountable to the children they teach and with that accountability there needs to be -˜a preparedness to countenance new ideas'. Spending a little time with this book will help sharpen up some of the tools in your teaching tool kit that have perhaps become a little blunt!