At Mallorca International School, we know that when students understand the science of how we learn and the power of metacognition, they are equipped with the best learning techniques educational research has to offer. Our aim is to integrate these strategies throughout the whole school community in order to cultivate a learning mindset and habits for life. This is done through professional development for the teachers, workshops with the students and parent webinars.
The project is led by Tricia Taylor, our English and Drama teacher and also the author of Connect the Dots: The Collective Power of Relationships, Memory and Mindset in the Classroom. Since joining Mallorca International School Tricia has enjoyed working with the whole community and remarked, ‘The students here are hard working and a pleasure to work with. My role has been to show them which strategies work best and which—according to the science—are not the best use of their time.’
We are launching our Parent Video Information Series this week to offer parents information to support their children at home. Each of the videos are ten minutes long, based on educational research and also practised by teachers at MySchool. Our first video can be found here: https://vimeo.com/524503086
In our secondary department, the sessions give students a solid grounding in the science of how they learn. We also debunk some common myths about learning in order to help students be more effective life learners. Over the past two terms the students have been focusing on Managing Working Memory, Retrieval Practice, Spacing out Your Study, The Power of Pictures and Words: Dual Coding and How to Chunk Information to Maximise Working Memory.
Tricias Top Tips for Memory Retrieval (try these at home!)
1. Practise low-stakes quizzing on key knowledge. Make sure you think hard before peeking at the answer.
2. Create a calendar to organise 30 minutes slots of review of previously-learned content.
3. Use pictures and diagrams alongside text to make the information stick better.