What a child needs to learn

It often happens intentionally, even more often quite casually, and it accompanies each and every one of us throughout our lives: learning. In recent decades, researchers have discovered a great deal about what exactly happens in our brains when we learn and how we can support this process. Many schools in Switzerland are now using this knowledge to develop modern school landscapes that are not just learning spaces, but also living spaces in which everyone should feel comfortable.

The central question behind all these endeavours is: How can pupils be supported in a sustainable way so that they can take responsibility for their own development at school and shape their learning productively?

To learn well, I need to be able to link new information to what I already know.

Elsbeth Stern, Professor of Empirical Teaching and Learning Research

But what exactly does good learning actually mean? What can teachers and parents contribute to this? And what is true about learning myths such as «Only practice makes perfect» or «It's easier to learn in your sleep»? Researchers agree that learning is such a healthy activity that it can keep us fit for life. Provided we do it right and enjoy it - not always, but often.

Personalised learning - but how?

What science knows: In order to learn well, I have to be able to connect new information to what I already know. «If we don't have this existing knowledge to connect to, everything new is lost, or we dock it somewhere completely different and wrong,» says Elsbeth Stern. The professor of empirical teaching and learning research heads the Institute of Behavioural Sciences at ETH Zurich.

The same learning conditions can therefore lead to completely different results, depending on what a pupil already knows and what he or she does not know. The solution, as many experts emphasise, is so-called individual learning, which has become increasingly popular in recent years. This involves the teacher organising tasks in such a way that each child can solve them at the level of difficulty that suits them.

Teachers recognise weak pupils, but often overlook highly gifted ones.

Elsbeth Stern, Professor of Empirical Teaching and Learning Research

The only question is: how do you know where each child stands at any given time? No teacher judgement or test is precise enough to be able to assess this. «Of course teachers can recognise very weak pupils,» says Elsbeth Stern, «but studies show that they often overlook highly gifted children.»

According to Stern, there is a great risk of misclassification when groups are formed. In addition, it is not just a snapshot that counts, but the child's progress should actually be constantly monitored to ensure that they can continue to learn well.

Strong differences in prior knowledge

As a teacher, says Stern, you have to be aware that the pupils in a class differ greatly in their prior knowledge: «Many children have misunderstandings about the topic at hand. But I don't need to know which child has this and which doesn't, I just need to know that this is the case.»

The professor recommends not only adapting to this with different learning opportunities, but also making it a topic of discussion in the classroom. This way, the pupils would understand if an aspect had to be repeated again. Formative assessment also makes it easy to determine whether the pupils have understood what the teacher has explained.

«A small anonymous test could be given at the end of each lesson,» says Stern. «If I see that at least a quarter of the children are getting it wrong, then I know that I need to go through it again in more detail in the next lesson.»

Learning by example

Learning researchers have long known that even the most complex topics can be communicated well using illustrative examples. However, there are limits here too. "Some maths didactics experts have already racked their brains over how to use an example to explain that minus times minus equals plus.

After all, multiple debts don't add up to assets," says Stern. So numbers, like irregular verbs, are a world of their own in which you sometimes have to memorise the facts with a lot of practice. In maths in particular, it can also depend on how the question is asked, explains Elsbeth Stern: «If I ask pre-school children: "Five birds are hungry and find three worms - how many birds don't get a worm?», then everyone knows.

School should be a living space in which children organise their own learning.

Headmaster Jörg Berger

If I were to formulate the question: How many more birds are there than worms?', then it would be much more difficult for them to answer." However, Stern warns against only using simple examples. This runs the risk of children understanding and using the examples, but not being able to put them into context.

It can help here to use several, ideally contrasting, examples of a topic that show different perspectives. In the case of heat conduction, for example, not only the pancake that is baked on the cooker, but also the metal rod that can melt an ice cube.

Ask questions that arouse curiosity

Also very effective: arouse the children's curiosity with questions that they cannot - yet - answer. For example, the physics teacher could ask why a heavy steel ship floats while a small piece of steel sinks in the water.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a question that knocks the children's socks off, but one that creates enough incentive for them to want to know the answer. «It's also the school's job to introduce children to areas that they wouldn't have chosen themselves,» says Stern.

Rethinking school

Jörg Berger prefers to talk about contemporary learning rather than good learning. Together with more than 50 fellow campaigners, the head of the Knonau ZH school has developed a vision of the school of tomorrow, which can be read in the book «Schule 21 macht glücklich». It relates to Curriculum 21 and goes beyond it.

Although this describes the educational mandate for schools as skills-orientated, it assumes, for example, that social and personal skills as sub-areas of generic skills are primarily acquired in the family environment. But what happens, the authors ask, for example, when children spend more time at school? Does this not automatically impose an extended remit on them?

If the school and parents can weave a strong emotional network, this is the basis for independent learning.

School 21" is not only organised by professionally trained staff, but by all those who learn and live in and with it. This includes pupils, parents, teachers and carers, as well as local cultural institutions and businesses. «The school is an important player in its neighbourhood, it interacts with other institutions, is multicultural and open, not a self-contained cosmos,» says Berger.

Lots of autonomy, little leadership

Learning needs to be thought of the other way round: away from the idea of schooling with the help of the right teaching materials and towards a living space in which pupils feel responsible for organising their own learning. In short: a lot of autonomy, little guidance.

«The decisive factor for the success of such concepts is always whether those who are less receptive and receive less support from home are also doing well,» says Berger. This is already a great strength of the primary school: everyone is seen and supported, everyone can participate.

Participation is also essential for modern schools. «The school can't afford to lose people at the moment, it's a prerequisite that we can take everyone with us on this journey,» says Berger.

School 21" enables good learning by creating three basic prerequisites for the pupils, explains Berger: autonomy in the form of free spaces that the young people can organise, competence to be able to use these free spaces and, thirdly, social integration.

«This applies not only to groups such as friends and classes, but also to the teacher who is interested in our progress,» says Berger. «Because even if we're not learning for the teacher, we always want to show someone how and what we're learning. If this is recognised and supported, it has an impact on motivation.»

The key question: Where do you stand?

Learning diaries, learning reflection, learning feedback - if you want to learn well, you should, no, you even have to talk about it. Precisely because not all pupils can simply be categorised into three levels, but learning is a highly individual matter that needs to be constantly balanced between those who teach and those who learn.

Key questions for teachers can be Where do you stand? What has helped you? What do you need next? And learners should be able to signal where they stand at any time. «For example, a pupil could use a colour system to give feedback,» says head teacher Jörg Berger. "If he has a cup on his desk and turns the green symbol forwards, that means: Everything's OK, I'm doing well.

Yellow means: I can manage somehow, but I'm wavering a bit, reassurance would be good. Red means: I urgently need help!" Such a way of communicating with each other about learning is not only useful, but also practical in view of often limited capacities.

Basis for independent learning

However, it is not just about optimally designed open learning tasks or constantly questioning learning progress. Good learning also requires a good environment, a good basis that fulfils the basic needs of the learner(s). «It is extremely important for children to feel accepted and to experience closeness, to have this security: Even if my behaviour isn't okay sometimes, I'm okay as a person,» says Berger.

Social interaction is a fundamentally important part of our development - and therefore also of learning.

If the school, together with the parents, succeeds in weaving such a sustainable emotional network, this is a solid foundation for independent learning, which is guided above all by the child's interests. «This also applies to social spaces outside of school,» says Berger, who was very surprised when, during the pandemic, politicians acted as if children would learn nothing in eight weeks without school. «We stimulate, encourage, help, support, accompany - but the learning itself takes place independently, it comes from the child, and that doesn't stop when they leave the classroom.»

Learning in the community

Learning itself, says Franziska Vogt, is an exciting, creative and engaging process. The head of the Institute for Teaching and Learning Research at the St. Gallen University of Teacher Education is concerned with, among other things, the question of how play - or more precisely role-playing or rule-based games - affects learning processes and how dialogues between teachers and learners can be designed to be beneficial.

«Learning is very much about intrinsic motivation, but the importance of social participation and contact with others is often underestimated,» says Vogt. The desire to experience something together with others can also be motivating. Social interaction - between the teacher and the child and between the children themselves - is a fundamentally important part of our development and therefore also of learning.

Vogt also points out that learning is not moulded into an institutional form, but that informal learning characterises our everyday lives alongside formal, school-based learning. We learn casually on walks, when cooking, when grandad tells us about his childhood, when making presents, when we calculate how many weeks of pocket money are needed to buy the Lego building set we have been longing for.

Very important are not only the technical competences, i.e. those related to a specific subject, but also the interdisciplinary competences: Can I communicate? Am I creative? Can I work with others? Can I take a different perspective? «These skills are becoming increasingly important; we need them to assess things and situations correctly in order to learn and develop,» says Vogt: «They are what will underpin our lifelong learning.» However, the relationship between subject-specific and interdisciplinary skills that can be effectively focussed has not yet been researched.

Learning doesn't always have to be fun

Learning at school takes place in the triangle of learner, teacher and learning object. «A lot has changed here over the past 20 years,» explains Vogt. «The teacher doesn't simply prescribe learning material, but offers a learning space for the development of competences. This space is then filled by the child and the teacher together.»

The task of teachers - and to a certain extent parents - is to set tasks and find learning opportunities with which a skill can be learnt. Franziska Vogt says that learning doesn't necessarily have to be fun. «If I want to be able to do something, it often takes effort to get there, and that's an experience that makes perfect sense,» says Vogt.

«You don't have to label everything as fun if it's not actually fun.» In English, the term «chocolate-covered broccoli» is used to show that it is absurd to label every exercise as a game.

«The game can be very effective in conveying more challenging content and supporting the development of skills - but then it's not packaging, it's a learning experience,» says Vogt. It is also effective to anchor learning in concrete life contexts: commenting on photos with voice messages, writing wish lists, shopping, cooking, organising tournaments, rehearsing for performances, building dwellings for animals, planning an excursion.