Can We Really See Learning Happen? | The Science of Learning

Hello everyone, Ross here at Teacher Toolkit. This is the current membership resource published in June 2026. This is an early bird access to my new book, The Science of Learning. And this pack gives teachers, school leaders early access to the ideas shaping the research behind the science of learning. Um so, as ever, we have um well, there's actually 10 ideas in the book, but for this resource, um I'm going to give you these five. The resource is organized into these sections. Uh the first is why science matters, second, what the research data suggests that I've collected so far, then sharing some MRI studies, or I should I should say specifically fMRI scans, and I'll explain this a little bit uh later. The third section is looking at how learning happens. So, that simple question, how does learning happen? Most teachers can't articulate an answer to that, so here it is to help. The fourth idea, what teachers can do given all this research? What practical tools can I use in the classroom? And finally, as ever, the whole school implementation plan. So, in other words, it's not just a theory pack here, it's designed to move from evidence into classroom use and whole school improvement. Now, I've given you the introduction there. Um you know, not to turn teachers into neuroscientists, but to help us become more confident, critical consumers, practical users of evidence. And across the slides, I focus on attention, memory, forgetting, metacognition, motivation, and neurodiversity, specifically neurodivergent learning. In slides five and six, I guess I just start off with this analogy. Most of us have sat on a plane and trusted the pilot. We can get to A and B and those kind of things, but very few of us understand what's happening inside the cockpit. We know there's lots of decisions being making on a second-by-second basis. So, from the outside, it looks smooth and the pilot is confident making lots of decisions. And if we liken this to the classroom, from the outside, a classroom can look calm and purposeful, but that tells us very little about what is happening inside pupils' heads. Now, good teaching, I believe, depends on understanding the hidden mental turbulence that we cannot always see, and I use this analogy to describe this classroom reality for us all. Now, here is what I've been looking at. So, I'll explain the broad areas and distinctions. So, MRI scans look at brain topology. fMRI, so functional magnetic res- resonance imaging, looks at blood oxygen levels. So, the blood flow changes between uh different parts and sections of the brain. So, that brain imaging and the cognitive science behind it can help us think more carefully about our teacher decisions, our teacher strategies, and how it influences attention in the classroom. The most important caveat here I can add is that these tools do not give us a script for teaching, but they can sharpen the questions that we might ask. So, inside the book, there are 10 ideas. Here they are all here. I'm just making sure you can see that one there, number six, motivation and emotion. Um I'm still building the full slide deck here for kind of keynotes, webinars, half-day, full-day kind of training sessions in schools, but the book unpicks the 10 kind of concepts. So, as ever, they go through the kind of uh here's an explainer behind the research. Here's a template. Here's a worked example. And and and those kind of formats and methods. Uh and I guess this slide just shows you the detailed ideas inside the book. As ever, there's the cartoon walkthrough. I've only got one so far. By September 2026, all 10 of these will be available. These are lovely one-page summaries for teachers to digest the research very, very quickly. At the end of every slide, you've got a key question here. So, this one here, learning is visible, but good teaching kind of helps unpick those things that we don't necessarily see. So, that check for understanding here is critical. The second kind of section here goes into the research data collection that I have gathered. So, I begin with my own data collection, and I give you some of the headlines here. I'm going to blog a summary of all the kind of data that I've collected and where I can see teacher confidence or teacher challenges on a range of topics. You've got them there, but for people watching this and people who've actually got download the resource download in all its glory, scan this QR code here. So, it'll be in the the the slide deck for you to download, and you can access the full research collection and contribute your views too, which I always share on my travels many years after the the book has been published. So, the data is always live. From slide kind of 16 onwards, I'm I'm not going to go through these in great detail, but you can see some MRI studies here. fMRI studies. I need to get into the habit of making sure I add the f, so the functional blood flow exchanges. So, we've got here about speech, how we build speech here, this one on group work, so brain synchronicity between students here, one on critical thinking. There's a couple here also on AI, the benefits of daydreaming and mind wandering. We all think it's not good for us, but actually it's a brain function that's inherent to how our brains perform. Here's some research on how children study at school and the difficulties in neuro-divergent needs. Another one here on the benefits of chewing gum, who'd have thought chewing gum is good for your memory. Handwriting versus typewriting, which one's benefit benefits kind of learning more. Here's an MRI study, one on artificial intelligence, another one here on impact on working memory, which I guess more of us are becoming familiar with, but some research MRI studies to back it up. Then a little bit about the adolescent brain. It's not just teenage years, your brain moves through five distinct phases. This kind of key piece of research um looks at from Cambridge, published only last year, five distinct changes. So the teenage brain is I suggest expands up to the age of 32. It's not just new teenage years, so your brain's not fully formed until your early 30s. So um yeah, that's worth considering when we think about um when we're trying to build metacognition for our young people, it takes a long time for that to be established. What impact does medication ADHD have on young people and adults and also working memory dyslexia? There's lots of MRI studies I've just given you a snapshot of the things that I've been reading and researching. In section three, >> [clears throat] >> this practical question, how does learning happen and can you see learning happen? And these are two questions I've posed on my teacher training travels. Now for the context of this walk-through, there is a deeper private video here for you to watch where I go through this slide in greater detail to explain how learning happens, but let me just come back to these two questions. Can you see learning happen? I would often respond with yes and many teachers do in my training experiences. Um and when I published guide to memory in 2022, I was all kind of moving into question two, how do I articulate the answer to how does learning happen? And I still see today many teachers despite access to cognitive load theory, working memory, they can't articulate how it how we actually process. So, in the slides and that video, I've given you a a more detailed breakdown. I guess my final point here would be can you see learning happen having now looked at fMRI scans, I I'm not confident that I would say yes to that to that question anymore. Uh and again, I'll explain that in the slides in greater detail. A couple of key slides to help here is why does attention break down? So, kind of too much information, Ross, competing stimuli, so external noises, distractions. I've not been very clear on my instructions and I haven't attached what you what we're talking about today to any prior knowledge that you might have. How we can support attention, well, if we understand environment and sensory inputs are part of the process, we filter information that we receive. Our working memory can't store everything. You can't remember everything that I'm saying to you now in this static video. Uh and then we learn only what we retrieve. So, when we understand how we process and how we can support attention, we can start to improve our teaching. But again, here's a just a whistle-stop tour explained in greater detail in the slide, full slide deck, and in the attached supporting videos. Now, section four asks the practical question, what should teachers do differently because of the knowledge shared in this resource deck? And this is where the deck moves from theory into routines, templates, and early access classroom tools. So, these are all in my book. They've just been adapted slightly, so let me just give you a little whistle-stop tour. These are all attached to all the 10 chapters in the book. So, study charter, cognitive warm-ups looking like this. We've got a neuromyth quiz. So, you know, myself included, I still fall into the trap of some misconceptions and prevailing myths. So, a couple of resources there to help. A cognitive load audit. So, think about your worksheets, your slides, your books, your videos that you use in your classroom. How can you evaluate them to ensure they don't increase cognitive load. Building metacognitive routines in your classroom. So, what could you do there? Also factoring intrinsic extrinsic motivation. Then a new resource, not on my website yet, the 5-minute inclusion plan. So, we're in keeping with the tradition of the 5-minute lesson plan, which is used by teachers all over the world, and I still believe it's faster than any AI tool out there. The 5-minute inclusion plan considers cognitive load and neurodivergent needs. So, you've got some prompts here in this version. On slide 49. And then, if I just reference the last few slides, a reference here to nine research-formed study skills. So, you've got here a study skill strategy and audit, as well as a curriculum mapping template. Again, explained in the book in greater detail, but here you're getting early access to some of the emerging ideas and resources. Now, slide five, or section five I should say, is the whole school implementation. So, since I've been publishing these for several years now, a lot of school leaders kind of want to understand how they can roll it out on a month-by-month basis as a CPD agenda, or perhaps quality assurance for a kind of lesson observation evaluation, and those kind of things. So, I've included a couple of reflection prompts and planning documents as well as here. You can see the CPD implementation plan um of how you might want to embed this as a CPD agenda over the academic academic year. And then this slide looks at the quality assurance process. So, slide 58 here, um you know, intended for school leaders, seek college leaders, CPD leaders, or departments who want to do a little bit more than run a one-off section. And then at the back, you've got your templates, but then most importantly, the reflection questions designed to prompt discussion. So, you might want to use this whole slide deck for your own CPD. So, these ask questions such as where attention breaks down, what influences currently lead you in the wrong direction in the classroom, or how you might change your practice in the classroom, how you support retrieval practice, how do you manage cognitive load, etc., etc. And then at the very back, a little CPD reflection sheet just thinking about maybe tackling one or two of those kind of areas to think about for your own practice. I guess if I could summarize everything I've learned in this final slide, attention span is limited. Have you watched the entire this entire video? Learning is invisible, and retrieval matters. And that's the science of learning to help teachers make better bets about what supports attention, memory, motivation, and long-term learning in a classroom. As ever, oops, you have from me all the references here, and then my 5-minute CPD plan. So, this is the planning template I use when I deliver CPD into schools and colleges across the country. This is my planning document whether I've got 50 minutes or 5 hours, I this is my process behind uh bringing the content to life for a different range of teacher audiences. So, I hope that helps. Um you've got a QR code there to buy the copy of the book. There will be an audible version. There will be the cartoons as we get closer to September 2026. But, I hope this walk-through at least gives you a clear sense of what's inside this resource. Any questions, there is my email. Um and let me just go back to the title slide with the first five ideas. So, why science matters, what the research suggests, is my data collection that still asks for your views, how learning happens, that simple question that we all need to be able to understand, what can teachers do about that information in the classroom in terms of practical resources, and then how to roll it out across your team, your department, or across your whole school. I hope this gives you a clear sense of what's inside. All the templates will be editable type templates you can play around with. Um use the slides, the templates, and questions to explore the ideas with your colleagues, and most importantly for you to think about perhaps you know, how this is going to change your practice, what does learning look like when you cannot always see it happening in the classroom. Thanks for using the resource. I'll see you next month.