Learning Strategies (Routledge Library Editions: Psychology of Education)

Originally published in 1986, designed for teachers and those concerned with the education of primary and secondary school pupils, Learning Strategies presented a new approach to ‘learning to learn’. Its aim was to encourage teachers to start thinking about different approaches to harnessing the potential of young learners. It was also relevant to adult learners, and to those who teach them. Thus, although about learning, the book is also very much about teaching.

Learning Strategies presents a critical view of the study skills courses offered in schools at the time, and assesses in non-technical language what contributions could be made to the learning debate by recent developments in cognitive psychology. The traditional curriculum concentrated on ‘information’ and developing skills in reading, writing, mathematics and specialist subjects, while the more general strategies of how to learn, to solve problems, and to select appropriate methods of working, were too often neglected.

Learning to learn involves strategies like planning ahead, monitoring one’s performance, checking and self-testing. Strategies like these are taught in schools, but children do not learn to apply them beyond specific applications in narrowly defined tasks. The book examines the broader notion of learning strategies, and the means by which we can control and regulate our use of skills in learning. It also shows how these ideas can be translated into classroom practice. The final chapter reviews the place of learning strategies in the curriculum.

Nisbet, John; Shucksmith, Janet