Successful Children, Successful Teaching

* What do we now know about how children learn?

* How can teachers come to understand the processes of successful teaching better?

* How can we apply an improved understanding of successful teaching and learning realistically, given the constraints of the primary context?

For many years, there has been a gap between the work of psychologists carrying out studies in the laboratory, and teachers working in classrooms. More recently, as the public demands on teachers have increased, psychologists are becoming more interested in learning in 'real' settings, and are recognizing the importance of classroom situations and children's attitudes. Each chapter in this book encourages teachers to reflect on their own thinking as well as on children's learning, and offers ways in which some recent ideas from psychology can realistically be taken up by busy teachers. The first chapter discusses the limitations of behavioural competencies, and the following two chapters look at children's thinking, learning and development. Chapters four and five consider the importance of attitudes and the social context of the classroom while the final chapter offers an overall view of successful teaching and learning in successful contexts.