In The Learning Power Approach: Teaching learners to teach themselves Guy Claxton sets out the design principles of a pedagogical formula that aims to strengthen students' learning muscles and develop their independence, initiative, determination, and love of learning. Foreword by Carol S. Dweck. Learning is learnable! Educators can explicitly teach not just content, knowledge, and skills, but also the positive habits of mind that will better prepare students to flourish both in school and in later life. And as 'traditionalists' fight for rigour and knowledge, and 'progressives' defend the increasing focus on character and well-being, Guy Claxton's Learning Power Approach (LPA) brings resolution to this phoney and unnecessary war by offering teachers a win-win pedagogical formula that delivers good academic results while simultaneously turbocharging students' independence, initiative, and love of learning. In this groundbreaking book Guy distils fifteen years' experience with his influential Building Learning Power method to provide a set of design principles for strengthening students' learning muscles, and together with a wealth of practical strategies and the supporting evidence that underpins them details the small tweaks to daily practice that will help teachers attend more closely to the ways in which they can shape their students' learning dispositions and attitudes. Complemented by engaging and informative classroom examples of the LPA in action and drawing from research into the fields of mindset, metacognition, grit, and collaborative learning The Learning Power Approach describes in detail the suite of beliefs, values, attitudes, and habits of mind that go in to making up learning power, and offers a thorough explanation of what its intentions and guiding principles are. Furthermore, in order to help those who are just setting out on their LPA journey, Guy presents teachers with an attractive menu of customisable strategies and activities to choose from as they begin to embed the LPA principles into their own classroom culture, and also includes at the end of each chapter a Wondering section that serves to prompt reflection, conversation, and action among teachers. Suitable for teachers and leaders in all educational settings, The Learning Power Approach carefully lays the groundwork for a series of books to follow that are specifically tailored to primary teaching, secondary teaching, and school leadership.

Why the education system is failing our kids and how we can start the revolution that will save our schools With their emphasis on regurgitated knowledge and stressful exams, today’s schools actually do more harm than good. Guiding readers past the sterile debates about City Academies and dumbed-down exams, Claxton proves that education’s key responsibility should be to create enthusiastic learners who will go on to thrive as adults in a swiftly-changing, dynamic world. Students must be encouraged to sharpen their wits, ask questions, and think for themselves - all without chucking out Shakespeare or the Periodic Table. Blending down-to-earth examples with the latest advances in brain science, and written with passion, wit, and authority, this brilliant book will inspire teachers, parents, and readers of all backgrounds to join a practical revolution and foster in the next generation a natural curiosity and the spirit of adventure.

Find out what the pioneers have been doing, and how it is transforming their schools. Eight years on from the classic Building Learning Power, Professor Claxton and his co-authors show how the ideas and practice have grown and flourished.

Discover why and how schools must become places where thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted As educators, parents, and citizens, we must settle for nothing less than environments that bring out the best in people, take learning to the next level, allow for great discoveries, and propel both the individual and the group forward into a lifetime of learning. This is something all teachers want and all students deserve. In Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 Forces We Must Master to Truly Transform Our Schools, Ron Ritchhart, author of Making Thinking Visible, explains how creating a culture of thinking is more important to learning than any particular curriculum and he outlines how any school or teacher can accomplish this by leveraging 8 cultural forces: expectations, language, time, modeling, opportunities, routines, interactions, and environment. With the techniques and rich classroom vignettes throughout this book, Ritchhart shows that creating a culture of thinking is not about just adhering to a particular set of practices or a general expectation that people should be involved in thinking. A culture of thinking produces the feelings, energy, and even joy that can propel learning forward and motivate us to do what at times can be hard and challenging mental work.