Fiorella & Mayer's Generative Learning in Action

Book excerpt: Generative Learning in Action helps to answer the question: which activities can students carry out to create meaningful learning? It does this by considering how we, as teachers, can implement the eight strategies for generative learning set out in the work of Fiorella and Mayer in their seminal 2015 work Learning as a Generative Activity: Eight Learning Strategies that Promote Learning. At a time when a great deal of attention has been paid to the teaching and learning from the perspective of effective instruction, Generative Learning looks at the flip side of coin and considers what is happening in the minds of the learner. This book takes a teachers-eye view of a range of theories of learning and keeps their application to the classroom firmly in mind through the use of case studies and reference to day to day practice. Generative Learning in Action also discusses the key considerations and potential limitations of each of the strategies, as well as how you could implement these in your own practice and more widely across a school. The authors bring a wealth of experience to this topic. Zoe Enser was a classroom English teacher for over 20 years as well as head of department and school leader in charge of improving teaching and learning. She is now lead specialist advisor for Kent with The Education People. Mark Enser has been a geography teacher for the best part of two decades as well as a head of department and research lead. He is the author of Making Every Geography Lesson Count and Teach Like Nobody's Watching as well as a TES columnist.