Mr Lee Bates

Hi @psteidinger.bsky.social , if you have the time could you let me know if I am wrong to apply the zone of proximal development to learning? People are telling me I am conflating development with learning and to use zone of proximal development I need to make the distinction clear.

My editorial has just been published in the Journal of Biological Education: "Thinking with models: the true heart of the biology lesson". As an editorial, it's open access and a short piece, check it out: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

matthewevanseducation.substack.com/p/a-sporting...

If you take the time to explore Christian’s diagrams, (as his students would be doing), you will soon find they get you thinking and realising all sorts of novel relationships between concepts you have not connected before. A clear indicator of a great explanatory model.

Great discussion. I’d have liked more on the affordances provided by cognitive tools. We often automatically label their use as “cognitive offloading”, when in many cases they may be better understood as cognitive augmentation I.e. enabling forms of thinking that otherwise wouldn’t be possible.

How Christian builds a single formal model that can then be used by students to test and extend their understanding of multiple concepts.

So, I trialed recording a "how I'd teach" video: How I get students to understand the symbols of stock and flow models. I learnt: buy a mic, remove the flicker, make sure the whole page can be seen. I'll make more through the year. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YB-...

Well it should be no surprise, teaching with a greater focus on meaning making makes the teaching itself more meaningful.

My latest post: A simple reason for why classroom questions often fail. And how to fix it using the power of variety. christianmooreanderson.com/why-classroo...

In our whole-school T&L CPD today, I included @cmooreanderson.eurosky.social's work on live-modelling (diagrams), talk-rich classrooms and teaching without PowerPoint. It generated lots of really good discussion about active learning & inclusive classrooms. Thanks Christian.

Christian always points to the practicalities of what to do in the classroom if you want pupils to be doing the doing; doing the thinking; making their meaning. Engaging with Christian’s thinking has definitely helped my thinking and my practice. trevoraleo.substack.com/p/christian-...

Starting from defined polarised extremes is a good but this particular discussion has mostly got stuck in those extremes. Because of this, most moderates often think the middle ground is a mixture of the two. Christian shows the middle can have a different perspective; one of interaction.

What is it like to start learning a new language for the first time? whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2025/08/ling...

I always enjoy reading @didau.bsky.social. Not because I agree with him. But because he's honest and he thinks.

Christian eloquently describes a way of thinking about teaching that actually makes sense with the way we teach.

Meaning can't be transmitted. Many teachers I've spoken to haven't understood why. Chapter 1 of Teaching Meaning makes it easy to understand. Read it here: christianmooreanderson.com/wp-content/u... And check out my conversation with Drew discussing its consequences ↓↓

The fundamental argument of the CogSci crowd is that students lack durable knowledge, so embodied processes won't work. Learning can only occur when students are explicitly given dots in a systemic, replicable way. The important knowledge students have from other contexts doesn't count.

I woke up still upset about this diagram. No recognition of humans as agents in their environment or as active sensemakers & constructors of knowledge & understanding. Just lay down on the floor, class, and collect information like water and I'm a human sprinkler!

All cognition involves cognitive offloading. Cognition is action. Action is interaction. The thing we interact with provides constraints, affordances and tendencies. All cognition involves cognitive offloading. www.preprints.org/manuscript/2...

Kalyuga further develops his reflections on Gal’perin’s ‘Orienting Basis of Activity’ (OBA) by demonstrating that the debate over whether we should teach ‘general schemata’ (such as critical thinking) or ‘concrete, domain-specific facts’ is asking the wrong question. 1/4 #Kalyuga #Gal'perin #CLT

I loved this podcast episode, as always, by @rethinkingjames.bsky.social and with kindered spirit @bruceleeedu.bsky.social Extra bonus was hearing my book mentioned several times! drjamesmannion.substack.com/p/the-missin...

Stephen Vainker has researching and writing about the contradictions between these folks' stated positions and the pedagogies and practices at places like Alpha. stephenvainker.substack.com/p/the-scienc...

NEW POST: ● Understanding isn't just knowledge (and how we can teach it) → christianmooreanderson.com/understandin...

I second Bernard

Well described thoughts on the use of the term ‘lethal mutation’.

Learning is constructed. Do with that what you will, but know that learning is constructed.

Great way of seeing a useful difference between knowledge and understanding.

On knowing how to play a song... open.substack.com/pub/bernarda...

Knowledge is constructed 😃

Learning is a positive feedback loop. Learning always leads to an increase in the potential to learn.

What a fantastic review of my book Teaching Meaning! Thank you :D