Professor John Hattie is Director of the Melbourne Educational Research Institute at The University of Melbourne, and theme leader of Promoting Learning at the SLRC.
He has devised the “Visible Learning” model of teaching and learning, which is formed around the notion that how teachers understand their impact is the most important factor in effective teaching.
“We know a tremendous amount about how teaching can be effective, but doing more of what we now know is not good enough,” Professor Hattie said.
“We need to look closely at the notion of learning and find ways to teach those who do not profit from our present methods,” he said.
During the first year of the SLRC, Professor Hattie and team completed a meta-synthesis of effective learning strategies, which has opened up a new direction for thinking about how to promote learning.
The research team is also working on understanding how to translate the findings to positive consequential actions by the teachers.
Like many involved in the SLRC, Professor Hattie has engrossed himself in the Centre’s cross-disciplinary approach, combining education with psychology and neuroscience.
“I have surrounded myself in my team with a mix of these people and it is fun to come to work with them,” he said.
“I see the bounce of ideas as the neuros think differently, have different units of analyses they work with, see connections differently and this is the fun of learning.
“I am not there yet but enjoying the pursuit of learning other disciplines and how they think.”
Professor Hattie hopes the SLRC can successfully combine these areas and make a major contribution to educational outcomes.
“To devise a narrative that conjoins the major findings from the three areas would be exciting – as this would more likely determine the research agenda of this combined Science of Learning field more than anything else.”
