Making Learning Happen: A Guide for Post-Compulsory Education

Making Learning Happen provides an accessible and practical discussion of teaching and learning for the post-compulsory sector of higher and further education. Much of the existing educational literature on `learning' is written in language which makes it inaccessible to the people most directly involved in learning: learners and their teachers. This book avoids the unnecessary jargon and elitist language which has too often hitherto hindered teachers and learners alike in thinking about how best to make learning happen.

This book will help staff in higher and further education increase the `learning payoff' which their students derive from a wide range of educational contexts, at all levels in post-compulsory education.

The book is centered around Phil Race's well-known `ripples on a pond' model of learning, which has identified five fundamental factors underpinning successful learning:

• wanting' to learn
• needing' to learn
• learning by doing'
• feedback'
• digesting - making sense of what has been learned'.

This text will allow teachers and students to address these factors head-on in a wide range of contexts, including large-group teaching, small-group work, online learning, and in their use of formative feedback to help their students.

Included in the book is a self-analysis questionnaire to enable learners to reflect on how these factors contribute to their own approaches to learning.

This second edition of the popular text provides an accessible and practical discussion of teaching and learning for the post-compulsory sector of higher and further education. Central to the book is the author's well-known 'ripples on a pond' model of learning, which identifies seven fundamental factors underpinning successful learning:

Wanting to learn

taking ownership of the need to learn

learning by doing

learning through feedback

making sense of what is being learned

deepening learning through explaining, coaching and teaching

further deepening learning through assessing - making informed judgements

Making Learning Happen encourages teachers and students to address these factors head-on in a wide range of contexts, including large-group teaching, the design of assessment, small group work, reflection, and in making good use of formative feedback.

As well as a thorough update based on feedback on the previous version, this edition addresses issues arising from feedback from students in the National Student Survey in the UK, and tactics for maintaining and improving the quality of student learning in the context of the present recession. There are also three new chapters:

'designing the curriculum for learning'

'what can I do when…?'providing creative tactics to address common problems colleagues experience

'reflective observation', addressing peer observation and self reflection

The book is a helpful tool for lecturers and tutors in universities and colleges, post-16 teachers in secondary education, and educational managers. It also provides a valuable resource for postgraduate students on higher and further education courses and staff development courses.

Phil Race leads highly interactive workshops on assessment, learning and teaching in higher education. His passion is about ‘making learning happen’, in an approachable way, without recourse to jargon, acronyms or elitism. He is the author of the ‘ripples on a pond’ way of thinking about seven factors underpinning successful learning.

Phil started as a scientist, but gradually became an educational developer. He completely failed to retire from the University of Glamorgan in 1995, and again from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2009, and continues to travel the country giving interactive conference keynotes, and running workshops for teaching staff.

His work was recognised in 2007 by the Higher Education Academy awarding him a National Teaching Fellowship, and the status of ‘Senior Fellow’ of the Academy. In 2010 he was awarded the honour of ‘European Educator of the Year’ by Euro Chrie, at a ceremony in Amsterdam