Recently, Vicky Leighton and I talked with Professor Mark McDaniel (Washington University in St Louis). He has an extensive research background and co-authored the best selling Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning book. In addition to Mark’s expertise as one of our Critical Friends, we are working collaboratively on translating his (and his colleagues Gil Einstein’s) Knowledge, Beliefs, Commitment and Planning (KBCP) framework as our training model. The framework addresses why students (or any individual) sometimes need to translate a taught strategy or technique, even if it leads to improvement beyond initial exposure.
The KBCP framework guides our students and teaches strategy training continuum through its focus on students’ successful self-regulation of effective learning strategies. The KBCP framework rests on the assumption that four essential components must be included in any training to support sustained strategy self-regulation: (a) acquiring knowledge about strategies, (b) belief that the strategy works, (c) commitment to using the strategy, and (d) planning of strategy implementation. Integrating the KBCP training framework into the A Learner’s Toolkit program will aid in unpacking what motivates students to persist or change when presented with more efficient and effective strategies. The aim is to present a new understanding of the individual relationship between student disposition and context and their study behaviours and strategies. By understanding this relationship at the secondary schooling level, the field will be better informed on proactively training students to be lifelong learners. It aims to equip them with those behaviours and strategies that will allow them to be more resilient through those periods of academic difficulty and circumvent those incidences of failure that contribute to them leaving their educational path.
