In recent years there has been a keenness to consider how learning is achieved and to see whether it helps learners if they study specific learning techniques.

When you work on finding and then absorbing some information, maybe from the net or a book, you may feel, as many do, that you aren't a very good learner. Things don't make sense to you, even when you seem to work hard at them. Others find it sometimes easy (and sometimes not) to create their own understanding and meaning so that they feel they have made sense of something. How do you make sense of information? Do you prefer to read it, hear it, or work through something with someone else? If you need to remember this information or acquire a skill, how do you do so in order to be able to apply it to a related or new situation? You have learned some impressive things in your life, amongst them: how to talk and write your mother tongue, how to tie your shoe laces and tie a tie. All these are demanding tasks so you do have plenty of learning skills.

When you dip your toe in the water it might not be attractive to go further. How do you keep yourself going even though learning might be difficult for you at the time? What are your motivations to learn? How easily are you put off, looking for any kind of distraction? How do you learn best? Maybe you work well in a group:

Maybe you find it far easier to absorb information from the net, maybe in the form of a game or exercises where you can try to improve on a previous best performance. And maybe you realise you are a little different to other people and learn better through your own methods.

Professor David Hopkins, called learning to learn 'deep learning strategies' where knowledge, instruction and learning are inextricably bound together to create powerful learning experiences. The ideas of learning to learn are promoted nationally by Campaign for Learning, a charitable organisation which aims to stimulate learning that will involve people for life. In practice, for schools, it means adapting teaching strategies to not only convey facts, skills and understanding but also to consider and develop learning strategies as an entity of importance. Supporters of learning to learn propose that schools encourage students to focus on how they do their own learning. By doing so, it is argued, teaching will better help students develop the skills and attitudes required to adapt to an uncertain and fast changing future.

Two people in particular have worked to identify useful ways to help students learn to learn: Guy Claxton and Alistair Smith. Both have wanted to move on from the traditional learning aspects referred to as the 3Rs, claiming that these skills need augmenting for the 21st century - particularly with the ICT facilities that are available to access information very quickly and to communicate with others easily. Whilst not denying the importance of factual knowledge, they both claim that teaching that aims just to transmit knowledge will fail to adequately equip pupils for this era in which we live.

What makes a person a good learner? Can these skills be developed or are we stuck with whatever we are at the moment? Both Guy Claxton and Alistair Smith (amongst others) believe firmly that learning skills can be improved if they are worked on specifically. The belief is that by using learning to learn approaches students can achieve their core purpose, namely preparing themselves so that they can and will wish to and enjoy learning effectively throughout their lives.

What are the building blocks of such an approach? Guy Claxton identifies these five positive dispositions (adapted, maybe incorrectly):

Readiness:
You know how to be ready to set yourself goals and get going. You can:
. assess and work with your own drive and inclinations
. set small and larger goals to motivate your learning
. achieve a positive learning state, including the ways you prefer to learn
. use a learning to learn language to describe your states and work out ways to improve
. offer comments in a discussion and test out partially formed ideas
. collaborate and be a member of a team, developing ideas in a group
. work independently
. respond positively to criticism and not be afraid of making mistakes
. be attentive to what others are saying
. empathise with other points of view
. imitate what others do but add your own details
. actively experiment and test views
. see knowledge as being personal and self-created (to a large extent)

Resourcefulness:
You know how to be ready, willing and able to learn in different ways. You can:
. appreciate how the mind works, by sifting and storing information and how humans learn
. assess your own preferred ways of learning, including how to take in information
. seek out and use information, including using ICT efficiently
. communicate effectively and in different ways
. try out other ways of doing something
. ask questions
. be open minded about approaches that may or may not help
. be playful with possibilities, not just getting fixed on one idea
. be imaginative, thinking beyond initial and obvious responses
. make links between ideas, building theories
. make intuitive leaps and enjoy doing so

Resilience:
You know how to be ready, willing and able to lock on to learning. You can:
. overcome fear of ridicule, failure and making mistakes
. be cheerful about learning and know some approaches that generally help
. persist and persevere, even when the going seems tough
. recognise that you are stuck and steps to take to get unstuck
. review what you do and don't know and then ask sensible questions
. stick with difficulty and cope with any feelings of fear or frustration by simply plodding on
. follow your curiosity until you are fully satisfied
. be adventurous and endeavour, boldly going.
. be enterprising, trying out other ways and being determined to succeed
. be observant, noticing details, patterns and trends
. stay focused, avoiding distractions and returning to the issue
. not make your mind up too soon, wait until you have gained an overview

Remembering:
You know how to be ready to work on something until you remember it. You can:
. use different memorisation approaches, construct mind maps etc.
. make links and connections so that you have an overview
. apply skills, including in other contexts
. distil ideas so that they are easier to recall
. associate pictures with ideas
. chain ideas together
. relate smaller chunks of information to a central idea
. appreciate that repetition is the foundation of clarity

Reflectiveness:
You know how to be ready, willing and able to become more strategic about learning. You can:
. ask questions, observe, see patterns, experiment and evaluate learning
. become aware of your own strengths, weaknesses and preferences
. be clear-thinking, logical and methodical
. be thoughtful, considering other aspects and previous knowledge that met help
. know your own habits (positive and not so positive)
. have a strategy and be methodical/systematic
. take opportunities to explain thoughts or ask questions
. be self-evaluative, know how it is going and make corrections
. use a learning log or journal to aid reflections and actually learn from experience
. stop your activity, stand back for a while and then reengage

Alistair is well known in the country for his work on accelerating learning. He has developed a similar set of five skills to think about learning to learn. They are, being: Resilient, Resourceful, Responsive, Reasoning and Reflective. There is a complete set of resources that have been trialed in schools. These materials are add-on rather than built-in. The basic principles of L2 consist of:

Skills:

. how to ask really good questions (for you)
. how to find out facts
. taking notes to suit the task
. learning through feedback

Attributes:

. staying positive
. sticking at it
. knowing own strengths and weaknesses
. keeping friends and working well with others

Knowledge:

. choosing a learning lifestyle
. knowing what helps and hinders my learning
. meeting my desire to learn
. ways to make it happen

By considering these elements teachers and students can use a more sophisticated rubric to see where and how progress is being made. For some students, this might involve a focus on ways to curb initial responses to a problem or task; for others, it might involve overcoming fear to build confidence or assertiveness in a group discussion.

Lessons can be considered to be 'split-screen'. On one screen is the content or specific skills that is the focus of the lesson. On the other screen there are general learning skills they want their students to focus on, think about, stretch and develop.

In some schools students are provided with familiar assessments of their actual and predicted grades in each subject but they also get rated on their levels of resourcefulness, resilience, reflectiveness and learning relationships.

Allied to a focus on these aspects of developing learning skills are strategies that attempt to modify attitudes towards learning by ensuring that all students are clear about the purpose(s) and objectives of lessons and are provided with structured feedback. In terms of both ongoing and more formal assessment teachers are encouraged to be involved in dialogue, developing ideas with students rather than for them. By explaining grading and identifying misconceptions and mistakes, students have a sense of how their work can be improved. So they learn to become 'crew' rather than just 'passengers', and are able to take more control over their progress. As a result of this they have greater involvement in the development of ideas, and consequently greater engagement with these ideas.

Also importantly, messages there needs to be encouragement for the view that attainment is not fixed and that all students are able to develop. Methods of organising classroom tasks that involve worldly contexts and extended projects enable learners to apply and develop their skills, sometimes showing creativity.

. Intention to understand
. Active interest and personal engagement
. Relating ideas
. Gaining an overview
. Creating outlines and structures
. Questioning and using evidence critically
. Seeking the main point
. Drawing conclusions
. Seeing the purpose of a task or seeing it in a wider context

. There is an added dimension to all you do
. You are more purposeful in what you do
. You learn from your successes and mistakes
. You continue to improve your skills
. You can transfer knowledge from one experience to another
. You can share what you have learned
. You are more comfortable with change