New Kinds of Smart

Classrooms as communities of learners, where the spotlight is on learning (rather than on, say, teaching). There is likely to be an emphasis on students generating their own questions, high levels of interaction between students and good levels of engagement.

The way we find, make and use tools to expand our ability to get interesting things done is so amazing, and so ubiquitous, that it has often been proposed as one of the defining characteristics of the human species (though some other animals do use tools in a rudimentary way as well). Homo sapiens is unique in its propensity to create and adopt ‘mi

Some primary schools occasionally involve children in extended periods of this kind of ‘manic creativity’, in which, for a few days, the normal curriculum is temporarily replaced by a frenzy of arts-based activity – composing, rehearsing, painting and cutting out – that culminates in an enthusiastically-received presentation to parents and others o

Ericsson, A., Krampe, R. and Tesch-Romer, C. (1993) The role of deliberate practice in the

For a recent fuller analysis of this, see Lucas, B. and Claxton, G. (2009) Wider skills for learning; what are they, how can they be cultivated, how could they be measured and why are they important for innovation? Paper for the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, London. Available at: http://www.nesta.org.uk/ wider-skills-for-

The design of an education system has to reflect many assumptions – about the future, about what ‘fulfilment’ means, about family life – many of which are contested. No wonder education is so contentious. Changing views of developing young minds But there is another set of assumptions on which education rests that is not to do with society, but to

Einstein, A. (1973) Ideas and Opinions. London: Souvenir Press.

Reflective intelligence is especially important, says Perkins, ‘in situations that require breaking set ways, unseating old assumptions, and exploring new ones’15. Standing back and invoking their mental control systems at a higher level is what strategically intelligent people do when they are gnawing away at intellectually demanding or emotionall

7 Bandura, A. (1997) Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.

Robert Sternberg writes about successful intelligence,9 which he considers to be a composite of academic or analytical intelligence, creative intelligence and practical intelligence. Analytical intelligence refers to the ability to solve