I wonder how cognitively challenged you are feeling right now. I am, in a good way. Creating a new professional development course is always exciting but also challenging, particularly one that is full of relevant content. Using NACE’s newly published research on cognitive challenge to develop the programme for the Creating Cognitively Challenging Classrooms (4Cs) course, my first thought was how I, alongside my brilliant colleague Laura March, could do justice to the integrity of the findings? There is much to share, so how do we capture the learning in three meaningful twilight sessions? I feel like Eddie Jones, the England rugby coach, picking his back row for the next match. He has so many brilliant players to choose from, so who does he leave out?

The starting point is going back to key messages from the research. What do we learn about cognitive challenge from the NACE Challenge Award schools acknowledged in the publication, and how can we share practical examples from these schools to inspire and inform practice elsewhere?

The first point is to define cognitive challenge. NACE uses this term in reference to “approaches to curriculum and pedagogy which optimise the engagement, learning and achievement of very able young people” so that they can “understand and form complex and abstract ideas and solve problems”.

So how is this made visible in the classroom? The NACE report identifies three key strands:

• Curriculum organisation and design,
• Design and management of cognitively challenging learning opportunities, and,
• Rich and extended talk and cognitive discourse.

These three key pillars underpin the 4Cs course, but in order to make it useful for teachers, we need to translate the theory into meaningful classroom experiences that teachers can recognise and implement. Taking these in turn…

It is vital that curriculum organisation is underpinned by the vision, values and ethos of the school. Schemes of work need to reflect this vision but also provide detail on what this means in practice for groups of pupils, including more able learners. Is the pitch designed to create challenge? If using a knowledge-based curriculum, how is this mapped out for more able learners who may be achieving beyond their year group peers?

Cognitively challenging learning opportunities need to be planned for in terms of task design and also the management of the class. This includes tasks designed to develop ‘grapple’, where learners have to work hard to find solutions. But it is also important for teachers to consider how pupils are grouped for learning, when mixed-ability teaching is effective, and when other systems may be more effective for more able learners. Whole-class teaching that teaches to the top can be effective, but how is this whole-class teaching modified for the exceptionally able pupil?

Rich and extended talk is a third pillar of the 4Cs programme, and can be developed through the quality of questioning. Teachers need to avoid an over-reliance on initiation-response-feedback that can limit deeper responses that generate new learning, not merely repetition of known facts (Alexander, 2000). Cognitive discourse prioritises explanatory, exploratory and cumulative talk and can, for example, be encouraged through the use of visualisers as a hook to support meaningful talk.

In considering these three pillars of cognitive challenge in the classroom, attention needs to be paid to other current educational research in relation to more able learners. For instance, we need to ask questions about which elements of Rosenshine’s principles particularly apply to more able learners, and what role does direct instruction have for them? Just as we encourage our students to develop their own schema, we need to build our own schema as educators to make sense of new knowledge and perspectives. (For more on this, take a look at NACE’s new Lunch & Learn webinar series – exploring key areas of current educational theory and research, and their application for more able learners.)

 

While the principles of cognitive challenge in the classroom apply across all phases, the practical examples are often better understood through a more phase-specific focus, supporting teachers to develop their theoretical understanding of cognitively challenging classrooms and also extend their repertoire of teaching techniques in order to achieve this. For this reason, we have developed the 4Cs course with dedicated primary and secondary strands.

 

So much to consider and so much to explore. We are calling this the 4Cs course and of course, we foresee it being great!

Running in the spring term 2021, the Creating Cognitively Challenging Classrooms course is a series of three online twilight sessions, with dedicated strands for primary and secondary practitioners. The course will explore key themes from NACE’s research on cognitive challenge, with a practical focus and gap tasks between sessions to support delegates in applying the course content in their own school context. For those unable to join the live sessions, the recordings can be purchased instead. Full course details and booking. 

• Lowe, H. and McCarthy, A. (2020) Making space for able learners – Cognitive challenge: principles into practice. NACE.
• Alexander, R. (2000) Culture and pedagogy: international comparisons in primary education. Oxford: Blackwell.
• McCarthy, A. (2020) 3 key ingredients for cognitive challenge. NACE blog.