My Diminishing Returns

  I am moving to a new exam specification next year for A-Level economics which has more extended writing questions where pupils problem-solve rather than shorter factual questions (which there were more of in the EdExcel spec). Following on from an excellent chapter on novices not being mini-experts in ‘How Learning Happens’ I have just read David Didau’s ‘Making Kids Cleverer’ where he talks about this in depth. Aside from the points about the need for pupils to have a deep schema of knowledge that they can easily recall enabling them to effectively problem solve, I found the notion of different types of knowledge especially useful. Declarative Knowledge What I found particularly useful is the distinction between declarative and procedural knowledge. Declarative knowledge would be the ‘things’ I want pupils to know. If I wan pupils to be able to eventually solve problems about when governments should intervene in a market by imposing an indirect tax the declarative knowle...