AAA+: The Hesscairn Guide to Teaching for Understanding - How To Teach Big Ideas

A companion to The Hesscairn Guide to Learning by Stuart MacFarlane MacAlpine

Most teachers already know the feeling. You've planned carefully, taught it well and still, for too many students, the learning hasn't really landed. They remember the task, but they forget the thinking.

AAA+ is written for that moment. It offers a clear, practical model for teaching in a way that helps students not just receive ideas, but form them, own them and carry them into new situations. Stuart MacAlpine is one of the most influential thinkers and practitioners in education today – a genuine innovator whose work spans leading international schools, national curriculum reform, the LEGO Foundation's Centre for Playful Learning and the design of the world's first high school diploma for refugees. AAA+ distils that experience into a model every educator can use.

At its heart are four design questions:

• Awareness – What concepts will capture and hold learners' attentions?
• Abstraction – How will learners connect those concepts and build big ideas?
• Application – How will learners test and transfer those ideas in new contexts?
• + Deliberate Practice – How will learners build the fluency and precision that makes learning durable?
  

The fundamentals are straightforward. The impact is not. Teachers who work with AAA+ often describe a shift: their students begin to think like learners, not just performers. Big ideas don't just enter the classroom, they leave with the student.

Reach further. Teach deeper. Go beyond and make an impact that truly lasts. It starts here.