What are the Four Principles of How People Learn (HPL)?

From Teaching for Effective Learning, the four principles of How People Learn are: 

1. Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world works.  

2. To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, understand fact and ideas in the contextt of a conceptual framework and organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.

3. A metacognitive approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them.

4. Learning is fundamentally interpersonal, often occurring in and through social interactions.

Why is Planning with The Four Principles of How People Learn Important?

Research demonstrates that planning learning activities that intentionally incorporate the four principles of How People Learn increases the effectiveness of the learning activities.  Designing lessons using The Four Principles of How People Learn from NISL (National Institute for School Leadership) is important for student learning because it ensures that lessons are engaging and relevant, activating prior knowledge and fostering connections between new information and existing understanding. By incorporating strategies that promote deeper understanding, such as providing opportunities for practice and feedback, it enhances retention and transfer of knowledge, ultimately leading to more effective learning outcomes for students.

What are some steps to implementing The Four Principles of How People Learn?

1. Understanding the principles: Familiarize yourself with the four principles - prior knowledge, organization, metacognition, and interpersonal learning - and how they influence learning.

2. Identifying learning objectives: Clearly define the learning objectives for your lesson, ensuring they align with the principles and promote deeper understanding.

3. Activating prior knowledge: Begin the lesson by activating students' prior knowledge related to the topic to establish connections and provide a foundation for new learning.

4. Organizing content: Structure the lesson in a logical and coherent manner, breaking down complex concepts into manageable chunks and highlighting key ideas to aid comprehension. Consider providing students tools or strategies to organize new information as it is delivered to them

5. Incorporating practice and feedback: Design activities that provide opportunities for students to apply what they've learned and receive constructive feedback to support their learning process.

6. Promoting metacognition: Engage students in activities that promote reflecting about their learning and understanding of new content, as well as about how they are able to learn

7. Incorporate opportunities for interpersonal learning: Use structured and intentional moments throughout the lesson to provide students opportunities to share and discuss about the learning.  Consider providing sentence starters or sentence frames to support students in using academic discourse during interpersonal learning opportunities.

8. Assessing understanding: Use formative assessment techniques throughout the lesson to gauge student understanding and adjust instruction as needed to address misconceptions or gaps in learning.

9. Reflecting and iterating: After the lesson, reflect on what worked well and areas for improvement based on student engagement and learning outcomes, and make adjustments accordingly for future lessons.