Pedagogy › ITE Modules › How Students Learn
How Students Learn
Vygotsky · Piaget · Graham Nuthall · Cognitive Load · Prior Knowledge
The question “how do students learn?” has a better-evidenced answer than most teachers realise. Social constructivism, Nuthall’s hidden lives research, and cognitive load theory collectively tell us that learning is deeply social, highly dependent on prior knowledge, and largely invisible to teachers. This module builds the conceptual foundation for all other ITE modules.
“What a child can do in cooperation today he can do alone tomorrow.”— Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society (1978)
🧠 Core Concepts in Learning Science
The gap between what a learner can do alone and with expert support. Teaching in the ZPD produces growth; outside it produces frustration or boredom.
Temporary, targeted support that enables a learner to achieve beyond their current independent capability. Not rescue — strategic, withdrawable assistance.
New information is integrated into existing mental schemas (assimilation) or forces restructuring of schemas (accommodation). Prior knowledge shapes everything.
Working memory is limited. When instructional design exceeds cognitive capacity, learning fails. Reducing extraneous load frees capacity for genuine learning.
Learning is never solitary — it is mediated by cultural tools, language, and other people. The social is not separate from the cognitive; it IS the cognitive.
Students need at least three complete, different exposures to a concept on different days for it to move into long-term memory. Most lessons provide one.
🔍 Nuthall's Six Uncomfortable Findings
Graham Nuthall’s (2007) research — the most rigorous classroom observation study ever done in New Zealand — produced findings that destabilise many teacher assumptions:
- Teachers systematically misread who is learning. The students who appear most engaged are often not learning most. The quieter students frequently are.
- Students learn mostly from each other, not from teachers. Over 70% of the feedback students receive in a typical classroom comes from peers, not the teacher — and much of it is wrong.
- The same lesson teaches different things to different students, depending entirely on their prior knowledge. There is no single “what we covered today.”
- Most of what teachers say is ignored. Students process what is repeated, relevant to their existing knowledge, and socially endorsed by peers — not what the teacher considers important.
- Students live in three simultaneous worlds — the public teacher-managed classroom, the semi-private peer world, and the private cognitive world. Teachers can only observe the first.
- Prior knowledge is the most powerful variable. What students already know determines what new information they can assimilate. Background knowledge gaps are learning gaps.
🌿 Aotearoa Context: Ako and Reciprocal Learning
The Māori concept of ako — meaning both to learn and to teach — aligns with the social constructivist insight that learning is inherently reciprocal. In ako, the teacher is not the sole knowledge-holder; knowledge flows between all participants in the learning relationship.
This has direct implications for classroom design. Whānau knowledge — the knowledge students bring from their homes, communities, and cultural backgrounds — is not supplementary; it is prior knowledge in the most academically important sense. Bishop and Berryman’s (2006) Effective Teaching Profile requires teachers to explicitly incorporate and value this knowledge as a learning resource, not treat it as cultural decoration.
📚 References
- Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The development of higher psychological processes.
Harvard University Press.
🎓 Google Scholar ↗ - Nuthall, G. (2007). The Hidden Lives of Learners. NZCER Press.
🎓 Google Scholar ↗ - Piaget, J. (1952). The Origins of Intelligence in Children. International Universities
Press.
🎓 Google Scholar ↗ - Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving. Cognitive Science, 12(2),
257–285.
🎓 Google Scholar ↗
Mātauranga Māori Lens
Understanding how students learn through mātauranga Māori means recognising that learning is fundamentally relational and embodied. Hauora (holistic wellbeing) — te taha tinana, hinengaro, wairua, and whānau — shapes how learners engage. Tikanga guides the classroom conditions that support deep learning: safety, respect, belonging, and reciprocal care (manaakitanga).