Question: There are different resources and ideas regarding learning about learning or thinking skills, e.g. The 16 habits of mind. Do these have scientific evidence to support them and if so, is one better than another? Being a teacher in a classroom, it can often feel like a number of these theories can come and go and are sometimes discredited as soon as they are adopted by the school.

Anna Simmonds answered on 15 Apr 2015:

Meta-cognition, or ‘learning to learn’, can be incorporated in the classroom through helping pupils to think more explicitly about their own learning. The Educational Endowment Foundation (EEF) has examined the evidence for this and found that there are high levels of impact, with pupils making an average of eight months’ additional progress, with particular impact for low achieving and older pupils. However, such approaches do require careful implementation as pupils need to take greater responsibility for their learning. Overall, the EEF found high impact for low cost, based on extensive evidence: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit/toolkit-a-z/meta-cognitive-and-self-regulation-strategies/