Positive Education focuses on specific skills that assist students to strengthen their relationships, build positive emotions, enhance personal resilience, promote mindfulness and encourage a healthy lifestyle.

Rousseau was the least academic of modern philosophers and in many ways was the most influential. His thought marked the end of the European Enlightenment (the “Age of Reason”). He propelled political and ethical thinking into new channels. His reforms revolutionized taste, first in music, then in the other arts.

influential work of political philosophy, The Social Contract (1762), Rousseau asserts that democracy is incompatible with representative institutions, a position that renders it all but irrelevant to nation-states (see state). The sovereignty of the people, he argues, can be neither alienated nor represented.

Positive psychology interventions include decision-making, coping skills, problem-solving skills, relaxation and creative brainstorming. Using these in positive education improves mental health and life satisfaction, reduces depression and anxiety and improves academic success and creative thinking.

Visible Learning means an enhanced role for teachers as they become evaluators of their own teaching. According to John Hattie Visible Learning and Teaching occurs when teachers see learning through the eyes of students and help them become their own teachers.

Mills. These different learning styles—visual, auditory, reading/writing and kinesthetic—were identified after thousands of hours of classroom observation.

One study has shown that, on average, we have roughly the same preference for three learning channels:

• 37% of learning is haptic or kinesthetic, through moving, touching and doing.
• 29% of learning is visual, through pictures and images.
• 34% of learning is auditory, through sounds and words.

We use evidence based best practices (pedagogy) to support every student’s learning more effectively. WALT and WILF is a tool we use in our classrooms to encourage students to be more actively involved in their learning.

Top Qualities of an Effective Teacher

• Positive. Keep your students engaged with a positive attitude.
• Prepared. You should know the course material.
• Organized. Have a plan for what you want to teach.
• Clear. Effective teachers can explain complex ideas in simple ways.
• Active. Keep your students thinking.
• Patient.
• Fair.
• Technology Tip.

WALT is the teacher’s lesson objective written in student-friendly language. – WILF stands for “What I Am Looking For?” and describes the success criteria, concepts to focus on, learning outcomes and the focus of assessment.

Hattie (2015) claims that “the greatest influence on student progression in learning is having highly expert, inspired and passionate teachers and school leaders working together to maximize the effect of their teaching on all students in their care” (p.

Research has shown that the top four factors that impact student achievement are: classroom management, teaching for learning, home and parent involvement, and believing that all students can learn.

Hattie states that an effect size of d=0.2 may be judged to have a small effect, d=0.4 a medium effect and d=0.6 a large effect on outcomes. He defines d=0.4 to be the hinge point, an effect size at which an initiative can be said to be having a ‘greater than average influence’ on achievement.

What impacts learning? When asked what impacts learning the most, Professor John Hattie said that teachers were the primary factor influencing student achievement. Hattie expanded, arguing that student engagement is a positive result of teacher effectiveness.

10 Instructional Strategies Examples

• Microlearning.
• Spaced Repetition.
• Interactivity.
• Gamification.
• Leaderboards.
• Peer Learning.
• Mobile Learning.
• Just in Time training (JITT)

7 Important Factors that May Affect the Learning Process

• Intellectual factor: The term refers to the individual mental level.
• Learning factors:
• Physical factors:
• Mental factors:
• Emotional and social factors:
• Teacher’s Personality:
• Environmental factor:

10 Best Practices of Highly Effective Teachers

• Provide frequent and timely feedback.
• Value parental/familial involvement.
• Sidestep the comfort zone.
• Offer second chances/clean slates.
• Be resourceful.
• Make learning active.
• Be an advocate.
• Pursue lifelong learning.

Consider the five categories of instructional strategies (direct, indirect, experiential, independent and interactive).