Are you the kind of teacher that lights up children’s faces when you walk into the classroom? Or are you the kind of teacher that, on leaving the classroom, children’s faces light up!

Why the distinction? There is an old Snoopy cartoon where Charlie Brown says that he has taught his dog to whistle. When asked to demonstrate this he replies that the dog hasn’t learned yet. Although I often see a lot of teaching taking place, I don’t always see the accompanying learning! I have seen some great, entertaining lessons where the children have been occupied and have found whatever they have been doing quite interesting, but when I ask them what they are learning they haven’t got a clue.

In D&T one of the unique features is that children learn by doing, through taking action. However, if you just have the doing – without the learning – then you have merely a sweatshop mentality of ‘making things’.

So, pupils might be making X,Y or Z, but what are they learning? Often this isn’t sufficiently clear, and the pupils are expected to absorb the learning through a process of osmosis. If they do learn in this way, it can often not be what the teacher had intended.

Good learning has to be planned, constructed, signalled, scaffolded and signposted; without this we are merely occupying the middle ground between therapeutic basket-weaving and the exploitative child labor found in poorer countries.

Teaching and learning through doing and taking action offers a unique and powerful experience, but only if the ratios between the doing and the learning are appropriately balanced. Therefore next time you plan a learning activity (lesson), divide a page lengthways into two columns representing a third and two thirds of the width. The narrower column represents the teaching column and the wider column is the pupil learning column. Begin by completing, in detail, the learning column. Then afterwards complete the teaching column in less detail, asking yourself what is the best way to teach the learning that you have identified. You will be surprised at the difference this makes to your lessons!

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