The Learning Challenge: How to Guide Your Students Through the Learning Pit to Achieve Deeper Understanding

by James A. Nottingham

Embrace challenge and celebrate eureka!

Challenge makes learning more interesting. That's one of the reasons to encourage your students to dive into the learning pit--a state of cognitive conflict that forces students to think more deeply, critically, and strategically until they discover their "eureka!" moment. Nottingham, an internationally known author and consultant, will show you how to promote challenge, dialogue, and a growth mindset

Practical strategies that guide students through the four stages of the Learning Challenge Engaging lesson plan ideas and classroom activities Inspiring examples from Learning Challenges across the world If you and your students focus on grades alone then rich learning opportunities might be missed along the way. A more rigorous and exploratory path to learning leads to a deeper understanding of concepts. When students experience The Learning Challenge, learning lasts for a lifetime.

"Nottingham shows us how to use generative concepts as focal points for engaging deep student thinking and discourse. His visual model of ′pits and peaks′ helps us realize that cooperatively grappling with cognitive conflicts in the pit is necessary to eventually reach new peaks of understanding. Nottingham provides a wealth of strategies, tools and examples to aid the teacher. The vast array of questions to stimulate student thinking is second to none."
H. Lynn Erickson, Educational Consultant
Author, Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom, 2nd ed.

"Nottingham has provided a clear, concise, and research-based approach to creating cognitively challenging classrooms that captivate, activate, and invigorate learners. This book takes every reader through the learning pit, challenging their prior beliefs, and leads them to construct and consider an innovative way to promote stronger and deeper learning for their students."
John Almarode, Professor of Education & Co-Director of the Center for STEM Education and Outreach
James Madison University, College of Education, Harrisonburg VA

Genres: Education, Professional Development, Nonfiction

394 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 17, 2017

Reviews

[Tamara Reddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Attending James Nottingham’s workshop on The Learning Pit, I was quite intrigued on the concept of challenge and decided to get a deeper understanding of his concept. The book is a great introduction to challenging your learners thinking and developing a growth mindset within your classroom.

[Lars · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started reading this book expecting or perhaps hoping that this book would provide me with new insight into the learning process of children. What I got was a completely new didactic approach with the goal of challenging the way children think and how they approach their own way of learning. Frankly, to me the whole approach seems a bit esoteric. I don't know if the learning challenge has a place in my classroom. But I'm curious to find out.

[Sheri Bettis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book put into words and concepts exactly how I have felt about teaching. Learning from struggles, failures, and peers will always teach us far more. As a result of reading this book and attending a PD with the author, I have a student painting the Learning Pit mural on my classroom whiteboard! It gives strategies and words to techniques both teachers and students can understand and relate to! This is a must have for any educator!

[Ronda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this as part of a summertime professional development. The first few chapters gave me as lot to think about, but by the last few chapters so much of the "new" terminology seemed to be just new names for other concepts. That isn't bad, just seemed like it was, in some ways, reinventing the wheel.