Grounding practice in evidence: What AERO’s “Teaching how students learn” offers the ECEC sector

In an increasingly complex educational landscape, aligning pedagogy with how children learn is no longer optional, it is foundational. The Australian Education Research Organisation’s (AERO) Teaching for how students learn: A model of learning and teaching offers a rigorous, research‑informed framework designed to bridge the gap between theory and classroom (or service room) practice. 

While primarily developed with school settings in mind, its principles are highly relevant for early childhood educators, leaders and policy makers seeking to integrate deeper learning, sustained engagement and reflective practice into their work.

The core of the model: four interlocking elements

AERO structures its model around four mutually dependent domains, each grounded in cognitive science and decades of learning research. 

1. Planning
   Teaching begins with purposeful design: defining the knowledge children will acquire, “chunking” content, sequencing instruction and planning assessment in alignment with those knowledge goals. 
2. Managing cognitive load / Instruction
   The model recognises that learners can process only limited amounts of new information at once. Educators should scaffold, explain learning intentions, monitor progress, and adjust support depending on individual needs. 
3. Retention, consolidation and application
   Learning must stick. This domain emphasises revisiting, retrieving, varying practice, and providing opportunities for children to apply and generalise their knowledge. 
4. Engagement / Learning-focused environment
   Encapsulating the other three, this domain recognises that safety, belonging, relationships, routines, respectful interaction, and self-regulation foster the sustained attention needed for learning. 

AERO posits that learning is a change in long-term memory, and that teaching practices should align with this mechanism.

What this means for early childhood settings

While AERO’s model is school‑oriented, several elements resonate strongly with early childhood pedagogy. Thoughtful adaptation can help educators in ECEC re-express principles in age‑appropriate ways.

Planning in ECEC

• Even with infants and toddlers, educators can clarify intentional learning pathways, what dispositions, language, social understandings or problem-solving capacities we hope children will build over time.
• Sequencing and scaffolding remain relevant: new ideas or provocations should build on existing play, relationships or emergent understandings.
• Assessment need not be formal but ongoing observation, documentation and reflection can act as formative “checkpoints” aligned with learning intentions.

Cognitive load, scaffolding and support

• Young children have limited working memory. Presentation of new ideas should be gradual, interwoven with familiar routines or environments.
• Scaffolding (modeling, gestures, scaffolding talk) is already a staple in high-quality ECEC practice; this model reinforces its disciplined, responsive use.
• Monitoring learning in early years may rely more on narrative observation and noticing “micro-shifts” in children’s behaviour, language or exploration.

Retention, consolidation & application through play

• Because play is central in early childhood, revisiting concepts through playful provocations, revisits to interest areas, storytelling or extension experiences mirrors the consolidation and application domain.
• Variation matters: offering a concept in multiple contexts (blocks, art, movement, sand) supports transfer and deeper understanding.

Engagement and environment as foundation

• A supportive, trusting environment is non-negotiable,  especially with very young children. Relationships, responsive transitions, emotionally safe spaces, and belonging underpin attention and learning.
• Practices such as self-regulation scaffolding, predictable routines, respectful interactions reflect this domain and are already well aligned with ECEC best practice.

Strengths, cautions and areas for adaptation

Strengths

• The model offers a shared language and conceptual map for teachers and educators, useful for professional conversations, curriculum planning and leadership alignment.
• Emphasising evidence-based practice helps the sector resist fads and focus on strategies shown to support learning over time.
• Its scaffolding, retrieval and variation emphases support deeper, not superficial, learning.

Cautions & adaptation notes

• The model is school‑centric: many examples, structures and language assume formal classrooms and older children. Care is needed to adapt metaphor and structure for early childhood contexts.
• The notion of “knowledge” in early childhood is different: children learn dispositions, ways of being, inquiry habits and social understandings, not discrete “content” as in later schooling.
• Monitoring progress or mastery must be reinterpreted: not all learning will manifest as clear “correct/incorrect” outcomes.
• The pace of early years cannot be rushed: educators may need support and systemic permission to slow down, dwell in processes, and resist overstructuring.

Implications for leadership, professional learning and policy

• Leaders can use this model as a tool to align planning, observation, curriculum and professional learning under a cohesive framework.
• Professional learning programs might scaffold staff understanding of how learning works (e.g. memory, scaffolding, retrieval) before introducing new pedagogical practices.
• Policy and resourcing must account for time, reflection, coaching and flexibility, especially in ECEC settings which often face pressure to meet quotas, coverage or compliance demands.

AERO’s model offers a powerful “bridge” between what research tells us about how learning works and the decisions educators make every day. For the early childhood sector, it is not a plug‑and‑play template, but a stimulus: to revisit, reframe and strengthen practice with deeper understanding.

In embracing such a model  adapted thoughtfully and critically early learning leaders and educators can bolster the intellectual rigour of pedagogy, retain the relational heart of the work, and foster environments where children’s learning is sustained, meaningful and deeply supported.