The 4CTL Learning Disposition Wheel

What is the Learning Disposition Wheel?

 The Learning Disposition Wheel is a coherence maker or schema that identifies the dispositions needed for learners to develop a sense of agency and wellbeing. It is underpinned by the belief that learner capacity is not fixed, and that these essential capacities can be learnt when taught in the right way, both explicitly and implicitly.

The Wheel is used by many schools, early childhood centres, tertiary institutions and educational leaders as a tool to transform learning, pedagogy and learners, enabling deeper learning through its use as a diagnostic, feedback, reporting and evaluation tool through which teachers can deeply notice and analyse the strengths and yet-to-be strengths of learners. This then shapes pedagogy and curriculum learning design. The Wheel provides a common language across schools, organisations, and communities to talk about learning, learners, agency building, personal and collective challenges and much, much more.

The are the dispositions for learning?

The nine dispositions are categorised into three domains - The Cognitive Dispositions (Think why and how; Make and express meaning; Build new ideas), The Interpersonal Dispositions (Influence; Empathy; Teamwork) and The Intrapersonal Dispositions (Focus; Grit; Curiosity).

How was the learning disposition wheel developed?

The National Research Council (NRC) 2012 report Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century used a substantial research base to identify three broad domains for deeper learning capacity.

The three domains are:

The cognitive - the capacity to think and reason
The intrapersonal - the capacity to self-regulate emotions and behaviours
The interpersonal - the capacity to relate to others.

The NRC report used a classification scheme to describe and align human competencies with these domains and argue that these competencies can be taught and learnt.

Research in Self-Determination Theory also informs our understanding of the Learning Disposition Wheel. This theory of motivation explains how competence, autonomy and relatedness are three basic psychological needs that support the development of agency, well-being and positive learning outcomes.

From this research, 4C Transformative Learning developed a metalanguage for the Wheel, in consultation with education leaders, teachers, students and parents.

Why use the learning disposition wheel in your classroom?

When students are given the language and understanding of the learning dispositions, they begin to build metacognition of themselves as learners. They are more able to identify where they have strengths and not-yet-strengths as a learner, which in turn gives teachers the opportunity to engage learning design that builds student capacity in the dispositions.

Students develop a language around their not-yet-strengths, allowing them to better recognise when they need to ask for help, and giving them the language to articulate the help they need. This is useful across all the K-12 age groups, and has been shown to assist in improved learning, self regulation, agency, improved behaviour choices, classroom management and more.

Examples of the use of the Learning Disposition Wheel in schools

Learn more about the learning disposition wheel

We’ve written in depth about the learning disposition wheel in our books (you can find those here) or feel free to contact us if you have questions about how the wheel might be useful in your context.

Vinyl Learning Disposition Wheels are available for purchase from us.