SESSION 3A

Mark Rooney
The Curse of Knowledge

Abstract
‘Once you know something, it becomes impossible to imagine what it’s like not to know it.’ The curse of knowledge is a simple but insidious cognitive bias that runs rampant throughout our staff rooms and classrooms, leading to vague instruction and imprecise understanding. This session will define how this bias manifests itself in our everyday lives, then we will explore how it can cause particular problems in our professional lives. The final part of the session will present five strategies that should help us overcome the curse of knowledge, giving rise to clearer communication between managers, teachers and students.

Bio
Mark Rooney has worked as an ESL teacher for twelve years. He has Cambridge CELTA and DELTA qualifications. He has taught English in Ireland, England, Spain, Japan and Australia. He moved to Australia in 2009 and has worked at various language schools in Melbourne. He began working at Monash College English language Centre (MUELC) in 2014. His current role is teacher developer, which involves mentoring and training current Monash teachers, as well as delivering external teacher training programs including the CELTA.