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The Learning Pit for Teachers

The Learning Pit is used by thousands of pre-K-12 teachers around the world. Created by James Nottingham to help his students articulate their learning journey, it is now one of the most popular illustrations of learning to have emerged in the last twenty years. Indeed, an online search will give you millions of references.

We strongly encourage you to read about the concept before introducing it to your students. It is a delightfully simply model to use with young people but nonetheless, has a set of values and underlying principles that should be understood if you are to use it with fidelity.

If you are new to the concept, then please start with the introductory page.

If you are already familiar with the Learning Pit, then this page gives you additional resources.

Book Samples to Download

Here are extracts from some of James Nottingham’s books that you are welcome to download. The first two introduce the Learning Pit (in English on the left and Spanish on the right). The second two resources give lesson ideas for guiding your students through the Learning Pit. If you wish to buy any of these books, then click on the images for more information.

Introduction – English
(Nottingham, 2020)

Introduction – Spanish
(Nottingham, 2020)

Lesson Ideas
(Nottingham, 2017)

Lesson Ideas
(Nottingham, 2010)

Activity Cards

The Learning Pit Lesson Plan books each have 20 lesson plans and associated activity cards. To save you photocopying the activity cards, we have provided PDFs of them all here. Used in conjunction with the books, you will have a myriad of fabulous lesson resources and teaching guides to help take your students through the Learning Pit.

Activity Cards

The books shown above each have 20 lesson plans and associated activity cards. To save you photocopying the activity cards, we have provided PDFs of them all here. Used in conjunction with the books, you will have a myriad of fabulous lesson resources and teaching guides to help take your students through the Learning Pit.

JAMES NOTTINGHAM

Consultant, Author, Keynote Speaker

This site represents two tradenames:

THE LEARNING PIT®

This trademark is held by James Nottingham (reg. No. 6.381.157) Uses of the Learning Pit for educational and not-for-profit purposes are usually permitted when seeking permission via this site.

CHALLENGING LEARNING

This is the name of the group of companies founded by James Nottingham (full details shown on the Contact Us page). It is also the name of his first book.

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