Tired of telling students to ask questions and to think about what they were doing, Damien Hynes, a high school geography teacher in Australia, decided to do an experiment to test what he had long been thinking.He wrote some well-organized nonsense (something untrue) on the blackboard.The students simply copied it but very few asked any questions.This shows that students are willing to believe anything given by teachers.The story is repeated in support of the Project for Enhancing Effective Learning (PEEL). PEEL was carried out by some teachers and researchers in Melbourne who had concluded that normal teaching methods seldom achieve their intended goals; what the teachers think they are teaching is one thing and what the students actually learn is something else.Students' lack of an over-all view of learning goals and their concentration on test scores make them see each lesson as a separate activity. Researchers realized that many students do not come into class empty-headed but have their own explanations of how the world works.Their own ideas can remain important to them even when they differ from scientific explanations that are learned later.In fact such ideas are hardly affected by traditional teaching.Students accept the teacher's scientific explanation, but do not drop their own.They simply keep both and use them practically: in a class test, they copy the teacher's idea, but in real life they use their own. Clearly what was needed was to make students understand their learning process , and this is what the PEEL teachers set out to deal with.On the surface,  a class being taught by PEEL methods only differs from an ordinary class in being a little noisier, because more people are talking.But there are some meaningful changes.Students are given much more time to express their views, and teachers don't make immediate judgment.The students are allowed to guide what is done in class and their own ideas are always respected.This draws their attention to the actual learning process, and they become responsible for their own progress. Why did some teachers and researchers carry out PEEL?
To ensure teachers do scientific work. To help students get higher test scores. To find the differences between what is taught and learnt. To help normal teaching methods achieve their goals.