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Why the ‘false growth mindset’ explains so much

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida In the same way that I learned nothing from listening to the polished performance of Ken Robinson at yesterday's Education Festival at Wellington College, I found myself surprised at just how challenging Carol Dweck's slightly awkward delivery and clunky slides turned out to be. And to think I nearly didn't bother staying. After reading Self Theories and Mindset I thought I knew as much about Dweck's theories as anyone could ever reasonably want to know, but it turned out I was dead wrong. (A recurrent theme in my life!) [...]

2020-01-20T18:56:42+00:00June 20th, 2015|psychology|

Have you read the #WrongBook?

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken. – Oliver Cromwell My new book is finally out! In it I pose the question, what if everything you know about education is wrong? Just to be clear, I’m not saying you, or anyone else is wrong, I’m just asking you to consider the consequences of being wrong. What would you do if your most cherished beliefs turned out to be mistaken? You see, I think we’re wrong a lot more than we’d like to accept. We have all sorts of perceptual and cognitive biases that prevent us from recognising [...]

2015-06-24T14:54:50+01:00June 17th, 2015|Featured|

Should schools have to prepare for inspection?

Like everyone else who has witnessed Ofsted's attempts to clarify misconceptions and improve the inspection process over the last few years, I'm certain that those who led the organisation are genuinely well-intentioned and are actively seeking to do the best they can. The removal of individual lesson gradings was a triumph for common senses, and the attempts to learn from and engage with teachers to improve the system is entirely laudable. Without going into any specifics around Michael Wilshaw's latest round of announcements of what Ofsted will and won't be looking for, I feel genuinely confused about one point. Consultant and [...]

2015-06-16T23:55:35+01:00June 16th, 2015|Featured|

Examining my gender bias

Here I am…. You get the parts of me you like and also the parts that make you uncomfortable. You have to understand that other people’s comfort is no longer my job. I am no longer a flight attendant. Patricia Ireland In the first chapter of Intuition Pumps, the philosopher Daniel Dennett makes the point that making, acknowledging and exploring mistakes is "the key to making progress". In Dennett's view a good mistake is one that can "light the way for everybody". So, in that spirit I want to acknowledge and explore one of my recent mistakes. A few days ago, [...]

2015-06-16T22:16:20+01:00June 16th, 2015|blogging|

20 psychological principles for teachers #12 Goal setting

This is the last of four posts exploring what motivates students in my series examining the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education’s report on the Top 20 Principles From Psychology for Teaching and Learning. This time I turn my attention to Principle 12: “Setting goals that are short term (proximal), specific, and moderately challenging enhances motivation more than establishing goals that are long term (distal), general, and overly challenging.” Goal setting, we're told, is "important for motivation because students with a goal and adequate self-efficacy are likely to engage in the activities that lead to attainment of that goal. Self-efficacy is also increased as [...]

2017-05-06T21:40:57+01:00June 14th, 2015|psychology|

20 psychological principles for teachers #11 Expectations

This is the third of four posts exploring what motivates students in my series examining the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education’s report on the Top 20 Principles From Psychology for Teaching and Learning. This time I turn my attention to Principle 11: “Teachers’ expectations about their students affect students’ opportunities to learn, their motivation, and their learning outcomes.” It's no surprise that we usually experience what we expect to experience. You will, of course, be aware of the placebo effect – the phenomenon that a placebo triggers a psychological response, which in turn impacts on a patient’s health. Sometimes a patient’s symptoms may improve, but equally [...]

2015-06-13T11:17:39+01:00June 13th, 2015|psychology|

It's the bell curve, stupid!

Like an ultimate fact without any cause, the individual outcome of a measurement is, however, in general not comprehended by laws. This must necessarily be the case. Wolfgang Pauli A month or so back I met Professor Steve Higgins from Durham University's Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring. He presented at researchED's primary literacy conference in Leeds and what he had to say was revelatory. His talk was on the temptations and tension inherent in the EEF's Pupil Premium Toolkit. As most readers will know, the toolkit is a bit of a blunt instrument and presents interventions in terms of how many [...]

2015-06-10T12:20:07+01:00June 10th, 2015|research|

Fancy attending an English & maths conference?

I'm speaking at Optimus Education's English & Maths 2015: Effective Teaching Strategies to Meet New Accountabilities on Thursday 22nd October. The mathematicians amongst needn't worry; I'll only be inflicting my "inspirational keynote" to the English strand. If you're interested, this is what I'll be talking about: "Curriculum creativity: Enjoy your new-found freedom and develop a curriculum plan that successfully encourages breadth and depth of knowledge". There's lots of other great speakers lined up, but I'll be particularly looking forward to hearing the wisdom of Twitter's Andy Tharby (@atharby) and Chris Curtis (@xris31). The only reason I'm telling you all this is that if you're [...]

2015-06-10T10:06:42+01:00June 10th, 2015|Featured|

Fancy attending an English & maths conference?

I'm speaking at Optimus Education's English & Maths 2015: Effective Teaching Strategies to Meet New Accountabilities on Thursday 22nd October. The mathematicians amongst needn't worry; I'll only be inflicting my "inspirational keynote" to the English strand. If you're interested, this is what I'll be talking about: "Curriculum creativity: Enjoy your new-found freedom and develop a curriculum plan that successfully encourages breadth and depth of knowledge". There's lots of other great speakers lined up, but I'll be particularly looking forward to hearing the wisdom of Twitter's Andy Tharby (@atharby) and Chris Curtis (@xris31). The only reason I'm telling you all this is that if you're [...]

2015-06-10T10:36:32+01:00June 10th, 2015|Featured|

20 psychological principles for teachers #10 Mastery

This is the second of four posts exploring what motivates students and the tenth in my series examining the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education’s report on the Top 20 Principles From Psychology for Teaching and Learning . This time I turn my attention to Principle 10: “Students persist in the face of challenging tasks and process information more deeply when they adopt mastery goals rather than performance goals.” Mastery gets bandied around a lot at the moment. Everyone who's anyone is shoehorning 'mastery' into their post-Levels replacements and it seems to mean something different every time it's used. In layman's terms, mastery just [...]

2015-06-07T18:48:33+01:00June 7th, 2015|psychology|

20 psychological principles for teachers #9 Motivation

The next four posts in my series examining the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education's report on the Top 20 Principles From Psychology for Teaching and Learning will be on what motivates students. This time I look at Principle 9: “Students tend to enjoy learning and to do better when they are more intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated to achieve.” It goes without saying that motivation is important, but as Graham Nuthall said, “Learning requires motivation, but motivation does not necessarily lead to learning.” So do some kinds of motivation matter more than others? If we're intrinsically motivated we do a thing for its own [...]

2016-06-07T19:03:05+01:00June 6th, 2015|psychology|

May on The Learning Spy

Blimey, but May was a busy month! I wrote more posts than ever before - a ridiculous 29, and had more views than any other months with 90,590 views. Anyhoo, I did this last month and 4 people got in touch to say they'd like me to do it again, so this is for them. Here follows a brief run down of what I wrote about. Two stars and a bloody wish! 3rd May (4,244 views) I started the month by continuing where I left off at the end of April by writing about marking and took aim at the execrable process widely [...]

2015-06-02T18:31:28+01:00June 1st, 2015|Featured|
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