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Whose research is it anyway?

The TES reports today that Professor Hattie, the crown prince of education research, isn't much keen on teachers conducting research in their classrooms. Apparently he thinks we should leave education research in the hands of academics. Because, I assume, they know best. Now I'm certain TES journos have rubbed this particular story vigorously on the crotch of their cricket whites, the better to produce a savage topspin in the hope of enraging the new breed of research literate teachers, but Hattie is quoted as saying, Researching is a particular skill. Some of us took years to gain that skill. Asking teachers [...]

2015-04-22T22:01:04+01:00April 22nd, 2015|Featured|

Right brain/left brain bollocks

I'm frequently sent unsolicited emails from chancers and PR companies asking me to guest post this or publicise that. Some even go to the trouble of addressing their requests to me personally rather than some generic pleas for attention. My normal practice is to ignore this unwanted correspondence unless it seems to come from an actual human being who has actually engaged with the content of the blog, in which case they get a polite refusal. Never have I been moved to actually post any of the guff I've been sent. Until now. Today this dropped into my inbox: Frankly, I feel [...]

2017-06-14T23:19:49+01:00April 20th, 2015|myths|

Is education a zero-sum game?

Opportunity makes a thief. Francis Bacon A zero-sum game is one in which there is a winner and a loser; if you haven't won, you've lost. The term derives from game theory and economics and describes a situation in which one person's gain utility (the ability to satisfy his or wants) is exactly balanced by another's loss of utility. In The Uses of Pessimism, Scruton points out that much wrong-heading thinking and behaviour derives from what he calls the 'zero-sum fallacy' where all gains are paid for by the losers. Society therefore is a zero-sum game, in which costs and benefits balance out, and [...]

2017-01-18T18:29:48+00:00April 18th, 2015|Featured|

The best case fallacy or, why we balls things up

OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white. A pessimist applied to God for relief. "Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God. "No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that would justify them." "The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked something -- the mortality of the optimist." Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary In The Uses of Pessimism & the Danger of False Hope, philosopher and fox-hunting enthusiast, Roger Scruton argues against unbridled or, as he puts it, 'unscrupulous optimism', piling many - or most - of the [...]

2015-10-03T10:48:34+01:00April 16th, 2015|leadership|

What to do about literacy

Over the last couple of years I've visited over 100 schools and practically none of them have got literacy right. Now obviously I only get asked to talk to schools who feel they can improve - maybe there are loads of schools out there who have got it right and they're just keeping quiet, But I doubt it. But if schools are struggling to implement literacy policies that actually have an impact on students it's not for want of trying. We know that poor literacy blights life chances. We know being able to read, write and speak with confidence and accuracy [...]

2017-03-17T12:44:52+00:00April 15th, 2015|literacy|

Curiosity: the knowledge gap

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Samuel Johnson We're all, to some extent, naturally curious - we long to unpick out that which is mysterious, troublesome and uncertain. That's not to say we're all equally curious about everything. We tend to be particularly incurious about what is settled, quotidian and neatly tied off. The novelist, Anatole France thought that, "The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards." I think this is broadly true. A teacher unable to awaken [...]

2015-04-13T18:05:38+01:00April 13th, 2015|Featured|

Dipsticks: It all depends on what you mean by 'engagement'

Yesterday I wrote a post - Does Engagement Actually Matter? - detailing some very interesting findings on the links between intrinsic motivation, enjoyment and attainment. It turns out that the more motivated you are and the more you enjoy learning the less likely you are to achieve. Who knew? The report about which I was writing sets out its terms thus: Student engagement refers to the intensity with which students apply themselves to learning in school. Traits such as motivation, enjoyment, and curiosity—characteristics that have interested researchers for a long time—have been joined recently by new terms such as, “grit,” which now approaches [...]

2015-04-01T11:21:06+01:00April 1st, 2015|learning|

Does engagement actually matter?

Suggesting that student engagement might actually be a bad thing tend to get certain people's dander up. There was a mild spat recently about Rob Coe reiterating that engagement was a 'poor proxy' for learning. Carl Hendrick unpicked the problem further: This paradox is explored by Graham Nuthall in his book ‘The Hidden Lives of Learners,’ (2007) in which he writes: “Our research shows that students can be busiest and most involved with material they already know. In most of the classrooms we have studied, each student already knows about 40-50% of what the teacher is teaching.” p.24 Nuthall’s work shows that students are [...]

2017-02-10T07:42:19+00:00March 31st, 2015|learning|

Back to school

In December 2013 I left the classroom for a life of swashbuckling and adventure. There were as many push factors as there were pull and I was very nervous about whether I'd be able to make a living - after all, I'm just a teacher with a big gob. I needn't have worried. It's been the most marvellous adventure. I've been able to travel the length and breadth of the country (and even get in a few visits overseas) visiting schools, talking to teachers and casting my pearls of wisdom before all comers. I've also had the luxury of time to read and [...]

2015-03-28T13:06:59+00:00March 28th, 2015|Featured|

NEW BOOK: Foreword by Robert A Bjork

As some readers will no doubt be aware, I've written a new book. I've been fascinated by Robert Bjork's research into learning and memory ever since first encountering it back in February 2013, so of course, when I began the process back of writing this book I wrote to Professor Bjork to let him know I intended to cannibalise his work in order to make various points about what teachers ought to do. My reason for writing was both to ask for his blessing and to see whether he would be prepared to offer feedback (suitably summarised and delayed of course) on [...]

2015-04-03T11:04:15+01:00March 25th, 2015|Featured|

Using Threshold Concepts to design a KS4 English curriculum

The big change a-coming for curriculum design is that the final vestiges of modularity will soon have been licked clean from the assessment spoon; from September it will linearity all the way. Many English teachers have never worked in such a system and there's widescale panic about how exactly we can expect children to retain the quantity of textual information they will need to know in order to have something to analyse in a closed book exam. An obvious solution is to redesign your curriculum to harness what we know about the best ways of getting students to remember stuff. I've written [...]

2015-05-02T10:19:22+01:00March 24th, 2015|English|

How could we improve accountability?

If accountability is the solution, what's the problem? It's become axiomatic that you can't remove accountability from education and that teachers must always be held to account. Why? Because they're feckless scoundrels and can't be trusted further than you can throw an interactive whiteboard. Education has been reduced to teachers vs. the rest of the world. Here's how some of those struggles play out: Teachers vs. government - Education policy is predicated on the assumption that everything would be fine if only teachers were prepared to work a bit harder. Like a giant set of human whack-a-mole, as soon as a new [...]

2015-03-23T20:02:54+00:00March 23rd, 2015|Featured|
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