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What might be a good proxy for learning?

Professor Rob Coe's speech, From Evidence to Great Teaching, at the ASCL conference last Friday seemed to generate quite a bit of energy on Twitter, as did Carl Hendrick's post on engagement. Coe has been referring to the idea that we confuse learning with various 'poor proxies' since the publication of Improving Education. These are the proxies of which he speaks: It's small wonder, perhaps, that so many get so upset by being told that the certainties on which they've based their careers may not actually be true. The cognitive dissonance produced leads us to either agree with Prof Coe and abandon [...]

2015-03-22T21:21:13+00:00March 22nd, 2015|Featured|

Collective punishment

Collective punishment is the punishment of a group for the actions of an individual. The logic is that if one terrorist (or freedom fighter) launches some kind of attack on an oppressor, then reprisals will be visited on his or her community. The threat of such retaliation is intended to quell civil disobedience before it even occurs through peer pressure: if I know you are planning something the authorities will object to I will seek to persuade you not to carry out your plan so that I and the rest of our community will be spared the punishment which should rightfully [...]

2019-10-24T09:56:38+01:00March 2nd, 2015|behaviour|

Learning is invisible – my slides from #LEF15

For all those who asked for my slides after my presentation of the London Festival of Education at the IOE, here you go: #LFE15 Learning is invisible from David Didau For all those who weren't there, here's a commentary: The idea that learning may not be visible isn't widely accepted and in order to challenge beliefs without annoying people, I began by the perceptual and cognitive illusions to which we all fall victim. Then, with everyone suitably softened up I offered some definitions of learning: The long-term retention and transfer of knowledge and skills A change in how the world is understood. We [...]

2015-03-01T11:45:18+00:00March 1st, 2015|Featured, learning|

Landmark: a million thank yous

I began blogging in July 2011. In January 2012 I signed up with Google Analytics and have clocked up over 2 million pageviews since. The story so far... Then in July 2013 I shifted the site over to Wordpress and on Tuesday broke the million views mark according to their figures too. About to clock over... Since I started writing there's been an awful lot of change. The education landscape has changed in ways I never imagined. - The death knell has sounded for graded lesson observations. Ofsted (at least as far as schools are concerned - [...]

2015-02-27T17:56:08+00:00February 26th, 2015|blogging|

Should group work be imposed?

I recently posted some thoughts on what group work is and isn't good for. At no point did I say it was good for nothing (although predictably my opinion was caricatured as 'hating' group work) and I have never claimed that it cannot work. Some of the criticisms I received were as follows: - Group work is better than lecturing. I'm not sure I can even be bothered responding to this except to say that group work is also better than being punched in the face, but that's not saying much! As soon as I decide lecturing is a preferable alternative [...]

2025-03-07T17:10:00+00:00February 15th, 2015|Featured|

Why (the hell) should students work in groups?

In a recent TES article James Mannion and Neil Mercer make the following claim: In not using group work, students are denied the chance to develop skills that can not only help them perform better in schools, but which are also vital for their future employment prospects – not to mention the realisation of a more fully participatory democracy. First, let me state that I see nothing inherently wrong with pupils working collaboratively. Like any method of working, it has its time and place. But I was led to believe that unless a lesson contained an element of groupwork it could not [...]

2018-09-23T15:17:12+01:00February 11th, 2015|Featured|

What to do about workload?

Work is not a curse, but drudgery is! Henry Ward Beecher To much fanfare in the press, the DfE has released the findings of its Workload Challenge survey. The idea is straightforward: to prevent teachers from getting "bogged down with unnecessary tasks" so that they can instead devote their time to "prepar[ing] young people for life in modern Britain". Apparently, the survey generated more than 44,000 returns. The chief culprits for the waste of teachers' time are Ofsted, government and "hours spent recording data, marking and lesson-planning." No surprises there then. Here's the government's solution: As well as continuing its commitment [...]

2015-03-11T09:33:00+00:00February 7th, 2015|leadership|

Should we support the College of Teaching?

I'd love to be able to provide my unequivocal support for the proposed College of Teaching. Obviously I'm fully in favour of professionalising teaching, but while I'm convinced of the good intentions of those spearheading the campaign, I'm sceptical about the substance of the proposals. Today sees the official launch of The profession’s new College of Teaching: A proposal for start-up by the organisations who have formed the Claim Your College coalition. The aims are lofty: The new College will be committed to improving the education of children and young people by supporting teachers’ development and recognising excellence in teaching. It will be led [...]

2015-02-02T10:33:06+00:00February 2nd, 2015|Featured|

The problem with lesson planning

Time brings all things to pass. Aeschylus Because the curriculum is divided up into units - terms and lessons - our thinking about how to teach is constrained. The school year is sectioned into six more-or-less equal terms and so it's become law that each year be split into six self-contained units. Similarly, the school day is divided into units of delivery - lessons - and for the entirety of my years in classrooms the lesson has been viewed as a self-contained unit of learning; the lesson has been the ultimate expression of teaching quality. My resistance to the lesson as the apogee [...]

2015-05-18T16:23:06+01:00February 1st, 2015|leadership, learning|

Undermining teachers is easy

Your views are out of date, David and don't work, just expecting pupils to behave. Paul Garvey, Education consultant There are two schools in every school: the school of the high-status staff member, with the luxury of time and authority to cushion them from the worst classes; and the school of the supply teacher and NQT, who possess neither. Tom Bennett, Two schools bad, one school good: Ideas for improving school behaviour Everyone involved in teaching wants teachers to teach well. We spend a lot of time disputing what 'teaching well' looks like, and that's fair enough; there are plenty of effective [...]

2019-01-25T15:28:37+00:00January 29th, 2015|leadership|

A defence of the fixed mindset

The growth mindset has been so universally heralded as 'a good thing' that it's in danger of becoming one of those memes we think with rather than about. A number of commentators have been critical of the way mindset theory has been uncritical adopted and unthinkingly applied, but what if growth isn't always good? What if sometime we might be better off to be 'fixed' in our attitudes and beliefs? This is something that has been simmering away on my back burner for months, but then I encountered the following passage in the philosopher, Daniel Dennett's magnificent (and very witty) treatise on the human [...]

2015-01-24T15:13:16+00:00January 23rd, 2015|learning|

Does ADHD exist?

One of the few things I remember agreeing with when I heard Ken Robinson talking about changing educational paradigms was his observation that diagnoses of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) fall as you travel across America from West to East. Not the map Ken refers to, but something very similar. He calls this modern epidemic the "plague of ADHD" and claims it is "fictitious". He clarifies this by saying, Don't mistake me, I don't mean to say there is no such thing as Attention Deficit Disorder. I'm not qualified to say if there is such a thing. I know that a great majority of [...]

2019-11-11T13:03:27+00:00January 14th, 2015|myths|
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