Archive

Unprofessional misjudgement

Mar 01, 2017 | Category: research

No, I’m not using evidence, but I’m not using prejudice either. I am exercising my professional judgement.Sue CowleyIt doesn’t make a difference how beautiful your guess is. It doesn’t make a differen...

#Ben Goldacre #EEF #Ignaz Semmelweis #Sue Cowley

Evidence and disadvantage: How useful is the EEF Toolkit?

Feb 26, 2017 | Category: research

Although everyone's education is important, the education of disadvantaged students is, arguably, of much greater importance than that of students from more advantaged backgrounds. The more privileged...

#learning styles #John Tomsett #Education Endowment Foundation #Greg Ashman #ED Hirsch Jr #Sir Kevan Collins

Education isn't natural - that's why it's hard

Feb 23, 2017 | Category: psychology

One of the most troubling conundrums in the field of education is that the common sense observation that children learn so many things simply by virtue of being immersed in an appropriate environment ...

#David Geary #evolutionary psychology #John Sweller

Faith, scepticism and the 'unswayable minority'

Feb 19, 2017 | Category: myths

How do you stop people believing myths? The short answer is, it depends on how strongly people believe the myths. I've just read The Debunking Handbook, an excellent, free and succinct (only 9 pages i...

#Project Based Learning #cognitive dissonance #Daniel Gilbert #Sceptical Science

O brave new world! The search for 21st century qualifications

Feb 13, 2017 | Category: learning

It's difficult to ignore the appealing certainty that the times in which we are alive are unique and fundamentally different to any that have gone before. The most cited reason for this is the fact th...

#Sugata Mitra #21st century skills #Buckminster Fuller #Shift Happens

Can all of learning be summed up by test scores?

Feb 12, 2017 | Category: research

Contrary to popular opinion, I'm not all that bothered about test scores. I mean, obviously I'd far prefer pupils did well rather than poorly on a summative exam, particularly if it is likely to have...

#divergent thinking #test scores

How can school inspection get what it wants?

Feb 10, 2017 | Category: leadership

I read a great piece by Dr Becky Allen in Schools Week this morning on inherent unreliability of school inspections. In it she makes the point that human beings are incapable of making reliable, high...

#Ofsted #accountability #Becky Allen #school inspection

Is it worth trying to memorise facts?

Feb 08, 2017 | Category: learning

We can only think about what we know and, no mater how intelligent we might be, we cannot think about something about which we are ignorant. But how well do we need to know things? Is there any point...

#memory #rote learning #times tables

Humans can't multitask

Jan 23, 2017 | Category: psychology

One of the highlights of my day at researchED Amsterdam was hearing Paul Kirschner speak about edu-myths. He began his presentation by forbidding the use of laptops or mobile phones, explaining that...

#handwriting #Paul Kirschner #multitasking

The power of 'best bets'

Jan 15, 2017 | Category: research

The other day I read Greg Ashman's post Why Education is like smoking which talked about the way teachers often generalise from anecdotes in the same way that when smokers are confronted with statisti...

#Greg Ashman #Gary Davis #Wolfgang Pauli