Archive

The most interesting books I read last year

Jan 01, 2017 | Category: Featured

I put together a round up of my favourite reads of 2015 and some people seemed to like it. So, in typically opportunistic manner, I though I'd repeat the exercise. Here are some of the books I found m...

My favourite posts of 2016 on The Learning Spy

Dec 31, 2016 | Category: blogging

Here follows a selection of some of what I consider to be my best posts of 2016. I've learned not to be surprised that what I think is my best writing is rarely appreciated by others and this is certa...

My favourite blog posts of 2016

Dec 30, 2016 | Category: blogging

Here follows my extremely partial take on some of the blog post I have most enjoyed reading this yearHeather Fearn - Reading fluency and the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’My only continuing niggle with Heat...

Last one in: My return to Michaela

Dec 16, 2016 | Category: Featured

I had an afternoon free in London on Monday (what luxury!) and arranged to pop in to Michaela Community School to see what, if anything, had changed since my last visit in May 2015. I hadn't realised...

#Katherine Birbalsingh #Michaela School

Struggle and success

Dec 09, 2016 | Category: learning

The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. Albert Camus The gods of ancient Greece punished Sisyphus, the king of Ephyra, for his hubris...

#Robert Bjork #desirable difficulties #struggle

So, I've been reinstated by Twitter

Dec 08, 2016 | Category: Featured

Without a word of explanation, my Twitter account unsuspended itself this evening. In case you didn't get round to noticing, I'd been suspended the day before. Thank you so much to the veritable legio...

So, I've been suspended by Twitter

Dec 07, 2016 | Category: Featured

This afternoon various people started text messaging me to ask why my Twitter account had been suspended. Needless to say, the news came as something of a surprise. No one from Twitter had contacted m...

#Twitter

PISA 2015: some tentative thoughts about successful teaching

Dec 06, 2016 | Category: Featured

Despite all the eminently sensible caveats offered by Sam Freedman, PISA provides a fascinating lens through which to view the world of education. The most interesting of the PISA documents I've had a...

#Greg Ashman #enquiry-based instruction #PISA #teacher directed instruction

Hirsch vs Engelmann: "No scientific basis for Direct Instruction"?

Dec 02, 2016 | Category: research

No one seems clear who first said it, but it's become an abiding truth of journalism that, "If a dog bites a man, that is not news. But if a man bites a dog that is news." To publish an article in whi...

#direct instruction #ED Hirsch #Siegfreid Engelmann

Robots, evolution and why schools shouldn't worry about innate skills

Oct 13, 2016 | Category: learning

It should come as little surprise to hear that some of what human beings can do is innate. That is to say, we are born with various capacities and abilities which appear to be 'hardwired' into our bra...

#David Geary #evolutionary psychology