Archive

April on The Learning Spy

May 01, 2015 | Category: Featured

A few readers kindly got in touch over the last week or so to complain I was writing too much and that they couldn't keep up. Instead of shutting me up, this merely served to start me wondering about...

The fetish of marking

Apr 30, 2015 | Category: assessment

Even the most valuable fetishes will turn into dusts and ashes! Mehmet Murat Ildan Fetishism hasn't always been about rubber and high heels. The word originates from the Portuguese feitico, meaning an...

#Dylan Wiliam #marking #Dr Becky Allen #Leeds Beckett University #Wakefield Regional Teaching School Alliance

Trust, accountability and why we need them both

Apr 29, 2015 | Category: leadership

I've been thinking a lot about trust in recent months - particularly because it seems a commodity in such short supply. If, my optimistic thinking went, teachers were trusted to do a good job, then th...

#accountability #trust

A few thoughts about character education

Apr 27, 2015 | Category: leadership

The idea that schools should be educating students' character has been gathering momentum in recent years. But the once distant drums have become increasingly urgent; politicians and professors, hucks...

#character #Eric Kalenze #Greg Ashamn #Jonathan Haidt

A review of The Beautiful Risk of Education by Harry Webb

Apr 26, 2015 | Category: Featured

I blundered into a discussion of Gert Biesta's The Beautiful Risk of Education yesterday and was asked to justify my view that it's 'a bit silly'. Rather than do the hard work of writing my own critiq...

Slow Writing at #researchED primary literacy conference

Apr 25, 2015 | Category: literacy

Here are the slides I used during my researchED presentation on Slow Writing (including some we didn't get around to looking at due to my rambling incoherence.) If you want to read more about it, do...

Chicken or egg? Thoughts about thinking

Apr 24, 2015 | Category: Featured

Which comes first? The chicken of knowledge or the egg of thinking?Over the past few years I have been advocating the view that thinking is a very shallow experience without knowledge. It seems self-e...

#knowledge #thinking

Whose research is it anyway?

Apr 22, 2015 | Category: Featured

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...

#John Hattie

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

Apr 01, 2015 | Category: learning

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 m...

#engagement #edutopia

Right brain/left brain bollocks

Apr 20, 2015 | Category: myths

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 t...

#right brain/left brain