Archive

Do we value pupils' writing?

Apr 26, 2014 | Category: literacy

Why do we ask pupils to write? There may be very many answers to that question but in my experience of working with teachers and observing lessons, overwhelmingly, teachers ask pupils to write in orde...

#writing

Dylan Wiliam's defence of formative assessment

Apr 25, 2014 | Category: assessment

Back in March I wrote a post called Why AfL might be wrong, and what to do about it based, largely, on Dylan Wiliam's book Embedded Formative Assessment (If you haven't already read it, I encourage yo...

#AfL #formative assessment #Dylan Wiliam

Does it do what it's supposed to? Assessing the assessment

Apr 06, 2014 | Category: assessment

In response to a request for constructive criticism of the English assessment model I helped design, Michael Tidd got in touch to query whether it met his 7 questions you should ask about any new ‘pos...

#Robert Coe #APP #Michael Tidd #National Curriculum

Some pictures and reviews of #litbook

May 17, 2014 | Category: Featured

Many thanks to all the people who have kindly been in touch to tell me their long-awaited copies of The Secret of Literacy have arrived; I hope you find it useful and enjoyable. If you do like it, ple...

#ukedchat #Mark Anderson #The Secret of Literacy

This is what I think

May 14, 2014 | Category: leadership

I love a good aphorism, and I also like lists. I keep being asked what I think about stuff so, in the spirit of clarity, here's a list of some of the things I think about education:Behaviour Gettin...

Squaring the circle: can learning be easy and hard?

May 11, 2014 | Category: learning

Regular readers will know I've been ploughing a furrow on this question for quite a while now. Last June I synthesised my thinking in this post: Deliberately difficult – why it’s better to make learni...

#Dylan Wiliam #Daniel Willingham #Robert Bjork #Kris Boulton #Robert Coe #Annie Murphy Paul #Daniel Kahneman

3 reasons why you should read The Secret of Literacy

May 10, 2014 | Category: literacy

This is, unashamedly, a sales pitch for my new book, The Secret of Literacy: making the implicit explicit which should be available in the next few days. Apologies if such blatant self-promotion offen...

#Geoff Barton #The Secret of Literacy

Intuition vs evidence: the power of prediction

May 08, 2014 | Category: myths

I wrote earlier in the week about why, despite it's limitations, research is better than a hunch. Since then, I've been reading Daniel Willingham's article on Real Clear Education; he says that it's n...

#Daniel Willingham #praise #Richard Wiseman #Carl Weiman #physics #research

Some nice things people have said about my new book

May 01, 2014 | Category: Featured

After months of frustrating delay (don't ask!), The Secret of Literacy has finally been printed! It will, I'm assured, be available for 15th May. I hope it's worth the wait. To whet your appetite, her...

On compromise

Apr 30, 2014 | Category: Featured

The right of thinking freely and acting independently, of using our minds without excessive awe of authority, and shaping our lives without unquestioning obedience to custom, is now a finally accepted...

#compromise #Gandhi #John Morley #Margaret Thatcher #WB Yeats