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David Didau

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So far David Didau has created 936 blog entries.

Do we teach children to love reading? Part 1

2016-09-13T08:27:22+01:00September 12th, 2016|reading|

This sounds like a really obvious question but, after listening to Frank Furedi at researchED on Saturday and subsequently reading his book, The Power of Reading: from Socrates to Twitter, I've realised it isn't something I've given much thought. At one point during his lecture Frank said that few of the people interested in the teaching of reading actually value passing on a love of reading. My initial reaction was to reject this. I asked a question afterwards to challenge this view and his response was to ask why so few young people - especially boys - value reading if we actually value passing on [...]

The Trouble with Transfer – my #rED16 slides

2016-09-10T20:53:10+01:00September 10th, 2016|learning, psychology|

Today saw another triumphant outing for Tom Bennett's grassroots conference, researchED. This year I ran a session investigating the research into how we transfer what we learn between different contexts, the slides for which, along with hyperlinked references to the studies I've cited, are below. ResearchED 2016 The Trouble with Transfer from David Didau The high point for me was that Paul Kirschner said the presentation was "pretty good". I will write up an explanation for these as time allows over the next few days, but for those who can't wait, turn to Chapter 6 of What Every Teacher Needs To Know About [...]

Go Compare!

2016-09-09T20:54:35+01:00September 9th, 2016|assessment|

Another one from Teach Secondary, this one from their assessment special. This time it's an over view of Comparative Judgement. Human beings are exceptionally poor at judging the quality of a thing on its own. We generally know whether we like something but we struggle to accurately evaluate just how good or bad a thing is. It’s much easier for us to compare two things and weigh up the similarities and differences. This means we are often unaware of what a ‘correct’ judgement might be and are easily influenced by extraneous suggestions. This is compounded by the fact that we aren’t [...]

What every teacher needs to know about… seating plans

2016-09-09T08:50:06+01:00September 9th, 2016|planning, psychology|

Remarkably, the rather excellent Teach Secondary magazine haven't yet seen through me and are still running my half-baked ramblings. Here's this month's pale offering. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a teacher in possession of a large roomful of children must be in want of a carefully crafted seating plan. Secondary schools have normalised the idea that children should sit in the same seat every lesson. Seating plans may be a great way to learn students’ names, keep order and establish routine, but they may be undermining children’s ability learn. Ideally, we want our students to go off into the [...]

Should everyone follow the rules?

2016-09-08T14:38:27+01:00September 8th, 2016|behaviour|

I've never liked being told what to do. I'm not a great team player and I struggle with authority. I've always chafed at constraints and, as I get older, I've become increasingly aware that what I used to imagine was an over-developed sense of injustice is actually entitlement; a sense the world should bend itself around my whims and conform to my desires. Childish, isn't it? Part of being an adult is learning to suppress these baser aspects of our nature and this is something I attempt, often with negligible success, to do. I've come to realise that if I want to avoid [...]

What’s the big deal about school uniform?

2016-09-08T07:21:24+01:00September 7th, 2016|behaviour, Featured|

Is there any evidence that school uniform affects learning? In a word, no. Or, rather I should say, I'm not aware of any beyond weak testimonials offered by uniform manufactures and the personal anecdotes of true believers. Where there is reputable research, it's equivocal. So, why do schools make such a big deal about uniforms? Well, although it would very difficult to conduct a study which isolated the effects of wearing particular clothes on student achievement, it's probably a lot easier to look at how uniforms might affect social norms and in-group/out-group behaviours. There's a lot of research on how institutional [...]

Fun is being “killed off”! Really?

2016-09-06T21:01:46+01:00September 6th, 2016|Featured|

Every now and then, children's author Michael Rosen writes a snarky open letter to whomever happens to be education secretary of the day castigating them for his bugbear du jour. His latest offering makes the hyperbolic accusation that Justine Greening is "killing off painting, pottery, thinking … and fun." What an evil witch! What are the grounds for Michael's claim? Well, firstly he identifies several potentially ill-thought out approaches to education currently mandated in many primary schools such as ability grouping within classes* and a state of semi-permanent testing which some misguided souls mistakenly believe to be the best way to educate children. I too abhor these practices [...]

Are teachers cursed with knowledge?

2023-06-11T12:11:53+01:00September 5th, 2016|Featured|

The Curse of Knowledge: when we are given knowledge, it is impossible to imagine what it's like to lack that knowledge. Chip Heath, Made to Stick How much do teachers need to know? In my last post I proposed that an effective teacher - one who is warm, friendly and a great speaker - is minimally effective if they have nothing to teach. The Dr Fox (or Ken Robinson) Effect shows that even though we love charismatic teachers, we don't learn much from them unless they are also knowledgeable about the subject they're teaching. Following a prolonged and protracted debate [...]

What Dr Fox teaches us about the importance of subject knowledge

2016-09-04T19:23:11+01:00September 4th, 2016|psychology|

In 1970, psychologists and psychiatrists were invited to a lecture on "Mathematical Game Theory as Applied to Physician Education." The lecture, supposedly given by Dr Myron L. Fox, a graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a student of the great John van Neumann, was actually given by an actor who knew nothing about either Game Theory or Physical Education.The audience of MDs and PhDs were in fact unwitting subjects in a study conducted by Donald Naftulin, John Ware, and Frank Donnelly on 'educational seduction'. They were divided into two groups; one group was given a lecture by an actual scientist [...]

5 things every new (secondary) teacher should know about writing

2016-09-03T10:49:22+01:00September 1st, 2016|training, writing|

Academic success is dependent on students being able to communicate their understanding of a subject and, sooner or later, that communication will be written. For many secondary teachers writing is something that just happens; some students do it well, others poorly and there's precious little you can do about it. In secondary schools teachers teach subjects and although some effort will be put into essay writing skills in some subject areas, by and large, the ability to write effectively is left to chance. Back in 2006 I marked Paper 2 of the AQA English Language GCSE and one of the prompts students were given to [...]

5 things every new (secondary) teacher should know about reading

2016-09-03T16:17:18+01:00August 31st, 2016|reading, training|

Reading's a funny old business. Generally, secondary school teachers  expect kids to come with a pre-loaded reading module. If they have it, all well and good. If they don't, we're stuffed. Luckily, the vast majority of students can read by the start of Year 7, even if they say they can't. But being able to read and being able to access the kind of material required to be academically successful are not at all the same thing. When I started teaching I knew next to nothing about reading, and I was meant to be an English teacher! Because it was something I [...]

Some questions for the College of Teaching

2016-08-31T13:32:43+01:00August 30th, 2016|Featured|

So, plans for the College of Teachers are gathering pace. It increasingly looks like it's going to be a thing, whether teachers want it or not. I'm not against a College per se, but I do have some questions which I think need answering before we go too much further or invest any more than the £5 million the government has already handed over. 1. What is it actually for? I've read lots of speculation about what role the College of Teachers might have from being a body to represent teachers interests to a regulatory institution which invents and enforces standards it believes [...]

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