XFacebookYouTubeLinkedInEmail

David Didau

About David Didau

This author has not yet filled in any details.
So far David Didau has created 936 blog entries.

Forget the answer, what's the question?

2011-09-24T16:37:17+01:00September 24th, 2011|learning|

We all know the value of effective questioning, but should it be the students rather than the teacher doing a bit more of the asking? After reading about Question Formulation Technique (getting students to think of their own questions rather than just answering mine) a few weeks ago I was really keen to give it a whirl. Tait Cole However, Dylan Wiliam's SSAT 2010 keynote is still ringing in my ears: we (teachers) should not waste time on self indulgent gimmicks if it causes us to move away from AfL and other proven high impact teaching & learning strategies. [...]

Learning Journeys

2011-09-21T22:00:27+01:00September 21st, 2011|learning|

Last month I wrote a post asking whether there was a point to starters. Luckily for me, Darren Mead got in touch to tell me about what he has termed Learning Journeys. Ever since I've been absolutely smitten. The idea is incredibly simple: at the beginning of the lesson, provide students with a visual representation of the learning which will take place during the lesson. That's it. A visual learning objective. Geoff Petty in his book Evidence Based Teaching shows that using this strategy along with a traditional learning objective plus an activity which links to students' prior learning has an effect [...]

Is there a case for summative assessment?

2013-07-23T08:40:56+01:00September 19th, 2011|assessment|

I've written a lot on the importance of formative assessment recently and feel pretty clear in my own mind of its efficacy. In contrast I see summative assessment as existing only as an external measure of success or failure. I know it exists, and I know it's fairly important to my students' life chances. It's also one of the primary means by which my professional practice is judged, so I'd better take notice of it. This seems like a necessary evil, not something to be celebrated. Cristina Milos and Jennifer Borgioli have challenged this view and asserted that actually, summative assessment [...]

Questions every teacher should ask every day

2011-09-18T22:03:26+01:00September 18th, 2011|learning|

I've just read David Warlick's blog post on Transformative Questions and am feeling pretty excited about it. In it he challenges teachers to "create a culture of learners that thrive in the 21st century." He says that learning should include the following qualities. They should : - be responsive to learners' needs - provoke conversation, - inspire personal investment - be guided by safely-made mistakes.   He has come up with these questions to challenge us when designing lessons: 1. How might I alter this assignment or project so that it “Responds” to the learner? How can the experience “Talk Back?” 2. How might [...]

Easy vs Hard

2011-09-16T18:39:45+01:00September 16th, 2011|Featured, learning|

We choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard. - JFK We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle A teachers' job is not to make work easy. It is to make it difficult. If you are not challenged, you do not make mistakes. If you do not make mistakes, feedback is useless. - John Hattie - Visible Learning Our attitude to effort is embedded in our language: easy does it, hard luck, easy on the eye, don't take it so hard. Why is it that [...]

What can engineers teach us about assessment?

2011-09-14T20:49:26+01:00September 14th, 2011|assessment|

If, like me, you thought the answer to the above question was almost certainly nothing, take a look at this: Pretty neat, huh? I think this really makes the point that a lot of what we do in schools and call AfL isn’t. Here are a few handy reminders about what exactly formative assessment is: We use the general term assessment to refer to all those activities undertaken by teachers—and by their students in assessing themselves—that provide information to be used as feedback to modify teaching and learning activities. Such assessment becomes formative assessment when the evidence is actually [...]

Should we stop doing good things?

2013-07-22T18:03:20+01:00September 12th, 2011|training|

Surely doing good things is something we should do more of? Especially at school. I have seldom met a teacher who is not interested in doing the best for their students and therefore pretty keen to do good things. Good things are, well... good. Aren't they? Having just watched Dylan Wiliam's keynote speech at the SSAT conference in 2010, I'm not so sure. The speech was provocatively titled, "Stopping people doing good things: the essence of effective leadership". Needless to say, this is not a leadership style I have encountered before and until watching, probably wouldn't have been interested in trying. [...]

Knowledge or skills?

2013-07-20T12:29:52+01:00September 11th, 2011|Featured|

Skills, knowledge, who cares?  I'm a huge fan of the implementation of Personal Learning and Thinking Skills as part of the English National Curriculum and feel confused and concerned about the current government's stance on knowledge & skills. see here for an example. Last week I had a really thought provoking conversation on this subject with Cristina Milos (@surreallyno) on Twitter which I think unpicks some of the issues: CM: When teenagers can't locate a country on the map, "facts" are suddenly important. Preaching "skills" before /or/ vs. "knowledge" is silly. Me: Is it? The fact that Poland is east of Germany tells us little, [...]

Back to school

2011-09-09T21:15:16+01:00September 9th, 2011|leadership|

What I really like about going back to school in September is that it's a new year with no mistakes. The students' books are graffiti free and and all the dates and titles have been neatly underlined. There is nothing to mark and my lessons are inspirational and well planned. the annual rot has yet to sink in. I also like deciding on my new school year resolutions. I have to say, I can't be bothered with the proper New Year resolutions and avoid them as the mass market nonsense that they are. School year resolutions are different though. They're normally [...]

Differentiation: to do or not to do?

2013-07-20T16:27:24+01:00September 7th, 2011|assessment|

Of all the impossible tasks expected of poor, over-worked teachers, differentiation is the most troublesome. Why? Because on the one hand, if you did it properly every lesson you'd be reduced to a dribbling wreck in less than a week. T'other hand though is that it's really really important. Therein lies our dilemma: we know we should be doing (a lot) more of it but we just don't have the time or energy to do it properly. Francis Gilbert says on the subject, "The whole thing is a duplicitous gimmick...In reality schools just do not have the resources, time or space [...]

More DIY learning

2011-09-06T21:27:44+01:00September 6th, 2011|learning|

Following Kenny Pieper's wonderful guest post yesterday, I was inspired to put his ideas into action today. The most difficult aspect was geting hold of some netbooks. The DT had some which they warned me were a bit creaky and the head of music leant me three iPads. Sorted. To introduce the lesson, I used the idea I got from Darren Mead's site Pedagogical Purposes on having a visual representation of the lesson for students to refer to which Darren calls the Learning Journey. I was impressed with how quickly and accurately they worked out what they were supposed to do. I [...]

Do It Yourself

2011-09-05T19:29:41+01:00September 5th, 2011|learning|

There is a certain amount of irony in the title of today's post in that I haven't written it myself. Instead it comes from the typing fingers of the marvellous Kenny Pieper. His excellent blog Just Trying to be Better than Yesterday is well worth a read. There are two reasons for this: 1. I'm knackered after the first day back at school - even though it was only an INSET day. 2. Kenny has already written exactly what I would have wanted to write. So without further ado: Over the summer holidays I caught up with a few Ted talks, [...]

Toggle Sliding Bar Area
Go to Top