Teaching to make children cleverer: Part 1
I've argued previously that the aim of education ought to be to make children cleverer. If I'm right, then not only is it desirable, it's also possible to achieve this end. But before we can do so, we need to make sure we have a solid understanding of precisely which aspects of intelligence we might be able to boost. In What Is Intelligence? James Flynn suggests a number of factors [...]
Reading aloud might boost students' memories
In the latest edition of the British Psychological Society's Research Digest, Bradley Busch writes about a new study which compared the effects on memory of reading in silence to those of reading out loud. Noah Forrin and Colin MacLeod's paper, This time it’s personal: the memory benefit of hearing oneself, explores what's been termed the 'production effect' - a neat name for the memory advantage of saying words aloud over simply [...]
The best books I’ve read this year
Here follows a list of the books that I've most enjoyed and which have most affected my thinking this year. I've presented them in alphabetical order so as not to have to make choices about which were best: if they're on the list then I think they're worth reading. I note, with some shame, that yet again I've gone mainly for books by white men. Please don't hold that against [...]
Thought Depends on Knowledge
Paul Kirschner, lead author of the research paper that has perhaps most influenced my thinking, is a bit of an educational hero. Imagine my nervousness when he came to see give a talk on 'the trouble with transfer' at the researchED national conference a couple of years ago. There are few audience members likely to be more knowledgeable or more intolerant of guff. It came as a very welcome relief [...]
What *does* improve children’s writing?
In my last post I discussed evidence that suggests grammar teaching does not lead to an improvement in children's writing. Although it seems implausible that grammar teaching would not be positively correlated with writing outcomes, there's a lot of evidence that is strongly suggestive that what I prefer to believe may not in fact actually be true. I've written enough about cognitive bias to know that I am predisposed to [...]
Can grammar teaching improve pupils’ writing?
Let me begin with an anecdote. The first time I ever really encountered the meta language of grammar was after finishing my degree in English Literature and embarking on a six-week course to qualify to teach English as a foreign language (TEFL). I had to cram a whole host of previously unknown terminology in order to pass the course and it all seemed pretty pointless. Not knowing this stuff hadn't [...]
Why I recommend self-report to audit teachers’ grammatical knowledge
The response to my recent post on supporting teachers' standards of literacy was overwhelmingly positive, although, as expected, there was also some criticism. Some of the criticism was directed at my suggested process and several people were unhappy about the use of self-report to audit teacher's current level of confidence. I acknowledge that self-report is a notoriously unreliable tool for determining what people think and believe - often respondents simply [...]
How can we support teachers' standards of literacy?
Recently, I've spent some time talking to school leaders about how to implement and evaluate effective literacy policies in schools. From these conversations it's clear that one of the main stumbling blocks is concern over some teachers' standards of literacy. If "every teacher in English is a teacher of English," unless teachers are familiar with some fairly basic knowledge of the English language they may, inadvertently, be passing on misinformation [...]
Fundamental British Values: What are they and how should we teach them?
The Department for Education is in the process of setting up an expert advisory group to look at how best to develop and resource a curriculum intended to instil fundamental British values in our young people. These values are defined by the DfE as democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect, and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. While we might want to quibble about whether these [...]
Leading literacy in schools
Leading on literacy can be a thoroughly thankless task. It can often feel like you're working incredibly hard to produce resources and strategies which colleagues at best ignore and at worst resent. The problem is often that we're expending effort in the wrong place and trying to persuade teachers to do the wrong things. Frustratingly, there's very little guidance about how best to spend your precious and it can be [...]
Are IQ tests biased or meaningless?
Since my last foray into the world of intelligence testing, I've done a lot of reading about the idea that a) IQ tests are culturally biased and b) that the entire concept of intelligence is culturally biased. I want to preface my conclusions by reiterating the following points: I do not believe we should ever use IQ tests in schools to classify students, or to predict their academic acheivement. I [...]
Making Meaning in English
Learning Spy CPD
*NEW* Intelligent Accountability
#Cleverer
#PsychBook
#WrongBook
The Secret of Literacy
The Perfect English Lesson
Join Over 10,000 Subscribers Learning from David Didau
Become Part of David Didau’s Network and Further Your Teaching Career.
