Why 'mastery learning' may prove to be a bad idea
"It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us." Disraeli What could be wrong with wanting students to master difficult content? Nothing. For the most part, the aims of mastery curricula are admirable. Ensuring all students have fully grasped conceptually difficult content is a hard but worthy aspiration. My problem is that, in practice, mastery values the here and now over the future, and [...]
Is it what you do or the way that you do it?
Alex Quigley has just responded to my post Two Stars and a Bloody Wish! with the revelation that it works for him and others: Using a ‘Two Stars and a Wish’ model ironically meant that many teachers were writing more concise comments and spending less time on marking than before. Rather than proving a waste of time as David Didau suggests, it was saving time for many (teachers weren’t beholden to two wishes each [...]
Big data is bad data
The cost of bad data is the illusion of knowledge. – Stephen Hawking Schools, as with almost every other organ of state, are increasingly obsessed with big data. There seem to be two main aims: prediction and control. If only we collect and analyse enough data then the secrets of the universe will be unlocked. No child will be left behind and all will have prizes. Can we learn from the [...]
What every teacher needs to know about… Edtech
Here's my most recent Teach Secondary column: Technology has been transforming education for as long as either have been in existence. Language, arguably the most crucial technological advancement in human history, moved education from mere mimicry and emulation into the realms of cultural transmission; as we became able to express abstractions so we could teach our offspring about the interior world of thought beyond the concrete reality we experienced directly. [...]
Can anyone teach? Well, that depends on what you think education is for
In a fascinating series of posts, Nick Rose has discussed to what extent teaching is a natural ability and how far it might be described as an 'artificial' science. In The ‘artificial science’ of teaching: System vs Individual competence he explores the implications for teacher training and professional development of these different interpretations of what it is to teach. All of this harks back to the hoary old chestnut of whether teaching is an art, [...]
Varieties of boredom
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, To stir men’s blood: I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 2 Teaching is a profession with an odd, uneasy relationship with boredom. At once we are almost never bored, but seem to always run the risk of being boring. [...]
New Year's resolutions for teachers and school leaders
We have more ability than will power, and it is often an excuse to ourselves that we imagine that things are impossible. François de La Rochefoucauld It's a new year, with no mistakes. In the few days left of the Christmas break thoughts will inevitably turn to the term ahead and how we can do whatever it is we do better. Just in case you're not sure how to turn [...]
Annual report 2015
Well, 2015 has been and gone. It's been a great year for me personally and one in which the blog has continued to make waves. It seems that as more and more ordinary teachers are liberated from the tyranny of some of the daft but pervasive ideas in education, the debate has become increasingly polarised. My writing seems to irritate and encourage in roughly equal measure and I fear I've gained [...]
December on The Learning Spy
December has traditionally been a bit of a fallow period as far as this blog is concerned, but this year, despite the inevitable Christmas lull I continued to churn out posts. Here they are in all their rather tawdry glory. 3rd December - Marking: What (some) Ofsted Inspectors (still) want An expression of frustration at the continued inability of some Ofsted inspectors to free their minds from the shackles of bias, prejudice and personal [...]
Phonics is not a cure for cancer
Do antibiotics work? Well, that rather depends on what you've got. If you've got a viral infection like influenza antibiotics will be useless. To fight viral infections you need to use antiviral drugs. Does that mean antibiotics don't work? Of course not. If you're suffering from a bacterial infection like brucellosis then an antibiotic might well be effective. This, I hope, is straightforward. So if I conducted a piece of research which [...]
Only phonics? A reader replies to Michael Rosen Part 2
Following yesterday's post from Jacqui Moller-Butcher in which she responds to Michael Rosen's anti-phonics arguments, one of the complaints that has repeatedly emerged is the idea that phonics is not the only important aspect of teaching children to read. Indeed not. Take this comment from John Hodgson for example: No-one knowledgable in teaching the reading of English would deny the value of a grasp of characteristic letter-sound correspondences. This is not the [...]
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