Rethinking assessment Part 2: the Einstellung effect
As I set out here, Dr Chris Wheadon has come up with a beautifully simple solution to assessing students' essays which requires no rubrics, very little marking time and produces extremely reliable results with no attendant loss of validity. It relies on the cumulative power of comparative judgement and represents the future of assessment for subjects which rely on essay length answers to open-ended questions. If you doubt me, the reason might be [...]
Rethinking assessment Part 1: How can we tell if students are making progress?
Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork? Stanislaw J. Lec For some time now I've been of the opinion that the way we normally think of progress is based on a myth. Part of the problem is that because we tend to believe that we can see learning we routinely miss the fact that what students can do here and now tells us relatively little about what they [...]
In praise of dignity and justice
They'll ask me how I got her I'll say I saved my money They'll say isn't she pretty that ship called dignity Dignity, Deacon Blue In Microaggression and Moral Cultures, sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning argue that we are at a turning point in the way we understand morality. In the past, morality was a matter of honour. Honour had to be earned in some way - whether through an accident [...]
How to deal with criticism
The destroyer of weeds, thistles, and thorns is a benefactor whether he soweth grain or not. Robert Green Ingersoll Every now and then, someone pops up (usually a relative!) to tell me something I've written is crap. This is wounding. Like everyone else who blogs, I'm convinced of my own genius and sagacity. Anyone who's critical is clearly a fool. Except sometimes someone like Andrew Old comes along who, despite his [...]
If writing is magic, grammar is alchemy
I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences. I like the feeling the everlasting feeling of sentences as they diagram themselves. Gertrude Stein Writing is the technological innovation that has most changed the way we think and how we learn. It allows us the send our thoughts across time and space, and peer back in the past to see how people lived and [...]
Using threshold concepts to think about curriculum design
Thank you so much to everyone who helped out, presented, turned up on a wet Saturday or just joined in from afar on our creaky Livestream (I'm particularly devastated that Professor Ray Land's keynote will be lost to posterity!) I will, in due course, write something which pulls together the experience of organising Saturday's #researchED's first subject-specific conference, but for now, here are the slides you've all been clamouring for [...]
We don’t know what we don’t know: the uses of humility
Humility is the only true wisdom by which we prepare our minds for all the possible changes of life. George Arliss In my last post I challenged the widely-held belief that teachers' judgements are generally sound and suggested instead that we are routinely beset by very predictable but unconscious bias. Two criticisms emerged that I want to address. Firstly, some commenters noted that it's impossible to prevent teachers making judgments [...]
Why teacher assessment is less fair than standardised testing
Tests Guns don't kill people, rappers do Goldie Lookin Chain I spent the day yesterday at the Department for Education thinking about how best to cut down on the "unnecessary workload" associated with marking. Today I spent far too much time bandying words with children's writer, Michael Rosen about the value of testing over teacher assessment. It strikes me that both experiences offer an opportunity to set out my objections to teacher [...]
Five techniques for overcoming overconfidence and improving decision-making
One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision. Bertrand Russell Every successful leader will have one thing in common: they trust their judgement. And why not? Their intuitions must have proved their worth otherwise they wouldn’t be successful, right? Well, maybe not. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman suggests that “the amount [...]
October on The Learning Spy
Here's what I got up to in October. The major themes this month were accountability and teachers' judgement. Books I read which I found particularly interesting were Beyond the Checklist and Matthew Syed's Black Box Thinking. I also found time to reread Conditions for Intuitive: Expertise A Failure to Disagree by Gary Klein & Daniel Kahneman. 4th October Intelligent Accountability - a manifesto for improving the ways in which teachers are held accountable in an [...]
In praise of signposts
The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. C. S. Lewis If you're not sure which way to go, a sign post is very useful. A quick glance confirms either you're headed in the right direction or you're not.If you are facing in the right direction, all you have to do is keep on walking. Obviously you [...]
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