See it, own it: how to destroy a school
I went for a coffee with a former colleague a few days ago and inevitably, after some small talk, the conversation turned to a discussion of his school. He started off by confiding that the GCSE results had fallen again, before launching into a tirade about how unbearable he found teaching. One of his biggest bugbears was the school's behaviour policy. This 'policy' has been rebranded under the heading 'See it, [...]
Can we make learning permanent?
How can we know whether a student has learned something? To answer that we need a working definition of what we mean by learning and the one I've come up with is tripartite; learning is composed of retention, transfer and change. In order to know whether something has been learned we should ask ourselves three questions: Will students still know this next week, next month, next year? Will students be [...]
Around the world in 80 classrooms
A guest blog by Lucy Crehan (@lucy_crehan) I’ve spent the last two years learning about the best education systems in the world – from the inside. It was a particular moment in a year 11 Science class four years ago that set me on this journey. They had their GCSEs coming up in a few months, and we still had a lot of material to cover. Abdul, a boy who [...]
Do gender differences make a difference?
It's a well-known fact that boys underachieve. Every statistic tells us so. But ever since writing this post I've been suspicious of gender as the root cause for differences in achievement. Yes, girls outperform boys but is this due to fundamental differences in gender? Or is it more to do with expectations, perception and bias? Or is it, perhaps, an illusion? Might differences in performance be due to other, less beguiling [...]
#WrongBook extracts
For those who have as yet resisted the temptation to buy a copy of my new book, I've put together a selection of (hopefully) tempting extracts. Have a great summer y'all. 1. Cognitive dissonance 2. Fundamental attribution error 3. Availability bias 4. The halo effect 5. Overconfidence 6. 'Passive' learning 7. The purposes of education 8. How to teach 9. Evidence 10. Meta beliefs 11. Progress 12. Tacit knowledge 13. Knowledge vs [...]
What's the point of parents' evenings?
Earlier today I read this post on the purpose of parents' evenings by David James. It's an excellent exploration of some of the vagaries and oddness of being either side of the table, but ultimately it doesn't answer the question: What are parents' evenings for? This is something my wife explained a number of years ago. For some reason neither of us can remember, I was allowed to attend our [...]
Reading is a rebel act: on the role of school libraries
"My library was dukedom large enough" The Tempest, Shakespeare "The act of poetry is a rebel act." Farewell to English, Michael Harnett Some people are never happy. After writing my last post on how it might be possible to get students to read more, one commentator criticised that there was no mention of school librarians. Well, it was a blog post: the list of things which went unmentioned dwarfed what was written [...]
How do you get students to read for pleasure?
"There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book." Marcel Proust Reading seems to make us smarter. Here's Keith Stanovich explaining why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF6VKmMVWEc&feature=youtu.be&t=45s For most people, this is uncontroversial. We talk a lot about the power of books and the need to get more children to read for pleasure. But how do you get students to read for [...]
What if I'm wrong? @HeyMissSmith savages #WrongBook
Several people have very kindly written about why they like my new book, What if everything you know about education is wrong? but refreshingly, Jane Manzone (@HeyMissSmith) has reached entirely different conclusions. To be fair, I suggested that Jane review the book for Schools Week because I thought she'd have a very different take from most of the other people who'd read and helped me shape my ideas. I knew she'd [...]
20 psychological principles for teachers #20 Interpretation
This is the 20th and final post in my series on the Top 20 Principles From Psychology for Teaching and Learning and the third of three posts examining how to assess students’ progress: "Making sense of assessment data depends on clear, appropriate, and fair interpretation." "I wish we had more assessment data!" said no sane school leader ever. We're awash with data produced by oceans of assessment. As with so much else in [...]
Reactions to #WrongBook
In addition to the pre-publication reviews from some of the most eminent thinkers in education and psychology such as professors Dylan Wiliam, Robert Bjork, Daniel Willingham and Robert Coe, some 'real' readers have had a chance to plough their way through the 400+ pages. I realise this is a big ask but I hope the Amazon reviews below give you a sense of why it might be worth reading. Many thanks for [...]
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