20 psychological principles for teachers #11 Expectations
This is the third of four posts exploring what motivates students in my series examining the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education’s report on the Top 20 Principles From Psychology for Teaching and Learning. This time I turn my attention to Principle 11: “Teachers’ expectations about their students affect students’ opportunities to learn, their motivation, and their learning outcomes.” It's no surprise that we usually experience what we expect to experience. You will, of course, [...]
It's the bell curve, stupid!
Like an ultimate fact without any cause, the individual outcome of a measurement is, however, in general not comprehended by laws. This must necessarily be the case. Wolfgang Pauli A month or so back I met Professor Steve Higgins from Durham University's Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring. He presented at researchED's primary literacy conference in Leeds and what he had to say was revelatory. His talk was on the temptations [...]
Fancy attending an English & maths conference?
I'm speaking at Optimus Education's English & Maths 2015: Effective Teaching Strategies to Meet New Accountabilities on Thursday 22nd October. The mathematicians amongst needn't worry; I'll only be inflicting my "inspirational keynote" to the English strand. If you're interested, this is what I'll be talking about: "Curriculum creativity: Enjoy your new-found freedom and develop a curriculum plan that successfully encourages breadth and depth of knowledge". There's lots of other great speakers lined [...]
Fancy attending an English & maths conference?
I'm speaking at Optimus Education's English & Maths 2015: Effective Teaching Strategies to Meet New Accountabilities on Thursday 22nd October. The mathematicians amongst needn't worry; I'll only be inflicting my "inspirational keynote" to the English strand. If you're interested, this is what I'll be talking about: "Curriculum creativity: Enjoy your new-found freedom and develop a curriculum plan that successfully encourages breadth and depth of knowledge". There's lots of other great speakers lined [...]
20 psychological principles for teachers #10 Mastery
This is the second of four posts exploring what motivates students and the tenth in my series examining the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education’s report on the Top 20 Principles From Psychology for Teaching and Learning . This time I turn my attention to Principle 10: “Students persist in the face of challenging tasks and process information more deeply when they adopt mastery goals rather than performance goals.” Mastery gets bandied around [...]
20 psychological principles for teachers #9 Motivation
The next four posts in my series examining the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education's report on the Top 20 Principles From Psychology for Teaching and Learning will be on what motivates students. This time I look at Principle 9: “Students tend to enjoy learning and to do better when they are more intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated to achieve.” It goes without saying that motivation is important, but as Graham Nuthall said, “Learning [...]
May on The Learning Spy
Blimey, but May was a busy month! I wrote more posts than ever before - a ridiculous 29, and had more views than any other months with 90,590 views. Anyhoo, I did this last month and 4 people got in touch to say they'd like me to do it again, so this is for them. Here follows a brief run down of what I wrote about. Two stars and a [...]
20 psychological principles for teachers #8 Creativity
In this, the eighth in a series of posts examining a report on the Top 20 Principles From Psychology for Teaching and Learning, I take a closer look at Principle 8: “Student creativity can be fostered." Of all the psychological principles I've read about, this seems the weakest. The report starts badly: "Creativity—defined as the generation of ideas that are new and useful in a particular situation—is a critical skill for students [...]
20 psychological principles for teachers #7 Self-regulation
In this, the seventh in a series of posts examining a report on the Top 20 Principles From Psychology for Teaching and Learning, I take a closer look at Principle 7: "Students’ self-regulation assists learning, and self-regulatory skills can be taught." Before getting into the thorny matter of whether self-regulation can be taught, we need to be clear about what we actually mean by the term. Rather than attempting a definition, the [...]
20 psychological principles for teachers #6 Feedback
In this, the sixth in a series of posts examining the Top 20 Principles From Psychology for Teaching And Learning, I cast a critical eye over Principle 6: “Clear, explanatory, and timely feedback to students is important for learning." The fact that feedback is important is regularly used to wallop teachers. This has been accepted as a self-evidently truth. And by and large it's true. There are, however, a few points worth [...]
Ofsted inspections to be higher stakes: for inspectors!
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Mathew 7:7 Sometimes life takes a surreal twist. In January 2014 I predicted Ofsted would stop grading lessons within a maximum of two years. I was wrong. Grades had been scrapped by June the same yearGrades had been scrapped by June the same year! I then got a [...]
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