How to get assessment wrong
It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand, and what those things are. Søren Kierkegaard With the freedom to replace National Curriculum Levels with whatever we want, there's a wonderful opportunity to assess what students can actually do rather than simply slap vague, ill-defined criteria over students' work and then pluck out arbitrary numbers as a poor proxy for progress. But [...]
The Testing Effect is dead! Long live the Testing Effect!
Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Richard Feynman Yesterday we were told that the much vaunted testing effect (which I've written about here) has been effectively shown to be useless in improving the learning of 'complex' material. Tamara van Gog and John Sweller's provocatively titled paper, Not New, but Nearly Forgotten: the Testing Effect Decreases or [...]
The Variation Effect: How seating plans might be undermining learning
Observe always that everything is the result of a change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and to make new ones like them. Marcus Aurelius It is a truth universally acknowledged that a teacher in possession of a large roomful of children must be in want of a carefully crafted seating plan. Secondary schools in particular have normalised [...]
Seriously, what if you're wrong?
If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. Bertrand Russell If there's one tip I might offer on how to think [...]
Is displaying students' work worth the effort?
Of all the observations I made about Michaela School, one which proved particularly controversial was their decision not put display children's work. The rationale given for this was twofold. It takes teachers time to put up, refresh and replace classroom displays and it takes children time to create work for the purpose of such displays. I've spent the week mulling this over and have arrived at a few thoughts. I'm [...]
I fought the law and the law won
There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet. Samuel Beckett Yesterday I attended a Speed Awareness Course. I wasn't sure what to expect but was mainly relieved not to get another 3 points on my licence. At worst it would a dull four hours, at best I might learn something. The course started with participants being asked about what excuses we might make [...]
What ‘no excuses’ means to me
And oftentimes excusing of a fault Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse, As patches set upon a little breach Discredit more in hiding of the fault Than did the fault before it was so patch’d. Shakespeare, King John Let's begin by defining our terms. The dictionary is instructive and offers several different definitions: an explanation offered as a reason for being excused; a plea offered in extenuation of a [...]
'No excuses' is no excuse
We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse. Rudyard Kipling I was a bit taken aback at the vigour and vitriol with which some people condemned Michaela School's approach to behaviour. The argument seemed to go that if you refuse to accept poor behaviour then you simply pass on the problem to another school. As far as I can see, that's entirely up to other schools. [...]
Robert Coe on #WrongBook
Robert Coe, Director of the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring at Durham University burst into my consciousness two years ago with his vigorous critique of the lack of evidence underpinning lesson observation. I'm sure he needs no introduction, but his papers Improving Education: a triumph of hope over experience and What Makes Great Teaching? are essentially reading for anyone interested in education beyond own narrow sphere of opinion. In short, he's an [...]
Michaela School: Route One Schooling
I learned two very important principles from my visit to Michaela: You can do whatever you want as long as you hold your nerve and accept the consequences. You can always go a lot further than you first think is possible. The first principle is embodied in Head Teacher, Katherine Birbalsingh’s explanation of how to get the culture you want: you just don’t compromise. If a teacher sees or hears [...]
Scaffolding: what we can learn from the metaphor
Pretty much everyone agrees scaffolding students' work is a 'good thing'. Whenever they get stuck we leap in with our trusty writing frames and help them get going. A good writing frame can teach an understanding of text coherence and structure, prompt metacognition and serve as jolly useful checklist. But I think we get a few things wrong. Thinking about where the scaffolding metaphor comes from is instructive. Builders use scaffolding to [...]
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