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Hexagonal Learning

The mantra of all successful lesson observations these days is that students should be seen to be making progress. Perhaps the best way to show that you’re having an impact on their knowledge and understanding is to show that the learning is ‘deep’. By that I mean, knowledge that transfers from students’ working memories into their long-term memories. Students understand new ideas by relating them to existing ones. If they don't know enough about a subject they won’t have a solid base from which to make connections to prior knowledge. Students are more likely to remember learning if they "make their [...]

2012-01-28T14:52:41+00:00January 28th, 2012|English, learning, SOLO|

Doubts about Dweck? The problem with praise

Back in 2010 I was introduced to Carol Dweck's research into fixed and growth mindsets and the scales fell from my eyes. It was an epiphany. A veritable Damascene conversion. And like Saul before me, I quickly became an evangelist. The basic theory is that folk with growth mindsets will make effort for its own sake and when they encounter setbacks will see them as opportunities for learning. Your fixed mindset is all about success. Failure at a task is seen as evidence of personal failure. Struggle is seen as evidence of lack of ability. This is particularly toxic as hard [...]

2013-09-22T16:03:36+01:00January 27th, 2012|learning, myths|

Is it better to be told, or to discover a fact?

I've read a lot of blogosphere twaddle about why students don't learn effectively in groups and the only effective method for teaching is direct instruction. My view is there needs to balance in all things and using one teaching strategy to the exclusions of all others is a bad mistake. I think it's worth reproducing this fairly lengthy quote from, John Hattie in full: Various successful methods of teaching were identified in Visible Learning, but the book also identified the importance of not rushing to implement only the top strategies; rather it is important to understand the underlying reasons for the [...]

2012-01-22T15:39:39+00:00January 22nd, 2012|learning|

The 'practice' of teaching

Fewer (activities); Deeper (learning); Better (student outcomes). John Tomsett, Headteacher This is not a blog post proper, just some notes on Hattie's introduction to Visible Learning for Teachers. Hattie says what we all know: there is no scientific recipe for effective teaching and learning and "no set of principles that can be applied to all students". That said, I've been engaging in some gentle elbow-digging about Learning Styles again today. For those of you who haven't read my views, I will summarise them by saying I think Learning Styles are deeply unhelpful. If anyone is interested in the dissenting view then [...]

2012-01-16T20:22:57+00:00January 16th, 2012|learning, myths|

How to subvert target grades

Target grades are good aren't they? They must be otherwise why would Ofsted be so damn keen on them. Consider this: how would Monsieur d'Ofsted respond when asking an unsuspecting student in your class whether they're achieving their target grade only to be told that their teacher didn't let them know what their target grade was? Doesn't bode well, does it? Here’s a somewhat contentious piece of information: if you grade (or level) students' work you are actively preventing that piece of work being used formatively. That's not right, you may be thinking, I can provide formative feedback on a piece [...]

2014-07-23T15:27:05+01:00January 15th, 2012|assessment, Featured|

What is learning?

Go on, ask yourself, ask other teachers, ask some students: what is learning? It's a pretty big question isn't it? One that I might have felt hopelessly unequal to answering before reading Graham Nuthall's The Hidden Lives of Learners. This book draws together one of the most impressive attempts to find out what goes on in classrooms that I've ever come across. Briefly, Nuthall and his team wired up a range of classrooms and recorded everything that went down over several months before then transcribing these recordings and attempting to crunch the data they gathered. In doing so they learned some [...]

2014-05-24T18:04:11+01:00January 8th, 2012|learning|

What is good behaviour?

There are two schools in every school: the school of the high-status staff member, with the luxury of time and authority to cushion them from the worst classes; and the school of the supply teacher and NQT, who possess neither. Tom Bennett, Behaviour Tsar Everyone involved in teaching wants teachers to teach well. We spend a lot of time disputing what ‘teaching well’ looks like, and that’s fair enough; there are plenty of effective techniques for cat skinning. We also seem to agree that good behaviour is highly desirable, but some see it as the product of good teaching while others reckon it’s [...]

2016-01-01T18:35:40+00:00January 1st, 2012|learning|

11 from 11

  2011 has been a good year. Starting the blog has been life changing and after reading A Year in the Life of an English Teacher I've decided to take up the challenge and provide you with a smattering of what's been happening for me over the year. Also, it provides a useful shop window to garner votes in the Best New Blog category of the Edublog Awards. If at any point whilst reading this you are overcome with a powerful urge to vote for me, just click the link on the right. Even though I've only been blogging since July (which leaves [...]

2011-12-10T12:09:25+00:00December 10th, 2011|Featured|

Teaching to the test

In the light of the Telegraph's revelations that, shock! horror!, examiners tell teachers how to prepare students for exams it seems an opportune moment to reflect on the past two days. The chest thumping and blood letting that's followed the 'scoop' has been as predictable as it is pointless. The Telegraph says, The investigation has exposed a system in which exam boards aggressively compete with one another to win “business” from schools. Evidence that standards of exams have been deliberately driven down to encourage schools to sign up for them has also been uncovered. Twaddle. This, as every teacher knows, is [...]

2011-12-08T19:33:56+00:00December 8th, 2011|assessment|

Election Fever

The last time I canvassed for votes was back in my school mock election in 1987. In typically awkward bugger fashion, I ran as a Trotskyite candidate. As I recall I did rather well and came in third which has got to be some kind of record for any kind of communist in a British election. For the last 25 years I've managed to stay out of any kind of election but now I find myself nominated for an Edublog Award in the Best New Blog category. Which is nice. But I'm not entirely sure how to react. Obviously [...]

2011-12-06T19:40:04+00:00December 6th, 2011|Featured|

Some thoughts on Learning Styles

The rusting can of worms that is Learning Styles has been prised open again and the wriggling mess is crawling all over the educational twittersphere. And on that note I will stop extending the metaphor. A visual metaphor for the visual learners who didn't get my first sentence Last week Ian Gilbert wrote Learning Styles are dead, long live Learning Styles. He said: I have been in too many situations where young people who weren’t ‘getting it’ one way then started ‘getting it’ when we tried a different way, to dismiss the whole learning styles thing as a fad. As [...]

2017-03-17T09:34:53+00:00December 5th, 2011|learning, myths|

Why do I need a teacher if I've got Google and a granny?

NB - Having reviewed the evidence, I am now thoroughly convinced I was wrong about all this. Instead, try reading Is it just me or is Sugata Mitra an irresponsible charlatan?  Over the summer I watched Sugata Mitra's jaw-dropping Ted Talk on Child Driven Education and was bowled over. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6wPHOorAkM This, I said to myself, could change everything. Mitra outlines the results of a series of remarkable experiments which began with embedding computers into the walls of Indian slums at child height  and then watching to see what children did with them. Unsurprisingly these computers were magnets to the street kids [...]

2011-12-04T01:12:19+00:00December 4th, 2011|learning|
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