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Gary Klein

Developing expertise #2 – Seek feedback

2016-06-30T11:09:32+01:00June 30th, 2016|training|

In my previous post I suggested the first step for teachers to develop expertise was to find ways to change the environment so that the feedback we get is unbiased. In this post we will consider why much of the feedback we do get is unhelpful and how to get more of the helpful stuff. Many of the decisions we take  - in life generally and as teachers - are based not on reason and logic but on vague, nebulous feelings of 'rightness'. Why did you buy the car you drive, the toothpaste you use, the shoes you wear? Why did [...]

Developing intuition: when can you trust your gut?

2017-04-14T22:44:41+01:00June 26th, 2016|training|

At the talk I gave on intuition at Wellington College's Education Festival on Thursday, I ended up not using the slides I'd prepared and wandering a bit off topic. Here follows what I'd planned to say as well as the slides. Teachers' intuition: when can you trust your gut? from David Didau Certainty and over confidence can prevent us from thinking; the more certain we are that we're right, the less we'll consider other possibilities. This tendency not to think too much about the possibility that we might be mistaken stems in part from a whole suite of well documented cognitive biases, but [...]

We don’t know what we don’t know: the uses of humility

2020-07-20T13:37:31+01:00November 5th, 2015|leadership, psychology|

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 and that, in essence, a large part of the act of teaching is making judgements about pupils' learning. As such, any attempt to remove subjective bias from teaching is fundamentally flawed. [...]

Five techniques for overcoming overconfidence and improving decision-making

2020-01-21T18:39:02+00:00November 3rd, 2015|leadership, psychology|

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 of success it takes for leaders to become overconfident isn’t terribly large.” Kahneman’s paper, co-authored with Gary Klein, Conditions for Intuitive: Expertise A Failure to Disagree, argues that overconfidence is at the [...]

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