I’ve written a few of these round-up posts as a way of collecting ideas together. Hopefully this makes it easier to share. The #1 problem/weakness in teaching and how to address it. A popular post exploring the problem of enabling all students to learn all the material with some common weaknesses in teaching and how … Continue reading
One of the great joys of my current work as a travelling education consultant and teacher trainer is that I get to meet teachers everywhere; all over the UK; all over the world. Everywhere I go I encounter wonderful teams of people doing incredible work, full of energy, enthusiasm, a sense of mission; bursting with … Continue reading
I love the idea of ‘evidence-informed wisdom’. I honestly can’t remember where I first encountered this but, essentially, it’s the idea that, as teachers we are faced with making hundreds of decisions a day – largely about how to question, how to motivate and how to adjust explanations, feedback, and the pace and depth of … Continue reading
It’s a well-established idea that, to develop expertise in a particular skill or technique, you need to practise. The more you practise, the better you get. As outlined by the excellent people at Deans for Impact in their Practice with Purpose document, it helps to identify a specific element of your teaching to practise on and … Continue reading
When I started this blog, I didn’t really expect very much. As a veteran bedroom-studio musician, I’m used to the tumbleweed of indifference to my creations. I flogged my music through MySpace for a couple of years and got absolutely nowhere beyond a few scraps of encouragement. So, with low expectations to start with, the … Continue reading
1. Doing the things you love while you’re at work It has always struck me as remarkable and fortuitous that I am paid to do a job where I get to have so much fun. In my lessons, I have the chance to explore my favourite subject – Physics. Today I was talking about space, … Continue reading
Very often I’m asked for advice from teachers applying for jobs, either colleagues or friends. Each person’s context is unique to them but the messages are usually the same so I thought I would share them. As a Headteacher, getting the right people into the right roles within my school is one of the most … Continue reading
Introduction. I’m celebrating writing my 100th post, by trying to link together various posts relating to teaching. I suggest in my post ‘How do I know how good my teachers are?’ that there are three key sources that contribute to my judgement of the effectiveness of my teaching staff: Data – the measured outcomes from … Continue reading
Behaviour Management Strategies from Bill Rogers Without doubt the greatest personal challenge I’ve faced as a teacher was moving from the Sixth Form college in Wigan where I started teaching, to Holland Park School in London in my mid-20s. Having established the idea in my mind that I was a pretty good teacher, it was … Continue reading
Recently I have been looking again at the issue of marking. It is a hugely important source of feedback provided that we keep the volume of marking in proportion to the level of impact it can have in improving learning outcomes. I’ve discussed this in a much-read earlier post: Marking in Perspective: Selective, Formative, Effective, … Continue reading
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