teacherhead
Teaching and Learning
7 Deadly Difficulties in Teaching.
Increasingly I feel that teacher development, performance review and the whole apparatus around lesson observation should place a strong, central emphasis on understanding the challenges that teachers face in securing the learning of all the students in a class. It can often be extremely difficult even for experienced expert teachers to nail every student’s learning … Continue reading
Small change; big impact. Six suggestions.
Sometimes switching to using different teaching strategies can feel like a fairly major upheaval for some people. That is especially true if they require new resources to be produced. However, very often, I think that a teacher could make a big impact in their practice by making quite small changes to the routine way they … Continue reading
Rosenshine’s Principles: 10 FAQs.
Having published the little red and black booklet, Rosenshine’s Principles in Action, I now get asked to talk about it a lot. I also get asked a lot of the same questions. Here’s a sample of 10 FAQs. 1. Do the principles all apply to every lesson? No. It’s really important not to think of … Continue reading
Signposting the hinterland: practical ways to enrich your core curriculum.
Working with several schools on curriculum development over the last couple of years, a regular challenge has been to resolve the tensions that arise from having finite time and the inherent need to make a selection of material to teach from all the possibilities that swirl around. What to cover? What to leave out? How … Continue reading
#CPD: Meeting half-way. Changing minds, shifting the inertia, overcoming the resistance.
In my work as a travelling teacher trainer, in amongst the enthusiasts with welcoming smiles, I meet plenty of teachers who are being compelled to sit and listen to me. It’s not as if they are being held forcefully against their will but you can be sure, given a completely free choice, they’d be … Continue reading
Relationships at school. Teacher-student.
This post is Part 2 from two, based on a talk I gave to the Kings’ Schools in Dubai in August. Part One was about adult relationships: Relationships at School: The Adults. This one is about teacher-student or, more generally, adult-child relationships. Here are some of the areas that we discussed in the session: 1.We are … Continue reading
Mindsets vs Metacognition. Two EEF reports and a clear conclusion.
At ResearchEd in Cape Town I presented a workshop exploring two relatively recent reports from the Education Endowment Foundation – the 2018 guidance report Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning, and the 2019 report Changing Mindsets: Effectiveness Trial. Essentially, my argument is that these papers support the view – one that makes sense to me – that … Continue reading
Are Rosenshine’s Principles “just common sense”? #rED19
In my work supporting teacher development, I always refer to Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction as a major go-to source of ideas, linking findings from cognitive science and other research to classroom practice. There are lots of reasons for these ten principles gaining a wide audience, one of which is that, to many teachers, they feel … Continue reading
Ideas for better teaching. @teacherhead blog collection.
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
Goals, Set-backs and the Psychology of Giving Up.
I went running today and completed a 5km Finsbury Park @ParkRun. Here’s what the email says: Your time was 00:28:53. Congratulations on completing your 11th parkrun and your 10th at Finsbury parkrun today. You finished in 321st place and were the 246th male out of a field of 504 parkrunners and you came 20th in … Continue reading
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