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Teaching and Learning
Engineering Success. A positive alternative to generic mindset messaging
In general I find that there is still far too much emphasis in schools on the generic language of growth mindset, the learning pit, resilience, ‘learning to learn’ and broad-brush life-goal motivation. This has its place at the level of a broad ethos in a school. It’s all part of creating the positive ‘feels’ we … Continue reading
Riding the Rosenshine Wave.
Well. What a week it’s been. As I write this I’m seeing that my new Rosenshine’s Principles in Action booklet is still in the top 50 of all books on Amazon and I’m stunned – as I have been all week. This post is simply a way to capture the moment because, for sure, … Continue reading
Studying successfully: motivation + strategy + habit
At home we’re in the midst of another exam window. My son has an AS and several internal Y12 exams to prepare for. As I documented last year during his GCSEs, I feel that it’s generally a positive process for him. He works hard and learns a lot in the process. I think there are … Continue reading
Teaching and Learning Agenda 2019/20
The summer term is often a time when people gather their thoughts for the year ahead. The work I do with schools and colleges is largely driven by a medium term improvement agenda: combining some initial support – establishing areas to improve in current practice, setting some goals for the next 12-18 months – and … Continue reading
Do students have agency or not?
agency is the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. In debates about learning and behaviour, I often think that people in education are conflicted about the extent of student agency. Do students have agency? Should they have agency – it is a good thing? Are we meant to … Continue reading
How self-aware are you? (Be the fly on your classroom wall…)
I use this slide in several of my talks – capturing some of the variables that I encounter working with teachers across the system. Here, I want to focus on self awareness. With some teachers, you kick off a post-observation discussion with a simple question: (how do you think it’s going? ) and they … Continue reading
Setting Great Homework: The Mode A:Mode B approach.
I have explored issues with homework in various different posts. In particular, the research into homework by John Hattie is covered in detail in this post: Homework: What does the Hattie research actually say? I’m a firm believer that homework has an important role to play in providing a great education and fostering independent learning, as … Continue reading
10 Techniques for Retrieval Practice
Image Credit: https://emptechgroup.com/the-internet-of-things/ I’ve written about retrieval practice several times in other posts but here I just want to make it easy to lay out various alternative methods for the process of reviewing your students’ knowledge and understanding. Before doing that, I would suggest that there are some key principles: Involve everyone: Good techniques involve … Continue reading
The case for mixing modes of teaching: a mathematical model.
Here’s the truth. We struggle to define the strategies that we deploy in our classrooms and, when we undertake research to identify the most effective strategies, there’s an awful lot of noise, error and variation between the conditions we’re studying in one place compared to any other. However, various attempts have been made and we … Continue reading
10 Steps for Reviewing Your KS3 Curriculum
Now that schools are getting into the swing of the new GCSEs and KS3 assessment continues to present various challenges, it’s natural that a lot more attention is being given to the curriculum content at KS3. Of course some will say that Ofsted’s much-trailed renewed interest in curriculum is playing a part too – but I’ve … Continue reading
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