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learning
The next edu-revolution*: Textbooks!
Each time I post something positive on twitter about textbooks, I get a strongly positive response. Now more than ever, with people talking about studying at home and the very real challenges and impact of the digital divide, it seems such a desperate and unnecessary state of affairs that textbooks have seen such a decline … Continue reading
Re-reading Nuthall’s Hidden Lives of Learners. Insights from a classic.
“If we are to understand how teaching relates to learning, we have to begin at the closest point to that learning; and that is students’ experience.” Nuthall. 2001. Lots of people have written reviews of Graham Nuthall’s Hidden Lives of Learners published posthumously in 2007. It’s often cited as a must-read by conference speakers, including … 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
A glossary of terms to help us discuss learning.
Increasingly I find that there’s a whole language that teachers would benefit from sharing so that, when we’re talking about learning, we are talking about the same things. The list could be very long – and I’m happy to add to this over time – but how about this for a start: (*Recency and … Continue reading
From “I’ve done it” to “I’ve learned it”. Terminate the tyranny of the task.
If you go into lessons as an observer, it’s pretty standard to sit alongside a student and to engage in a short discussion about their work. I might say ‘hello, tell me what you’re doing this lesson’. The normal response is ‘I’m doing this sheet’ – as the student points to the worksheet task in … Continue reading
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
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
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
Teaching for Recall, Fluency and Understanding: Blog round-up for easy access.
Recent blogs on teacherhead.com have had a certain theme around teaching for recall, fluency and understanding. Here is a round-up so people can access them easily all in one place: Two influential papers: Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction: A blog exploring this key paper using four simple themes, now with a new graphic by Oliver Caviglioli. … Continue reading
Saffron Walden County High School: An exemplary school. The Learning Rainforest made real.
Last week I spent a day visiting Saffron Walden County High School in the North-West corner of Essex. This was the result of a conversation with Head and CEO, Caroline Derbyshire who suggested that I should consider writing a ‘Learning Rainforest in Action’ follow-up book. Having read the original book, Caroline felt that SWCHS embodied … Continue reading
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