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Lessons for Ed-Research from Quantum Gravity via @carlorovelli
I recently read this fabulous book by Carlo Rovelli. The book works on many levels. It is an attempt to explain the emerging theory of quantum gravity. This has numerous mind-blowing conceptual elements – such as the idea that spacetime is quantized, that time isn’t really a fundamental thing that ticks forward – it’s just … Continue reading
Towards an Assessment Paradigm Shift
Despite my reservations about some of the big data measures that are used to judge schools, I am hopeful that our discourse is shifting the debate on assessment in a very positive direction. If this continues it will represent an important paradigm shift with positive consequences for students’ learning and their overall school experience. The … Continue reading
Teaching to the Top: Attitudes and strategies for delivering real challenge.
Teaching to top has been a long-standing principle of effective teaching from my perspective. One of my early blogs was ‘Gifted and Talented Provision: A Total Philosophy‘ and it remains one of the topics I am asked to talk about most often in CPD sessions. I no longer think that Gifted and Talented is a … Continue reading
You’re doing it all wrong: context and complexity in Ed-research and debate.
It’s continually frustrating to me that so much of the discourse in our debates and in the reading of education research reduces teaching and learning effects to crude averages and sweeping assumptions, ignoring complexity and context At the same time, it’s equally frustrating that some people’s response to this complexity is to reinforce a … Continue reading
Presentation: potentially a powerful proxy for progress. #shortblog
One of my frustrations with my last inspection experience was the high-speed book flick-throughs that were passed off as valid scrutinies of standards. Essentially, in the time given to each book, in some cases, it could only really have been presentation that was being evaluated. It was annoying when a teacher of a KS3 class was … Continue reading
Ten teaching techniques to practise – deliberately.
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
Teacherhead-consulting in action
I’m pleased to say that teacherhead-consulting is now up and running. If you are interested in the kind of support I can provide, here is a run down of some of the work I’ve done in the last two months. If you would like to contact me to discuss possible work, please use the contact … Continue reading
Too Much Teaching is Wasted
Let me give you some information: (Try to imagine that you’re going to learn it.) The Earth-Sun distance is used as unit of distance called the Astronomical Unit. 1 AU. The Earth-Moon distance is 0.0026 AU to 2 significant figures. The nearest Star is Proxima Centauri (part of the Alpha Centauri system. Pronounced ‘Sen-TOR-eye’). The … Continue reading
Teaching and assessment for top-end success in new GCSEs
I’ve been looking at the specimen papers for GCSEs in English, Maths and Science to get a feel for the expectations at the top-end. Although, in theory, schools should have been engaging with these materials for a while, with Year 11s ready to go this May and Year 10s already on the road with Science, … Continue reading
10 Must-Read Books for Better Teaching
This selection is my current top ten book recommendations for teachers. Continue reading
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