Work from home? Hybrid? Digital Nomads? The Four Day Week? … Post pandemic, we have seen many such headlines, as such schemes have moved from fringe ‘wish lists’ to mainstream practice. It really looks like people are now empowered to focus on what works, rather than habitual business practices. And this is posing a challenge…
Long has been the promise that technology will ease workload, but, as Damien Hinds acknowledges with all too often disappointing results. However, a recent OECD survey of 2496 of England’s teachers found that teachers who regularly allow pupils to use ICT for project and/or classwork, also report working 4.6 hours per week less than colleagues (Sellen, 2016). Perhaps…
So the story goes… Once a philosophy exam is reported to have asked students ‘What is courage?’ One student is said to have written only two words saying ‘This is.’ Whether true or not, how much to write in an exam, or indeed for any report, is a question causing much anxiety. In today’s high pressured…
Change is opportunity, right? But what enables people to take advantage, as opposed to being swept aside – as sadly some will, in the coming technological storm? We focus on 21st Century Skills – and rightly so. But let us not forget to focus on even more fundamental, vital prerequisites; those things that enable and…
When children come up with the right answer, is it because they actually understand / comprehend the reasons why their answer is right? Do the highest scoring students actually understand the concepts behind their success? Frequently not, it turns out. When asked “could you light a bulb with a battery and one wire?”, even at…
With over 14 million views, Shawn Achor is on to something – he’s really caught people’s attention. Put simply, he turns the happiness paradigm on it’s head. Instead of success making us happy, he shows how happiness makes us successful. The good news is that there are easy ways to build and strengthen happiness. https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work
Why is it that complex things – like learning to drive a car – can be much easier and quicker to manage than, say learning a vocabulary in a foreign language? It’s because the brain has different memory systems. Our brains weren’t designed to remember vast quantities of factual knowledge. Hard wiring this knowledge is…
Project based learning is learning by: Designing Collaborating Making Improving and refining Experimentation and Inquiry Despite this type of learning going back centuries, it doesn’t seem particularly in vogue. Instead we have a system which is accused of being too much ‘work today’, ‘jam tomorrow’ … Has learning fallen in to a ‘linear trap’? Take…
Peer Instruction has been getting rave reviews. Eric Mazur, a Harvard Professor of Physics, holds that learning proceeds at (up to) triple it’s normal rate! And, with very little input from him… he’s even known students to feel it unfair that they’re doing all the work. How does it work? Students must do prep work…
Singapore, Australia, Shanghai, Korea, Finland and Ontario – What do top performing education systems all have in common? One thing really stands out. One thing which would be easily transplanted, at almost no cost. It is the power of ‘Not Yet’ as Carole Dweck calls it… a pervasive belief that failure is not permanent and…
A neat bit of secondary data research appears to show that stress kills. No surprise there, except to say, there’s a catch. Keller et al. (2012) looked back at a 1998 study, and matched 28,753 participants’ mortality against both their stress levels and their attitudes to stress. It would seem that being stressed, and believing…
Education research must be really frustrating for many as it appears to contradict itself over time, and differing settings. This situation reminds me of story given by Martin Seligman (2004) in his very entertaining TED lecture. He explains: So they came to me — CNN — and they said, “Professor Seligman, would you tell us about…
Polyglot Benny Lewis learned languages late in life. Through his experience, he challenges traditional notions of learning and believes that learning languages can be made easy if learners are passionate about literature, people and culture. Instead of a formal method, he advocates a more PBL approach, where the problem is “how do I survive on holiday?”…
Education debate is all too often polarised. Progressives vs Traditionalists, Competition vs Collaboration, Testing vs Trust. And so on. A cynic might say that this makes for good headlines as a quick look at BBC reporting of phonics will show: “Phonics lessons are ‘almost abuse’” (BBC News, 2014a) Or “Phonics is the “best way” to…
Stanford University’s ‘Year of Learning’ … In a year long, strategy encompasing all disciplines, Stanford take a fresh look at the latest research on learning and teaching role of technology in developing and supporting learning and teaching the changing demography of education as the world goes global I really recommend their blog https://youtu.be/OY9RUc4kpxY All…
Paul Mason, economics editor of Channel Four, describes information technology as both product and disrupter of Capitalism. His thesis, written in his book, PostCapitalism: A guide to the future, is that for a very long time Capitalism has confounded its critics by being more adaptable than could be imagined. However, Information Technology, he opines, poses…
June 29, 2007… Less than ten years ago. This was the day the iPhone was released. How the world has changed since then… The pace of this change is exponential. Think explosive. Think accelerating. Think of the Gemino Curse which almost killed Harry Potter when raiding a vault in Gringott’s Bank. A nifty dramatisation of compounding…
Meta-cognitive interventions are one of the most cost-effective things teachers and schools can do, according to the Sutton Trust and the EEF toolkit. But how do we help pupils become better learners? This is the subject of a rigorous longitudinal study by James Mannion and Neil Mercer (2016), at the University of Cambridge. They develop…
Perennial questions that keep resurfacing: What’s the Finnish secret? and Should UK education become more like Finland? Perhaps though, we have more in common with Finland than we think? The 2010 OECD report on education in Finland lists a number similarities to UK initiatives: A core curriculum that has become increasingly less prescriptive Choice for…
We now live in a relentless, evidence based race to brilliance… or so some would say. If you can’t measure progress, current rhetoric holds that progress didn’t take place! ergo… If you can’t test it, don’t teach it… some say. Others reject regular progress testing… but who is right? The recent debate about a Singaporean…
Chess Champs have Superior Memory !! or do they? It seems obvious – surely Chess Champs are champs because they have superior memory? Or maybe they have mastered their learning style? Or perhaps they just have better genetics? Such claims are the enemy of hope. Students that hope to excel. Parents that dream for their…
The UK has an attitude problem. Our education is stuck in outdated and self-limiting ways of thinking. Is ability in-built? Do some fortunate few have a ‘math-gene’ or is sporting talent a ‘gift’? Are some truly ‘gifted and talented’ whilst others consigned to fate by their genetics? Not so, says Matthew Syed, international table tennis…
Is the aim of schooling, only to produce ‘university ready’ students? Is school just a conveyor belt?? If we take this logic backwards, are primary schools’ simply to prepare students for secondary school? So they are either ‘ready’ or ‘not-ready’? The Finns believe this is putting the horse before the cart. Apparently the job of…
This week Finland announced it was no longer going to teach math, science and English – as discrete subjects – in favour of joined up lessons, thematically based lessons. However scratching beneath the surface reveals a nuanced reform, not a radical one. Certainly, this is a reform that John Dewy would have approved of. Pasi…
Teenagers need more sleep!! Jet-lagged Teenagers … Two statements that all of us have heard, but why are we so quick to dismiss? Are we so distant from our own teenage years? Have we forgotten about biological natural variation? Very interesting reading lies in a review of the research literature, conducted by Kelley, Lockley, Foster and…
Imagine parents impatient with their daughter’s physical development, force-feed her steroids and HGH. Such parents would (hopefully) soon receive a visit from Social Services !! Andy Hargreave’s research gives excellent proof of the need for systems thinking; Peter Senge (author of The Fifth Discipline, 2006) would be pleased! Hargreaves quickly shows how huge collateral damage…
Today’s Guardian lauds the success of synthetic phonics in primary schools: Which surely appears like good news to the Government and bad news to doubting academics who seem in abundant supply (Marshall, 2012). However not content with such success, the DfE has even taken a broadside at teachers, implying they previously tried to manipulate results in…
Schools can be so busy, right? But what if policy and actions, designed to help, are detrimental to the time available? Theoretical simplicity – easy to understand, fast to apply and generates rapid and catchy headlines. However, the potential for serious problems also exists. Making the wrong decision can lead to countless more hours and…
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