Some edtech maths
Have been doodling on the back of a napkin this evening about edtech and its cost-benefit. Let’s say a new technology is being introduced into your school, with the promise of “50% better learning for all”. Let’s assume the following: After 1 year, by the end of the pre-Tech course, your class will have generated...
3D Education
I am finding Charles Koch’s framework for education more and more useful. If nothing else it helps me place some of the drier research on things like dual-coding and spaced retrieval in the context of a richer, more human approach and what Jeremy Barnes calls “Albert Hall Moments”. I came across Koch’s model...
Thinking again
I miss my old blogging habit. I miss the intentionality, the slower pace, the thoughtfulness and the openness. Perhaps above all I miss the various unpublished draft posts and what they represented. I’d like to start thinking again. Thanks to two blogging stalwarts Ton and Euan, I might have the momentum to do so and […]
Keeping Children Safe in Education Quiz (and how to make your own)
In September, which seems miles away now, the government’s Keeping Children Safe in Education Part 1 section was changed. It’s the sort of document I diligently read but then, when quizzed go blank. So to help me revise, so to speak, and make reading it into knowing it, I made a quick Google form and […]
Punctuated Equilibrium, Progress and Schools
Punctuated Equilibrium is a theory in evolutionary biology that seems to fit well with progress in students’ learning. What is Punctuated Equilibrium Punctuated Equilibrium was first proposed in the 1970s by Nile’s Elderedge and Stephen Jay Gould. They argued that while most of us think that evolution happens gradually, the fossil record...
Mohini The White Tiger and Learned Helplessness
I’ve been watching a lot of TED talks recently (part of a NY’s resolution), and have been struck by the number that say something along the lines of “school is broken” and “how do we make children like school?”. There’s a sad story about a tiger called Mohini that Tara Brach tells as follows....
What Shaolin Monks Taught Me About Teaching
The best teacher training I have ever had was from a 34th Generation Shaolin Warrior Monk, Shi Yan Jun. Over the years, I have had in-school training such as INSETs, after-school twilight sessions, teacher observations (given and received). I have had off-site training run by battle-hardened professionals but sweetened with coffee,...
Early Steps in Blended Learning
I think a penny has finally dropped. I’ve been mulling over blended learning for a while but have never quite summoned up the energy. I’ve also been thinking about ways I can apply the DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) principle to my teaching, so I can spend more time doing the fun parts of teaching. Slower […]
A Little Game for Roald Dahl Day
I’ve rejigged a little adjective game I made so that it can be used for Roald Dahl Day. It’s pretty straightforward: Load this webpage: fantasticadjectives Read the text with the class Ask them to add their favourite adjectives in the boxes below Click “Fox It Up” And reread. Happy to make some more if...
Superman Pants
My diary entry from my first day in the Moria Clothes Tent, Lesvos. —- Today was superman pants. They just arrived. The women and children queuing on one side the men on the other, startled, slow, shivering and in shock. I really wasn’t ready for it. The questions, Farsi, Arabic, the same questions again and […]