This was originally posted on the Lib Dem Teacher blog in 2015. Let’s imagine you want to teach pupils what a verb is. You give them a brief definition, and a few examples of verbs being used in sentences. Jack sprinted to the shop. She plays football every day. Trains are a type of transport.… Read more »
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This post can also be found on the No More Marking blog here. Over the last few months we have heard a lot of worries about the potential ‘learning loss’ being incurred by students who have missed several months of school. What is meant by this phrase? Let’s think of a couple of scenarios. Let’s… Read more »
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A couple of weeks ago, I ran a webinar for the Teacher Development Trust where I asked everyone which statement they agreed with most. One: The educational responses to COVID-19 have been emergency interventions with little long-term benefit. When schools return, I will go back to teaching as normal and be grateful for it. Two:… Read more »
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Suppose you have a couple of hundred words of text that you would like your students to read. Does it make a difference if they read it on paper or on a screen? Yes. In this post here, from last December, I review some of the research that shows students do worse on screen-based reading… Read more »
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Education technology is really powerful. The problem is that it is just as easy to use that power badly as to use it well. You can see this with video lessons – clearly video allows you to do all kinds of cool things, but how many of these cool things will help students to learn… Read more »
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What makes a good flashcard? Keep it really simple. Here’s what not to do. The problem with this flashcard is that it is not clear exactly what you are supposed to remember or how you can be sure if you have got right. Are you supposed to recite every word? Just identify some of the… Read more »
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When I was studying for GCSE history, there was a sudden class panic about revision guides. I think a job lot of guides had arrived at the library and were available to buy for about £2, but a rumour went round that they were selling out. Suddenly, students who weren’t even studying history were worrying… Read more »
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The best part of researching my new book, Teachers vs Tech, was getting to read a lot more about memory. Not just the academic research on memory – although this was fascinating – but the practical attempts by real people to come up with systems to improve their long-term memory and remember things forever. Often,… Read more »
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The challenge of remote teaching is the challenge of all teaching: learning is invisible. How do you get students to understand complex material, and how do you know when they have understood it? You need to check for understanding, and this is why – rightly – so much educational ink has been spilt on the… Read more »
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It’s clear that education needs to become more research-based. Too many fads and myths hold sway, and too little is known about large bodies of solid research evidence that have powerful practical implications. Still, just expecting teachers to become more research informed is a big ask. Education research is a huge field, and teachers are… Read more »
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