“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify … into every corner of our minds.” John Maynard Keynes Knowledge is power, without doubt. What is an education if not the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. And yet, we should be mindful of
This blog series was inspired by the simple and complex truth, offered by Professor Rob Coe, that we need to get students thinking hard to learn best. The first post in my series, entitled ‘Thinking Hard…And Why We Avoid It‘, explores why our students’ lazy brains let them down
Do boys loaf more or less when working in groups with girls? Do girls work better in a single sex group? What is the ideal classroom grouping scenario? Such questions can beguile even the most experienced of teachers. Answering those questions could provide us with important marginal improvements for our
Is it better to group students based on their prior ability, in mixed ability groupings, or something in between? This questions besets schools, departments and teachers on an annual basis. There are unique conditions, supports and pressures that mean it is a difficult issue with no silver-bullet answer. The best
Are you struggling to motivate your horizontal students too? So we have found the secret to learning…thinking hard. Part one of this series – you can find it here – explored what we mean by thinking hard and it explored just some of the many reasons why we avoid it. It
In his excellent 2013 paper, called ‘Improving Education: A Triumph of Hope Over Experience’, Professor Rob Coe defines the secret of learning: “Learning happens when people have to think hard.” With refreshing honesty, Professor Coe goes on to describe his wise aphorism as “over-simplistic, vague and not original”. Now, despite
(Babbage’s ‘The Difference Engine No. 1’, 1832, image via Science Museum) Charles Babbage is a name too few people remember, but in many ways his brilliant ideas have helped shape our modern world. Born in 1791, Babbage was a brilliant polymath, Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, and he is
‘The year 9 class of the future?’ A discussion around class size is never far away from educational debate. Every so often a new report is emblazoned with headlines in the press: ‘class size matters’…’class size doesn’t matter‘. What are we to believe? Well, of course class size
Some people deserve to be heard and their inspiring life story passed on. One such person is Helen Keller. Born on the 27th of June, in 1880, in Alabama, Helen fell ill, aged eighteen months and was struck blind, deaf and mute. Her story is one of tremendous courage, will
Stand tall, place your legs apart, clench your fists and place them onto your hips. There…that is your power pose. Keep it for a minute or two. Does you feel more confident? Is your body coursing with testosterone-induced power? Professor Amy Cuddy devised a hugely popular TED talk to
I’ve always held with the Beatles lyric that we get by with a little help from our friends. In classrooms, with students learning and helping one another learn, it can often help too (when done well). The evidence to support the effectiveness of ‘Peer Tutoring’ programmes in schools has
Sometimes surveying a scene from a different perspective gives you a new, fuller understanding of things. For the last few months I have been writing about confidence and becoming a confident teacher. I have researched the hell out of it and talked to many people about the notion of confidence.