Unlock the power of research evidence in education to improve teaching and learning. Discover evidence-based strategies, innovative approaches, and actionable insights that can elevate teaching. These blogs explore new evidence, whilst exploring a range of research methods and practical approaches. Reflecting on research evidence use can help drive school and college improvement, so these blogs offer handy insights for that vital work.
(Image credit: Kyle Flood – Creative Commons License – ‘Waah!’) Nothing prepares you to be a parent. Nothing. No parenting class gives you every answer to the mystery, particularly in the haze of a sleep-deprived dawn. No crying doll can ever captures the searing pain of your babe crying in your arms.
Just under a quarter of a century ago, I failed the 11+. I’ll admit, the experience was less than cataclysmic for my skinny pre-teen self. I remember being asked by my school teacher if I wanted to sit the exam, with my ‘yes vote’ being cast when my best
Take a moment to imagine the scene. You are standing on the goal line and you have the privilege of being the goalkeeper of your nation – in a major championship no less. Your heart is scudding into you ribcage. Sweat tumbles into your eyes and you nervously wipe them away
“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
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
‘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
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
If you are a school teacher and you haven’t heard of Carol Dweck’s ubiquitous growth and fixed mindset concept then… quite frankly, where the hell have you been for the past few years? No doubt lots of good has emerged from this common-sense psychological framework, with a few
(Comic via http://xkcd.com/552/) I have had an interesting fortnight in my role as a school leader and Research-lead. In this job, you get to share a lot of teacher training materials and the like, coupled, or most often, decoupled from the evidence. In just the last couple
You can’t read or hear about an Education Secretary (see here) or Shadow Secretary (see here) lately without chewing on a bit of GRIT and being told about how we should all be teaching ‘character’ for the betterment of…well, everybody. It surely proves good politics on the doorstep.