Periodically, people challenge me about the use of Edgar Dales learning cone. They cite that a number of papers have been produced showing that the figures Dale used are inaccurate and I have to agree with them. In fact when I present a session and I use this one of the first things I say [...]
This isn’t really a surprise, but a recent BBC article has reported on a study of teenagers that indicates their IQ can change – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15369851 The study indicates that IQ is still developing in the teenage years. The most telling part for me was this quote by a participant in the studywho imitially needed remedial [...]
A colleague recently said to me, quite proudly “We are a moodle school” and another school recently announced that they were now a Google school. In both case I felt that they had let down their students. They forgotten what was important, they had forgotten about the learning of the students and focused on the [...]
For the last year, Harry and I have been working on the ipad applications book for high schools. The Book is called Apps for learning, and is published as part of the 21st Century Fluency series with my Colleagues Harry Dickens, Lee Crockett and Ian Jukes. This book has been a huge amount of fun [...]
Around the outside of my classroom are whiteboards that the students use for their work. There are four of them and I seldom write on them but the students make quit extencive use of these. The students today were looking at the London Riots and examining the social and ethical issues (for IB ITGS Teachers [...]
We know from the research done by John Hattie, in his book Visible learning, that timely and appropriate feedback has one of the largest if not the largest effect on students learning. However, once a term reporting is hardly timely , no matter how detailed and accurate or appropriate the feedback is. Reporting isn’t enough [...]
This is an interesting report from the independent think tank – the New Zealand Institute - http://www.nzinstitute.org/ The report is focused on two proposals to reduce youth disadvantage. Reading through it a couple of things leap out for me. Here is one that is critical “Successful education requires more than just turning up at school. If [...]
It was reported by the Australian news agency ABC that 80 students at a high school – Prairiewood High School in Sydney’s south-west. The students were suspended for accessing and using teacher computers to access blocked online materials – namely facebook and twitter. This raises several questions for me regarding the teaching and modeling of [...]
I was recently asked, via twitter, what sort of environment we would need to foster creativity in the classrooms. This is an interesting question. Creativity in our current teaching paradigm is sadly often an extension. The current assessment and curriculum driven and limited approach, does restrict the opportunities for creativity. I believe that creativity can [...]
If you have the chance I would recommend that you read an excellent book on education and exercise called “Spark – the revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain” by John Ratey. In the book he recalls a school district that changed how it measured effort in Physical education. Instead of measuring the times [...]
