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Hirsch vs Engelmann: “No scientific basis for Direct Instruction”?

2018-09-25T12:59:56+01:00December 2nd, 2016|research|

No one seems clear who first said it, but it's become an abiding truth of journalism that, "If a dog bites a man, that is not news. But if a man bites a dog that is news." To publish an article in which an octogenarian educationalist says basically what he's been saying for the last few decades would not be news. But if said educationalist were to bite another well-known bastion of traditional education? Publish and be damned! So, in a recent article about the nonsense of selecting what to teach based on whether material is cognitively 'age appropriate', ED Hirsch Jr [...]

What are ‘thinking skills’ and can we teach them?

2017-02-23T23:08:15+00:00November 9th, 2016|research|

...from a purely theoretical standpoint alone, it hardly seems plausible that a strategy of inquiry that must necessarily be broad enough to be applicable to a wide range of disciplines and problems can ever have, at the same time, sufficient particular relevance to be helpful in the solution of the specific problem at hand. David Ausubel It's tempting to believe that if we teach children how to think, then they'll think better. After all, when we teach children to read, then they read better and when we teach them to juggle then they get better at juggling. Why should thinking be any different? Well, [...]

John Hattie and the magical power of prediction

2016-01-29T09:47:09+00:00January 28th, 2016|research|

"Optimism and stupidity are nearly synonymous." Hyman G. Rickover — Speech to US Naval Post Graduate School, March 16, 1954 In this post I picked up on a rather odd comment made by Professor Hattie at a recent conference: ...tests don’t tell kids about how much they’ve learnt. Kids are very, very good at predicting how well they’ll do in a test.” Are they? In my response I argued that he's wrong: Most students are novices – they don’t yet know much about the subject they’re studying. Not only do they not know much, they’re unlikely to know the value of what they do know [...]

Is it what you do or the way that you do it?

2018-11-26T16:29:29+00:00January 23rd, 2016|research|

Alex Quigley has just responded to my post Two Stars and a Bloody Wish! with the revelation that it works for him and others: Using a ‘Two Stars and a Wish’ model ironically meant that many teachers were writing more concise comments and spending less time on marking than before. Rather than proving a waste of time as David Didau suggests, it was saving time for many (teachers weren’t beholden to two wishes each time and there was seldom ‘lavish praise’). Well, good. If using a particular marking structure does actually save teachers time then who am I to criticise? Alex goes on to say [...]

Phonics is not a cure for cancer

2022-01-03T08:36:27+00:00December 30th, 2015|reading, research|

Do antibiotics work? Well, that rather depends on what you've got. If you've got a viral infection like influenza antibiotics will be useless. To fight viral infections you need to use antiviral drugs. Does that mean antibiotics don't work? Of course not. If you're suffering from a bacterial infection like brucellosis then an antibiotic might well be effective. This, I hope, is straightforward. So if I conducted a piece of research which found that antibiotics are ineffective because they don't cure viral infections that would be a bit stupid, right? Well, for some reason, professor of education Stephen D Krashen seems to have done something very similar. [...]

In praise of signposts

2015-10-31T15:50:10+00:00October 31st, 2015|research|

The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. C. S. Lewis If you're not sure which way to go, a sign post is very useful. A quick glance confirms either you're headed in the right direction or you're not.If you are facing in the right direction, all you have to do is keep on walking. Obviously you wouldn't expect a signpost to contain much information about your destination; that's not what they're for. This post makes the point that teachers rely on signposts to decide whether they're teaching [...]

Is growth mindset pseudoscience?

2017-01-06T19:41:55+00:00October 24th, 2015|research|

Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. Carl Sagan What's the difference between science and pseudoscience? The basis of all reputable science is prediction and falsification: a claim has to be made which we can then attempt to disprove. If we can't disprove it, the claim holds and we accept the theory as science. If the claim doesn't hold, we've learned something, we move one, we make progress. That's science. Pseudoscience doesn't work like that. It makes claims, sure, but they're so [...]

From Scared Straight to Reading Wrong

2015-10-24T10:56:16+01:00October 24th, 2015|reading, research|

He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alters things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end? Francis Bacon In 1978, Scared Straight! won the Academy Award for the best documentary film. It followed a group of teenagers from the wrong side of the tracks who, as part of a new crime reduction programme, were taken to a maximum security prison to be threatened, humiliated and intimidated by a bunch of murderers and rapists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri7G7xHj5LE The premise [...]

Assessment: evolution vs. design

2015-10-16T20:57:38+01:00October 13th, 2015|research|

Optimization hinders evolution. Alan J. Perlis   As we all know, the DfE decided to ditch National Curriculum levels from September 2014 without plans for a replacement. Some have reacted to this with glee, others despair. On the one hand, we have Tim Oates, an assessment expert and advocate for the removal of levels, saying We need to switch to a different conception of children’s ability. Every child needs to be capable of doing anything dependent on the effort they put in and how it’s presented to them. Levels get in the way of this... The new national curriculum really does [...]

#researchED comes to Swindon

2015-10-06T11:08:10+01:00October 6th, 2015|research|

London, Sydney, New York, Glasgow and now... Swindon. At long last Tom Bennett's moveable, grassroots, edu-research feast finally pitches up in the heart of Wiltshire and my new home from home, Swindon Academy. This time, the focus is specifically on how research might help secondary English teachers to be more critical, thoughtful and informed about the choices they make. We've arrayed a galaxy of some of the most stellar English teachery types out there as well as a few luminaries from academia, most notably our keynote speaker, professor Ray Land from Durham University. The programme, although subject to change, currently looks like [...]

Research vs evidence

2019-10-25T22:06:26+01:00September 9th, 2015|research|

"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof." JK Galbraith, Economics, Peace and Laughter (1971), p. 50 Evidence is about being right, proving something, constructing an argument to support a belief. It's legalistic and limiting. Lots of folk talk about 'what works' as if there could ever really be any agreement about that. But on the other hand, I'm increasing keen on research. The more research I read, the more questions I have. The more interesting the study, the more numerous and unexpected the questions it [...]

researchED English & Literacy Conference

2015-07-08T20:37:09+01:00July 1st, 2015|English, research|

A few months ago I asked Tom Bennett if he'd be up for rubberstamping some sort of rEDx project (like TEDx but with brains) devoted to exploring the intersection between education research and English teaching and he came back, quick as a flash, with the suggestion that I organise an actual researchED spinoff. So, under the steadying hand and watchful eye of Helene Galdon-O'Shea, I have. When? Saturday 7th November 2015 Where? Swindon Academy (which is also where I'll be working next year.) What? The theme of the conference is exploring the intersection between 'what works' according to the research community [...]

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