Ben Goldacre

Unprofessional misjudgement

2017-03-01T14:50:08+00:00March 1st, 2017|research|

No, I’m not using evidence, but I’m not using prejudice either. I am exercising my professional judgement. Sue Cowley It doesn’t make a difference how beautiful your guess is. It doesn’t make a difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. Richard Feynman A few days ago I wrote about why we shouldn't credulously accept evidence, and that it wasn't as simple as suggesting that teachers either use evidence or prejudice to inform their decision. We are all guilty of using prejudice whether or not we use evidence. [...]

Building evidence into education

2013-03-14T14:27:40+00:00March 14th, 2013|Featured|

Does he look happy? Today I got to rub shoulders with the great and the good at Bethnal Green Academy (second most improved school in the land, dontcha know?) for the Teach First sponsored launch of Ben Goldacre's thoughts on Building Evidence into Education. I somehow found myself on a guest list that included Michael Gove, Kevan Collins, chief executive of the EEF and sundry academics and educational big wigs. Fortunately there were also a few familiar faces: I was joined by fellow rent-a-gob Tom Bennett who is an old hand at these sorts of affairs and handled himself with considerable savoir [...]

50 ways to lead your lesson

2013-07-20T12:33:38+01:00October 9th, 2011|English, learning|

The problem is all inside your head", she said to meThe answer is easy if you take it logicallyI'd like to help you in your struggle to be freeThere must be fifty ways to lead your lesson...Paul Simon Last week the inimitable Kristian Still challenged the good people of Twitter to amass 50 different ways to introduce learning objectives. Well, after much cajoling and exhortation from Mr Still we managed it! 40 Ways to_introduce_learning_objectives_ from David Didau I thought it might make an interesting experiment to see how well they each work. I reckon I can cover most of them before [...]

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