high expectations

20 psychological principles for teachers #11 Expectations

2015-06-13T11:17:39+01:00June 13th, 2015|psychology|

This is the third of four posts exploring what motivates students in my series examining the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education’s report on the Top 20 Principles From Psychology for Teaching and Learning. This time I turn my attention to Principle 11: “Teachers’ expectations about their students affect students’ opportunities to learn, their motivation, and their learning outcomes.” It's no surprise that we usually experience what we expect to experience. You will, of course, be aware of the placebo effect – the phenomenon that a placebo triggers a psychological response, which in turn impacts on a patient’s health. Sometimes a patient’s symptoms may improve, but equally [...]

Differentiation: Are high expectations enough?

2015-01-02T14:57:48+00:00June 12th, 2014|learning|

High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation. Charles F. Kettering Last night someone retweeted a tagline from a post I wrote earlier this year: "Teach to the top, support at the bottom". Inevitably perhaps, someone else took great exception to the word 'support' and asked why those at the bottom shouldn't be taught. Why should they have to suffer support while everyone else got taught? This isn't an unreasonable position and begs the question, what do we mean by 'teaching' and 'support'? If it means the most able are given explicit instruction whilst the least able are consigned [...]

Go to Top