Educational Thought Bubbles | Page 5

Why do we have grades?

On 11-11-2013

I am current working with quite a prestigious school to transform their Year 8 curriculum and teaching practice such that the learning is not only more engaging but it begins to embed a structure to develop performance oriented independent learners. As part of the process we were discussing formative assessment and the qualities or attributes […]

On 25-10-2013

“I can see clearly now, the rain is gone, I can see all obstacles in my way Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun-Shiny day.” Johnny Nash Phillip Barlow is well known in the art world for his out-of-focus oil paintings. The South African […]

On 09-10-2013

In John Hattie’s meta-analyses of the highest impacting teaching approaches you will find explicit teacher-led instruction or direct instruction. Quite often teachers ask me what does this mean in practice and what its relation to developing independent learners is. Direct Instruction does not mean teacher centred learning. Whilst it is teacher directed it is teaching […]

On 02-10-2013

One of the things I love about being an educational consultant is that I am always learning from schools as they learn from me. My work becomes an automatic structure for reflection, growth and the challenging or expanding of my thinking. As I go from school to school I pick up new ideas, new […]

On 22-08-2013

Many years ago when I used to teach engineering at university I had a passing interest in the field of shape optimization. It was a fascinating field because the idea of optimization in my particular area of expertise revolved around designing software that could optimize the placement of material so that, for given forces and […]

On 17-08-2013

As discussed in a previous newsletter on Building Teacher Confidence and Intrinsic Motivation the first step to building teacher confidence and having them be intrinsically motivated is to support them in rediscovering and articulating their vision as teachers. This reconnects them to their WHY they became teachers in the first place and helps them identify […]

On 15-08-2013

It has been a couple of months since I last wrote in the blog but that is mainly because I have been sooooo busy. Much of the work I have been involved with recently revolves around working with a number of schools to take them from being ‘Good” schools to be “Great’ schools. If you […]

On 25-06-2013

Discovering the WHY I am constantly inspired by the greatness of teachers and why they became teachers in the first place. In the process I go through when mentoring and coaching teachers I normally begin with finding out why they became teachers. For some they had family who were teachers and it seemed normal to […]

On 21-06-2013

Rachel Grieve in her article recently in The Conversation discussed the importance of spreading the scientific thinking skills across the curriculum. And as researchers and teachers realise the more that we develop the cognitive abilities of students the more they can become independent learners and drive the learning. However, the biggest barrier to implementation is […]

On 20-05-2013

See on Scoop.it – Creating a Staff Performance Culture “Teachers absolutely must talk if students are actually going to learn anything worthwhile; the trick is to make that talk as efficient and instructive as possible.” Adrian Bertolini‘s insight: One of the things I really like about this blog entry by David Didau is how he has unpacked […]

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Blog

Why do we have grades?

Clarity

Developing Independent Learners

Can DO Lists

Purpose + Alignment = Success

Developing Teacher Confidence Part II – Identifying areas of development

Developing a Culture of Learning – Building Resilience

Building Teacher Confidence and Intrinsic Motivation

Thinking Science and the importance of critical thinking

Teacher talk: the missing link « The Learning Spy