A Better Plan for Feedback | perspected

In one of my most recent MSc lectures, teachers and educators were asked to reflect on the most important part of their planning: task design. We were given a variety of models to assess, discuss, and apply to our own teaching to ensure that students would end up with the most effective final result.
However, what I felt was missing was a coherent design for feedback within a task model. Task design always seemed to end with a ‘final product’ but with little guidance on where or when feedback would be best given.
So, what if we planned our feedback the same way that we planned our tasks?…

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I didn’t see that coming – how critical friends can help us improve | Phil Stock

The critical friend is a recognised feature of school improvement. Someone knowledgeable who is not blinded by institutional bias can point out weaknesses in plans and identify ingredients likely to increase chances of success. The same rationale applies to individuals too – teachers can improve by asking each other challenging questions and by challenging each other’s questionable assumptions.

In Thinking with Bets Annie Duke calls the process of holding ourselves accountable to other people in an effort to improve our practice as ‘truth-seeking’. In a previous life Duke was a highly…

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Four things I’ve learnt from working with chronic pain | noreply@blogger.com (The Toblerone Twins)

The last day of February every year is International RSI Awareness day. And this year, for me, marks 20 years since I was first diagnosed with RSI. So, it seemed like a good point at which to look back on how chronic pain has affected the way I live and work over the past two decades.
To quickly recap, I started suffering the classic symptoms of RSI, shooting pains in my right hand and wrist, not long after I’d switched from a career as a classroom EFL teacher to one working all day every day at a computer in ELT publishing. Over the period that followed, I learnt a lot about repetitive…

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La Belle Dame Sans Merci | Mrs P

This is a short podcast analysing the poem ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ by John Keats.

It is the first of a series of podcasts which will explore the Edexcel iGCSE English Literature anthology poems.

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Poetic Form and how to use it: A guide for Edexcel IGCSE and all unseen poetry | jwpblog

Dr Ammara Ashraf, who joined my department last term has produced many little gems which glitter proudly in our shared resources area.

She has allowed me to share further this PowerPoint on Form for exam students at IGCSE, GCSE and A level.

Poetic Form and Meaning IGCSE

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Is it Time to Say Goodbye to ‘World Book Day’? | stealingbiscuitsiswrong?

I was the Head of an English Department for 6 glorious years and I’m proud to say that throughout that time I never once asked staff to dress up for ‘World Book Day’.

I never once asked staff to teach zany lessons where students made puppets of their favourite literary characters and I never once asked staff to use valuable lesson time so students could create a book-based board-game.

I dislike World Book Day because for me it has become a gimmick, a way of dumbing down the most precious of things, reading. It’s become a day where David Walliams and the singer from McFly are celebrated as…

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Revealing a Network | sarahtiggy2

In my previous post, I finished with a very brief criticism of using AI to replace the traditional search using Google or similar.  The unreliability of AI is a popular topic at the moment – I read ‘Weapons of Math Destruction‘ by Cathy O’Neil not long after it was published, and there are now many more books and journal articles covering the subject.  The best way for me to explain my reservations is it terms of my own research.  I am trying to uncover the topics discussed by teacher bloggers, and to see if the things they talk about have changed over time.  To do this, I’ve harvested many…

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I didn’t see that coming – how critical friends can help us improve | Phil Stock

The critical friend is a recognised feature of school improvement. Someone knowledgeable who is not blinded by institutional bias can point out weaknesses in plans and identify ingredients likely to increase chances of success. The same rationale applies to individuals too – teachers can improve by asking each other challenging questions and by challenging each other’s questionable assumptions.

In Thinking with Bets Annie Duke calls the process of holding ourselves accountable to other people in an effort to improve our practice as ‘truth-seeking’. In a previous life Duke was a highly…

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The making of a MOOC | hannahruthtyreman

The scenario of being asked to use a virtual learning environment, a set of laptops or devices, or indeed an interactive whiteboard is likely to be a familiar one to teachers. More familiar still might be the expectation that this technology is used in your teaching and the research evidence supporting its effective use is an afterthought.

On Monday 11 March, a free online course, entitled Using technology in evidence-based teaching and learning launches on FutureLearn with the Chartered College of Teaching and this course will prompt ways of thinking about uses of technology to support…

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Building a Web | sarahtiggy2

I’ve recently got involved in a very interesting project which is looking at ways in which research is recorded and stored, and how to build the academic profile of the author(s) for the benefit of them and the University in which they studies / researched / work.

All universities keep a repository of published work generated by students, researchers and staff.  On some university web sites, it’s easy to find and relatively easy to search; by author, title, faculty or year of publication.  However, that said there were two universities where I gave up trying to find their repository.  It’s…

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