There are a number of dimensions I view research across to help me understand the value of a particular piece. I claim no scientific underpinning for the way I do this, all I can say is that it works for me and over the long term has put me a place where most of my… Read More Read all about
Lets try a thought experiment. You regularly carry out a particular action on particular subjects. An alternative method is suggested. It is clear that overall this method produces better results across the range of subjects than your method. Indeed, studies show that overall it is S% more effective. However, over the years you have become… Read More The A-Z of Change
..any theory of human intelligence which ignores the interdependence of hand and brain function, the historical origins of that relationship, or the impact of that history on developmental dynamics in modern humans, is grossly misleading and sterile. Frank Wilson There has been a recent spate of posts on handwriting, here (from @teachertoolkit), here (from @learningspy) and, the one… Read More The pen is mightier than the keyboard
There are no shortage of ideas for research in education. Every teacher has one. The difficulty is how they take that forward. How do they find the relevant expertise to help them construct the ‘experiment’? Where do they find additional researchers to help them? Where do they get the number of students to be involved that… Read More The Education Research Dating Agency
When I was training as an accountant and running audits we were taught that there were different levels of reliability of evidence. The least reliable was oral evidence from the the client. The most reliable was written evidence provided by an external, independent organisation in response to a specific request made by the audit team.… Read More Evidence you can take to the bank
It’s simple really, isn’t it? I have evidence about something so what I’m saying is right. Well the reality is that it depends. The truth is that we are often more easily seduced by evidence that matches up with either our existing world-view or with what we can view of the world. An example. Most… Read More All the evidence says
Any one who has studied how we learn for any length of time will probably agree on a few things: We know a lot about how the brain learns There is far more we don’t know about the how the brain learns than we do know (known unknowns are greater than the known knowns) A… Read More Learning: It’s complicated and we know next to nothing about it
Its been a couple of weeks (and many answering blogposts) since Dr Ben Goldacre launched his paper on research in education, specifically discussing some of the benefits of using Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) and generally suggesting that evidence is a good thing. Nothing in this post should be construed as suggesting that any part of… Read More Tramadol nights
Distant Ramblings on the Horizon 