Spaced Out ::

How can we use XXX in teaching? Replace XXX with your favourite peace of technology - you see it all the time and it’s a good excuse to buy a shiny bit of kit and play with it in class. So no surprise to see the use of the Amazon Echo crop up at some point. In this case it’s Donald Clark who has supplied the goods (although more related to business). And there are some good things on the list. My picks are:

1. Use it as a countdown timer: great for tests, group work, discussion, staged practicals etc.

2. To Do Lists: I can see this being used by the instructor and students to keep multiple lists of things theyve found hard, topics to cover again, answers to post etc etc. Have multiple lists, that could include voting-up (likes) for topics etc

3. Calculator: easier and quicker than a phone

4. Queries/Questions: ask populations, capitals, parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, names of sensors, expiration dates satellites. The list is endless, useful and fast.

5. Training: text-to-speech, audio briefings. The power of voice is tremendous and this can be a great way to bring further personalisation to learning.

There are some great thoughts in there, although don’t underestimate the complexities of running in a room of people.

Kingston University put out a press release about our Reading-Landscape Project that we presented at the RGS-IBG Annual conference in the summer. It’s a nice piece that the press office has put together that takes some quotes from myself and Flora, offering a little more reflection upon the overall achievements of the whole group.

I’ve blogged before about the success of failure and how critical it is to improving in whatever domain you are working in. In my review of Matthew Syed’s Bounce I noted the central importance of purposeful practice. That is, practicing at the “edge” which inevitably leads to failure. Without failure you don’t know where (and how) to improve. Failure is vital to success.

Donald Clark provides a nice succinct list to the 5 levels of failure. Read it - it’s good. So, in abbreviated form:

1. Failure is normal in life, it happens, recognise it for what it is.

2. Break it down (or the science of marginal gains). Break your task down in to small steps or elements, strip it back, analyse it and improve. For those in the teaching game, Lesson Study looks at these building blocks in the classroom.

3. Practice, then practice some more! Do it, fail, feedback, improve, stretch your abilities.

4. Catastrophic Failure: practice those tasks that lead to major failure… so that they are unlikely to happen when it’s the real deal!

5. Reboot: learn, try, fail, go back to the beginning of the level and try again. Its a gaming strategy and incredibly frustrating, additive and the way to accelerated learning!!

So, go ahead, fail and go do it again.

Anyone have any good (big or small) failure stories?

An interesting article in Governing Matters (a monthly for UK school governors) this month where they interviewed Lucy Powell, Labour’s shadow education secretary (see her profile at theyworkforyou), to outline current party thinking (and her personal take). In general I would note the tone as progressive but as is typical of opposition parties, it is generally critical (although the rhetoric isn’t strongly this way), with no strong steer on how any measures would be funded - the latter is particularly telling as it relies on successful school leavers contributing more in taxes in the future. Which is just wishful thinking when you are setting budgets!

What caught my attention though was the following question:

What is your vision for the education system in England?

“Like most people’s, it’s one where every child can reach their full potential regardless of background or postcode. And not just their academic potential, they would also develop a rounded character. At the moment, this is all too often the preserve of those you can pay. We’ve got to make sure that today’s education system is equipping our young people for tomorrow’s economy and tomorrow’s society and challenges. There is a lot more we can do to bring together the worlds of work and education.”

This is all very disappointing stuff:

1. “reach their full potential” is almost by definition what education should be, but what does “full potential” actually mean. Be specific - if this is going to become policy, curricula and performance measures then what exactly is that?

2. Not biased by factors beyond a child’s control - I get that, although the previous Lib-Con government had explicitly funded this through the pupil premium.

3. We then return to “potential” - more specifically, “academic” and “a rounded character”. Academic is fair enough - we’ve had 150 years of this and we might argue about what should be in it, but we measure it every year. But what the heck is “rounded character”? Please please please define it for me, tell me how its “taught” and what the metric is for it?!

4. Slightly firmer ground - “equipping our young people”. I say firmer, in that this starts the process of understanding what education is for but - well - says no more about it. What do we need to be equipped to do, what do we need to learn and become proficient in in order to achieve that and how will that be undertaken?

5. It then finishes with “bringing together the worlds of work and education”. At what age, in what way, for what purpose? Is this a sop to apprenticeships or something deeper? Or is this a cynical ploy for a government to develop tax revenue in the future?

Overall I’m left thoroughly underwhelmed if this is the best a pre-scripted shadow education secretary can do. I blogged a while back about “What is education for?” and the topics raised are good starting points for any discussion about the future of education - and particularly the ideas of autonomy outlined by John White. This reminded me of a recent conversation with my 16 year old daughter who bemoaned the fact that she didn’t know how to make an egg mayonnaise sandwich or understand how credit cards work (and commented: “Why don’t they teach this at school?”). These are vital life skills for autonomy. Which brings us back to “reach their full potential regardless of background or postcode” - what is important for children to attain and so what do we want our schools to do? I may not agree with a vision as promoted by Labour or Conservative, but if we start from something explicit we at least have something to work from.

A great opinion post over at EdSurge on complete wins in learning science titled 3 ‘Knowns’ in Learning Science. I’ve come across or blogged about these before but just to reiterate:

1. Bloom’s Two Sigma Problem: Benjamin Bloom tested the improvement in student learning under three styles of teaching. Conventional lecture, “mastery” learning (incorporating staged learning, peer assistance and strong feedback loops) and one to one tuition. The last gave the best performance, but the second gave a 1 sigma increase in performance for limited resource input (Donald Clark covers this in part). Don’t take anyone elses word for it, read the paper!!

2. Spaced Repetition: otherwise known as deliberate practice. The brilliant Bounce by Matthew Syed covers this - I blogged about in detail. Repetitively practice, at the edge of your ability with feedback. You will become exceptional.

3. Nudge Analytics: interesting to see this listed here and I fully agree. This is about small changes in environment (”nudges”) that can lead to big changes in behaviour and performance. Expect this one to have increasingly profound effects.

There is something for everyone to take away here - education is a shared experience with teachers and learners. We need teaching that is passionate and focused upon learners need. But equally we need learners who want to learn otherwise these strategies will have limited impact.