Andy Tharby. Image: @jasonramasami In 2013, Ofsted published a pretty damning report about the provision available for more-able students at secondary schools in the UK.
One statement from the report rings true to me: Many students become used to performing at a lower level than they were capable of. Parents or carers and teachers accept this too readily. The report argued that there are three main challenges for schools: to ensure that our most able students do as well academically as those of our main economic competitors; to ensure that students become aware, early on, of the academic opportunities available to them; and to ensure that all schools help students and families overcome cultural barriers to attending higher education.
I think it is fair to say that individual teachers cannot solve all of these problems alone; however, there is probably much we could be doing better. It is important to consider the moral argument, too. Blog. The Learning Rainforest: A model for great teaching and learning. Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky Khalil Gibran It’s a few months since I published The Learning Rainforest with John Catt.
So far sales have gone pretty well – I couldn’t be happier with that. I’m also getting invited to run lots of CPD events and engage in longer term consultancy work based on the ideas in the book. If that might be of interest for the next academic year, contact me here. If you haven’t got a copy yet, here are some extracts to give you a feel for the content of the book: Ten books every teacher should read. Plato’s Republic, Rousseau’s Émile and Dewey’s Democracy and Education – there’s a strong case to be made, as Dennis Hayes has, that these are the only books on education that teachers need to read.
But if I was about to enter the classroom as a teacher for the first time or was looking to improve my practice, I would probably want to read something with more practical advice on what I should be doing and, more importantly, on what I shouldn’t. Much of what happens in a classroom is highly variable and hard to define, but over the last 10 years a wealth of books has sought to draw together evidence from other fields and provide a series of “best bets” on what might have the greatest impact on student learning.
Love To Teach – Research and Resources for every classroom. Moodle. In my last post, I looked at shortcomings in edtech research, mostly from outside the world of ELT.
I made a series of recommendations of ways in which such research could become more useful. In this post, I look at two very recent collections of ELT edtech research. The first of these is Digital Innovations and Research in Language Learning, edited by Mavridi and Saumell, and published this February by the Learning Technologies SIG of IATEFL. I’ll refer to it here as DIRLL. It’s available free to IATEFL LT SIG members, and can be bought for $10.97 as an ebook on Amazon (US). In both of these collections, the focus is not on ‘technology per se, but rather issues related to language learning and language teaching, and how they are affected or enhanced by the use of digital technologies’. Motivating and Inspiring Students. Motivating and Inspiring Students Movies can be a source of inspiration for both students and teachers.
Before having students watch a film (or selections from one), teachers should provide a context and a purpose for viewing the video. To illustrate, consider a middle school teacher who wants to show excerpts of the. movie Remember the Titans. The teacher might first address the context of the film by talking to students about segregation as well as the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. A trip down the memory lane of methodology. About the talk As we walk down the memory lane of English language teaching, we can see a correlation between the trends in the most popular language acquisition theories of its time, and the application of such assumptions into the language classroom.
Whether it be Krashen's 'affective filter' hypothesis translating into humanistic approaches, such as suggestopedia, or Searle's speech acts giving rise to the functional syllabus, practitioners have tried to apply theory to practice in a way that best helps learners to best acquire the language. But we don't always get it right. Center for Philosophy for Children. Learning friendly teacher action and talk. Last week we looked at the classroom focused framework…the Teachers’ Palette, discovering how it has developed in response to changing circumstances and a recognition of the importance of classroom culture.
This week we look more closely at the subtle changes teachers of learning power need to make; in designing activities, coaching progress and making talk about learning commonplace. The page below offers glimpses of some of the important aspects of the teacher’s role; one that embraces building powerful independent learners. Developing students with the power to learn is a long term endeavour. English Profile - Cambridge Papers in ELT. English Profile - Cambridge Framework for Life Competencies. Better: Evidence-based education. IHTOC9. Creating a stimulating classroom for very young learners: Lynn Durrant. 2019 Downloads – researchED Nederland. Free teaching & learning resources for UK higher education. Learnhigher is a network for promoting and facilitating the development and dissemination of high quality, peer-reviewed resources for learning development in the higher education sector.
X, Y of Einstein? De voorbije jaren heb ik veel boeken samen geschreven met anderen.
Dit boek is mijn solo-debuut als het ware. Dit boek gaat niet over wat werkt, maar wel over wat werkt wanneer en wanneer niet, waarom werkt het en bij wie werkt het en bij wie niet. Inside the mind of a young person. Behaviour for Learning. Behaviour Management Resources. In this section you will find a whole bank of free behaviour management resources.
You can see the resources available, but to access the content, you’ll need to log in, You only have to log in once to access all resources. The Five Pillars of Pivotal Practice Consistent, calm adult behaviour – consistency, adult behaviour, emotional control, teacher expectations First attention to best conduct – rewards, recognition, praise, motivation, engagement Relentless routines – rules, routines, follow-up, teacher habits, non-verbal cues, Scripting difficult interventions – de-escalation, disruption, delivering sanctions, confrontation Restorative conversations – restorative practice, structuring sanctions, working with the most troubled, developing relationships Other Classroom Management Resources.
Center for Teaching & Learning. Active Learning Strategies help to initiate learners and instructors into effective ways to help everyone engage in activities based on ideas about how people learn. Multiple active learning strategies may be used in each of the active learning designs. Review an annotated list of active learning strategies 1. Sit & talk with peers nearby Think-Pair- Share. 1. Teacher Research on Pronunciation in Early Years and Primary ELT – YLT. Nicola Meldrum In this blog post, I will explore the benefits of doing teacher research and provide tips on how to go about it effectively in the early years and primary classroom.
Assessment for Learning: 5 Key Strategies for Higher Student Achievement - itslearning - us. THINKING TOOLS & ROUTINES. Thinking Together, University of Cambridge » Resources for Teachers. This page has some resources for teachers and teacher-trainers to use to develop their own and their students' awareness of how talk is used in classrooms. Many more useful resources can be found in the books for teachers listed on the publications web page!