Teaching Talk
At Durrington, our teaching is based on a ‘tight but loose’ model around six pedagogical principles – more here. Informed by a mixture...
Popsicle Sticks and "Hands Down" are not the same as Cold Call
Cold Call, as you probably know if you read this blog regularly, is one of my favorite techniques– meaning that it’s one of the...
Is Direct Instruction the Answer to the Right Question
This Kirschner article has widely been criticised in academic circles for its misguided/simplistic definitions of constructivism and...
Formative Assessment
One of my roles at school is to present a short teaching and learning slot in staff briefing on a Monday morning. The Lead Practitioners...
Why Minimal Guidance Instruction Does Not Work
Article: Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based,...
MITT Experience
I was already teaching at Markham before I joined the MITT programme and I decided to take part in it because it was a great opportunity...
Four neuromyths that are still prevalent in schools – debunked
It’s not true that you only use 10% of your brain, nor can you categorise students by ‘learning styles’ – let’s cut this nonsense from...
Websites for Classroom Use
In this post I am going to give a very brief overview of some websites that can be useful in the classroom. They all lend themselves very...
12 Steps to a "Great Teacher" reputation
The agile teacher… responsive, risk-taking, juggling continually. Introduction I’m celebrating writing my 100th post, by trying to link...
What to do with the clever ones
Last Friday we had an INSET day. Our focus was thinking about how we can push and challenge those students with a high stating point, so...