Category: Conceptual Teaching
Originality For Students
With the need to seek new interpretations of art and life, and the increasing (and righteous?)...
Read MoreThe Human Reasons Behind a Piece of Work
Students produce pieces for school reasons: write this essay to prove you understand this text....
Read MoreSome thoughts on working hard at teaching
Teaching is a tough profession if you are emotionally invested. The institution of education is...
Read MoreIt has been a while since I wrote
It has been a while since I wrote. My headspace has been in academic study, and distant-study at...
Read MoreCreating a healthy academic discourse
Creating a healthy academic discourse in a (relatively!) non-selective classroom with pupils who...
Read MoreWhat do we want to measure in schools and why
I received a thoughtful email from a colleague this week. My (redacted!) reply is worth sharing: ...
Read MoreConcept-based Learning PD
Recently we led a concept-based learning day for senior English. Here are some of our ideas,...
Read MoreHOW CAN WE CREATE KNOWLEDGE, AMBROSE PIERCE
I’ve been listening the Western Tradition this week whilst I’ve been travelling...
Read MoreDissimilar transfer in concept-based learning- Some thoughts
I question concept teaching models that aim for skill based transfers in my subjects. Such an approach loses the power and relevancy of our discipline. Instead I say we should aim for insights, human interest elements. Between schooling and learning, aim for learning.
Read MoreThoughts about my education and podcasting
Teaching students for fifteen years has allowed me to recognise the particular deficiencies of my...
Read MoreATL IB – Considering concepts in a training task
1 Identity agency, voice, character, narrator, reader, author. ATL: Teaching developed in local...
Read MoreA thought: make students write as intensely for a common writing task as they do for an exam.
So much of my training has involved inspiring students for whom there is little intrinsic motivation for study. I have taught in schools where the consequences of this can be visceral. Teaching students like this is a different job, although you cannot separate good teaching from behaviour management (although you can separate behaviour management from good teaching, it seems). If a student trusts you and desire to work (often it is even just because of your persona as a teacher), the enable them to create and analyse at length outside an exam is an ambition not often mentioned.
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