Every year our research students put on a conference and the theme for this year was education in a changing world. For me one of the most obvious but far reaching features of this changing world is our interconnectedness. What happens faraway can have a resonance in ways that were not envisaged in the past.… Continue reading Football, schools and a changing world
Category: Learning
general theme of teaching and learning includes language learning
Language learning: a thing of the past?
Language classes started again at our university and I have re-enrolled at intermediate German. From a technology point of view why bother? Online translation programmes are free and efficient and speech recognition has improved to such an extent that there is frequent talk of mobile translation devices that can really work [1]. In fact progress has… Continue reading Language learning: a thing of the past?
Big Data and Education
Reading through contributions to debates on big data and education (see [1] – [9] below) reminds us that there are two perspectives on education: education as science and education as wisdom of practice. Education as science is about generalisation (if x what is likely to happen?), measurable outcomes (chiefly grades, if appropriate retention too) and… Continue reading Big Data and Education
Pessimism and technology in school
Two recent news items posted to the BBC news web site have helped contribute to a pessimistic narrative about using technology in school. The more recent of these is an evaluation of online charter schools which found that in 17 US states these schools were associated with ‘significantly weaker academic performance’ in maths and reading… Continue reading Pessimism and technology in school
Not knowing what we don’t know
Every now and then the Guardian newspaper publishes an extract from the Secret Footballer http://www.theguardian.com/football/series/the-secret-footballer offering some anecdotes and insight, from someone who played at the highest level, on what makes professional footballers ‘tick’ and what the fans get out of the game. In talking about the fans the Secret Footballer commented recently that it… Continue reading Not knowing what we don’t know
in praise of praise
As I come to later, I was taken back a little by a Sutton Trust report on ‘what makes great teaching’ . [The Sutton Trust is linked here [http://www.suttontrust.com] and the report itself is at http://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/What-makes-great-teaching-FINAL-4.11.14.pdf%5D . The report says many sensible things about support for learning and the critical importance of feedback. However tucked… Continue reading in praise of praise
Michael Hammond 