I have to be careful now, as some of my kids used to be fans of MrBeast, but what he’s saying in this video, which I found in this tweet, is close to complete nonsense. I’ll ignore the learning styles claim he casually throws in. No, you are not a visual learner. That discussion is… Read More Why MrBeast Gets Education Wrong (A Short Rant About a Familiar Myth)
Experienced teachers and novices differ. That seems obvious. Experience must play a role. But how exactly do they differ? A recent meta-analysis and review study by Xiao and colleagues tries to answer precisely that question by bringing together 45 studies comparing expert teachers with novices. Importantly, this is not based on opinions or self-reports, but… Read More What makes an expert teacher? Evidence from 45 studies
I’ve written about school size before, in talks and in books. About how some studies suggest there might be something like an optimal range. Not too large, because anonymity becomes a risk. Not too small, because it becomes harder to professionalise as a team, share expertise, and sustain a strong curriculum. And then there is… Read More Smaller schools: solution or too simple? What new research shows
It has been going on for some time. As a parent today, you can track almost everything about your child. Grades, feedback, assignments, deadlines, and sometimes even how often your child has revisited something. Through Smartschool, apps, emails and all kinds of dashboards. The stream of data and information never really stops, although some good… Read More When parental involvement becomes performance management
For this blog, I read more research than I actually write about. I look at its relevance, its quality, and sometimes simply whether I understand it well enough. And sometimes I leave it aside because I am not yet sure what to do with it. That is how I came across the work of Jukka… Read More Sociology, Evidence, and Ideology: A Tension We Should Not Simplify
When I ranted last year about the two-hour school day that costs $65,000, I assumed, or better, I hoped, I was reacting to the usual hype cycle. Big promises. Glossy videos. Confident founders. And that familiar “schools are broken, we fixed them” vibe. What I did not have back then was a detailed look at… Read More The $65,000 AI School, Revisited: Inside the AI Classroom That Promised Too Much
You have probably noticed it too. When it comes to young people’s mental well-being and, more specifically, the decline of it, there is almost always a clear explanation somewhere. Social media, smartphones, parents, school pressure, the spirit of the times… Pick one, and you have a story that sounds convincing and is easy to remember.… Read More Can Soft Drinks Affect Teen Anxiety? A New Study Adds a Small Piece to a Big Puzzle
We hear it often. Education should become more student-centred. Less direct instruction, more discovery. Less teacher, more learner. It sounds intuitive. And to be fair, there is something in it. At the same time, in other circles, you may hear the exact opposite. But as so often in education, what sounds right is not automatically what… Read More Student-centred learning: evidence versus myth
Found this cartoon here. Check here for more Funny on Sunday.
Sometimes, in your classroom, you do not see any difference. Two students complete the same exercise, give the same correct answer, and seem to finish at the same time. Everything suggests they are equally capable. Until you look more closely into the cognitive processes, e.g. in maths learning. A recent study in the Journal of… Read More The problem is not always in the maths