Curiosity has an almost mythical status in education. We want to spark it, stimulate it, and place it at the centre of learning. That makes sense. If you are curious, you want to know, you seek information, and you learn. A lot of research supports that idea. But, as is often the case, the story… Read More Is curiosity always good for learning?
As always, fun by xkcd that forces you to think or rethink. Check here for more Funny on Sunday.
Last week I was staying in a hotel for work. The kind of hotel where everything feels right. Clean design, nice materials, everything neatly integrated. Until I took a shower. I wanted to turn the tap. Or rather, I tried to turn it on. Because there was no tap anymore. You can still adjust the… Read More Sometimes, Things Are Simply… Done
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