Yesterday I wrote about high expectations and a new study suggesting that those expectations may become visible in something very concrete: the tasks you give your students. Teachers were much less inclined to assign cognitively challenging mathematics tasks when thinking about low-performing students than when thinking about high-performing students. Today I came across an inclusion… Read More Inclusion Should Not Mean Lowering the Bar
Today, a study immediately reminded me of a classic, frequently cited study. Oh, and also of the importance of having high expectations in education. Of course, expectations are about what you think students can achieve. But perhaps you can see them even more clearly somewhere else: in the tasks you give your students. This is… Read More High expectations are also about the tasks we give students
Maybe you’ve forgotten about the little turtle, but ever since Logo by Seymour Papert, programming has found its way into curricula in many countries. Sometimes that little turtle has become rather more real, with robots now also appearing in STEM classes. Little side note: one of my children once remarked that this seems to happen… Read More A lot of research, little guidance: what do we know about programming and robots in the classroom?
One of the major concerns surrounding generative AI in education relates to writing, or rather, to the assessment of writing. If pupils and students can have their texts written by ChatGPT or another AI, how can we still be sure whether they have actually thought for themselves? This has already led to all kinds of… Read More Does writing really help us think? A response to the New York Times opinion piece by Joe Cruz
Teacher shortages have become a persistent problem in many countries. But at the same time, birth rates are falling in many of those same countries. Fewer children mean fewer students. And fewer students mean we may need fewer teachers, and so surely this will mean that teacher shortages should eventually disappear, at least partially, on… Read More OECD: Fewer students, but that does not necessarily mean a smaller teacher shortage
A character can be afraid, or angry, maybe sad. You can read this clearly in the children’s book. But if you look at the picture on the same page… There is a good chance you will see someone who looks… strikingly calm or happy. That is the finding of a new NBER working paper by… Read More Children’s books show many emotions in words, but far fewer in pictures
It is the basis for discussions about overdiagnosis. Every now and then, you even read possible explanations that seem more like conspiracy theories. Yet it is a fact: many more children and young people are diagnosed with ADHD or autism today than, say, ten or twenty years ago. In Denmark, for example, the number of… Read More Why are there more diagnoses of ADHD and autism now?
This is a pretty impressive study by Petr Svojanovský and colleagues, published in Learning and Instruction, where you shouldn’t get too hung up on the sample size. It seems relatively small, with 2 schools, 42 students, 6 teachers, and 2 teaching assistants. But the researchers wanted to know how teachers who are strong in inclusive… Read More What do highly inclusive teachers actually do?
Grade retention is a topic I have written about many times before. It can also lead to quite heated discussions in education. At the same time, the scientific consensus is fairly clear: it is generally not the best option. I know there are dissenting scientific voices, too. However, you still cannot avoid the question of… Read More Another possible negative effect of grade retention: your later earnings
Set an enthusiastic teacher in front of their class, the students will become enthusiastic too. And vice versa, enthusiastic students can also make their teacher enjoy teaching more. It does sounds logical, and in my own research I once found how contagious passion can be. This also fits nicely with the idea that what teachers… Read More Teachers and students influence each other’s emotions, but not quite as expected