We often perceive competition as something bad in education. I promise this blog post will not be a plea to simply reintroduce it. But I’m bringing this topic up because a new study by Corwin Senko and Sarah Pallone suggests that perhaps we should not only look at if students want to perform better than… Read More Can a little competition be good for learning?
When you read a scientific article, research can sometimes seem like a remarkably emotionless process. First, the researchers formulate a hypothesis. Next, they conduct an experiment. Then they analyse the data and draw a conclusion. Anyone who does research themselves knows, of course, that it rarely feels that way. On the contrary, it is a… Read More In the scientist’s mind
After all the PISA hype, here is a study that is only indirectly related to education! A massive new study in Nature provides important new insights into the link between our personality and our genes. For this, the (truly ridiculous number of) researchers combined data from 46 cohorts. The number of participants ranged from well… Read More Genes matter for personality, but they don’t determine it
And no, this does not mean I will suddenly start writing about the big comparative study the OECD will publish today at 9.30 a.m. You will also be able to read all sorts of things about it here. By the way, it is just a little strange to be sitting here writing something when the… Read More This blog is not about PISA… but about a (slightly smaller) study on money, worries and our brains
There is a certain irony in the article and study I want to discuss with you today. I had to think pretty hard to understand it. No, really, this study by Sergiou and colleagues has proven to be an incredibly difficult read. However, it addresses something essential in the ongoing discussion of active and passive… Read More An opportunity to think is not the same as thinking
Anyone who has been following my work and this blog for a while will know that I am quite interested in collective teacher efficacy and collective student efficacy. This post is related to the first of these concepts. Depending on the type of school you work in, there are subject departments, working groups, professional learning… Read More A team meeting does not make a team
There has been quite a lot of discussion lately about the importance of high expectations in education. And I have noticed how a particular mechanism also seems to surface in discussions following the now tragic story of Jason Arday. The connection may seem a little far-fetched, but it is actually quite timely if you read… Read More Low expectations don’t always sound like low expectations
When I wrote this blog post about language and thinking, I genuinely thought hardly anyone would read it. It was a rather theoretical piece about language and thinking in adults. I posted it simply because I found the research extremely fascinating myself. Well, I got that quite wrong. My inbox and social media feeds quickly… Read More A few more thoughts on language and thinking
A quick note: this blog post was a difficult balancing act to write. I want to make clear from the outset that a) I think mental health problems are very important, b) I think we should pay attention to them, but also c) that we need to keep a broad perspective. And Esther Yao and… Read More Well intended, but sometimes harmful? Working on mental health at school
Somewhere last week, or perhaps the week before, someone commented on one of my blog posts on social media that perhaps we should simply stop doing most research. The reason, to be fair, was a research finding that this person didn’t particularly like. But I have to admit that I have occasionally had the same… Read More Self-regulated learning doesn’t simply improve with age