To bastardise well renowned artiste Ricky Martin, “I’m livin’ to see October”. As the academic year gets into full swing and we are in the craziness of September, the day job is very much getting in the way of frequent updates.
So to motivate me to keep posting, I’m going to instead highlight what has interested me over the last week. These can be journals, websites, books, articles, media – essentially five things that have been brought to my attention and I would recommend you to go out of your way to look into in the forthcoming week.
1) JOURNAL – Oeberst, A., & Imhoff, R. (2023). Toward Parsimony in Bias Research: A Proposed Common Framework of Belief-Consistent Information Processing for a Set of Biases. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916221148147
First brought to my attention by Adam Boxer of Carousel Learning (https://www.carousel-learning.com). An incredibly interesting article that involves attempting to synthesise the numerous areas of research into biases into a framework of connected beliefs that manifest in different ways. You can understand the gist of what the authors are going for from the table posted below.
As a bonus I also really like the expression “Bayesian Belief Updating”.
2) PRE-PRINT JOURNAL – Jozef Hanč, Dominik Borovský and Martina Hančová. Blended learning: A data-literate science teacher is a better teacher. 2023. https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.02953v1
Since the pandemic I have become obsessive about getting the most out of my Virtual Learning Environment. Since day 1 in FE it was a requirement to have, but for a long time it was a glorified file store for me. My perspective had begun to change prior to the pandemic but sped up significantly afterward. Over the last decade a number of VLE providers have tried to ‘look’ like something familiar, however this doesn’t resonate and dates platforms very quickly, thinking predominantly of the ‘Facebook’’ style Edmodo and Schoology platforms. What I have looked to tap into instead are ‘concepts’ that people are familiar with, chronological ‘feed’ over file store, emphasis on scroll and a walled garden approach to the subject site, minimise external links.
Whilst I don’t feel comfortable to dive in with some of the Active Learning Classroom environments and structures mentioned here, there are some great points raised such as the growth of informal blended learning environments (the mention of bus is interesting, as my thoughts when designing online tasks/resources is “can it be completed on a bus”).
It is not peer reviewed, and does seem a bit down on ‘substance’, but definitely thought provoking, and ties in with one of the things I love about encouraging VLE blended learning use, the data you can obtain and use but more importantly share with students to aid in progress.
3) OPINION ARTICLE – The social mobility commission is a fig leaf for inaction by Sammy Wright – https://schoolsweek.co.uk/the-social-mobility-commission-is-a-fig-leaf-for-inaction/
Sammy is Head of School at Southmoor Academy in Sunderland. As someone who has spent my career servicing communities similar to that which Sammy is currently involved in, a lot of this article particularly resonates – and numerous points raised tie back to my last three posts.
Sammy has unique insight as he was previously part of the governments Social Mobility Commission. He shares his experiences, including pleas falling of deaf ears during the “slow motion car crash of the covid exams fiasco” – which I recently discussed here as part of my 2023 exam reflection – https://themarkscheme.co.uk/a-level-exams-2023/
I often feel politicians are wilfully misinterpreting scale of finance of the nuances of funding in order to project and to justify political ideology (see recent post that includes info about costs and funding to higher education – https://themarkscheme.co.uk/he-vs-apprenticeships/ ), however this article seems to suggest I may be giving too much credit, and those ‘in charge’ may not have a grasp on these nuances and financial scaling.
The sign off is also absolutely perfect.
“The most frustrating thing of all is that the answer to social mobility isn’t complicated. On that first day, we were shown the Gatsby curve – a simple graph that shows social mobility is directly related to income equality. On the first day of my tenure, we had all the evidence we needed.
You want social mobility?
Tax wealth. Tax inheritance. Build council houses. Fund schools. Pay proper wages. End the two-child benefit cap.
Anything less? Stop pretending you care.”
Sammy Wright, 2023, schoolsweek.co.uk
**Chef’s kiss**
A great read, but painful and frustrating, I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to live it.
4) BLOG and REPORT – Discovering the Future through T-Levels: My Edge Foundation Research Experience and the Power of a Work Placement by Taha Tariq – https://www.edge.co.uk/news-and-events/blogs/discovering-the-future-through-t-levels-my-edge-foundation-research-experience-and-the-power-of-a-work-placement/
This is a blog and report written by teenager Taha Tariq concluding their summer Nuffield Foundation Research Placement, over the first summer of their A Levels.
I will be sharing this with a group of year 12’s later in the year when discussing application – very motivational.
I cannot speak highly enough about Nuffield Foundation research placements and the opportunities for growth they provide young people. Over many years I’ve seen a buoyancy from youngsters returning in the summer following a successful placement – always talented young people but with a renewed focus and self belief.
The report is fantastic as well – really could have done with this when writing about T Levels back in July – https://themarkscheme.co.uk/t-levels/ .
Tara’s report can be found here – https://www.edge.co.uk/documents/462/Understanding_T_Levels_Final_Report_-_T_Tariq_Aug_2023.pdf
5) WEBSITE – From The Sidelines – https://www.fromthesidelines.uk
Launched by Jon Tait (https://www.edutait.com/jon) and Ross Bennett from Engaging Education (https://engaginge.co.uk). It is still in very early days , but the site says it best itself;
From the Sidelines’ aims to educate parents and families on the science behind how our children learn, together with how to create the perfect environment at home in which to support them.
There are short videos, a 15 minute podcast and infographics available. As it develops this could exactly be the type of accessible content to share at parents evenings.
Check in on Sunday’s for more “5 to Try”, I will try and add some variation and it may not always be education adjacent.
Hopefully coming soon I have posts on “Formula of a Formula: Type I and Type II error” and the first of a three-parter on Bloom’s Taxonomy.
