Effective Papers For learning

One interesting change in my teaching recently has been, rather than a technical change in my practice, a change in the fundamental beliefs and attitudes I hold about learning, talent and achievement. I am inclined to the view that teaching is, largely, a learned skill, and feel that I've benefitted a great deal from experimenting with new techniques and strategies in the classroom. I'm not sure that any of them, however, has made a more positive difference than the change in the way I understand talent. My change in mindset has come about through reading a number of recent books which look closely at the nature of ability and high-performance. These include Outliers and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, Carol Dweck's work on Mindset, The Genius in All of Us by David Schenk and, especially, Bounce by Matthew Syed. The central conclusions that these texts share is that society places far too much emphasis on the idea of achievement being led by natural, innate, genetically-guid...

This recent TES article   Think you've implemented Assessment for Learning? has prompted some reflection in me on my own journey with AFL. Wiliam suggests that there is much work to be done before AFL can be said to have had a substantially postive impact in our schools. I think he's right, and my own experiences and learning may help to illustrate some of the issues. I trained in 1999 – just after the publishing of Inside the Black Box ; the language and ideas of AFL have therefore been a feature of practice and professional learning throughout my entire career. It might be hoped that I was in a great position to benefit from AFL, that I would have ridden the wave of enthusiasm and development at an exciting time to be a teacher. The truth is less positive. For longer than I care to admit, whilst I was using some of the elements I thought I needed to, such as having lesson aims on the board, using mark schemes, doing some odd bits of (largely unsuccessful) peer and self-assess...