January on The Learning Spy

Here, for your delight and edification, are the blogs I wrote during January:

1st January - New Year’s resolutions for teachers and school leaders 

Make this year better than last!

2nd January - Varieties of boredom 

How and why some varieties of boredom might not be a bad thing but others are dreadful.

5th January - Can anyone teach? Well, that depends on what you think education is for

An exploration of the idea that anyone can teach.

9th January - What every teacher needs to know about… Edtech

In which I conclude that technology is great but 'edtech' is a bit crap.

11th January - Big data is bad data

When it comes to analysing data maybe less is more.

23rd January - Is it what you do or the way that you do it?

Whilst it might be true that you can do anything well, something are inherently better than others.

24th January - Why ‘mastery learning’ may prove to be a bad idea

Mastery learning sounds great but what do we actually mean?

25th January - What’s the difference between character and personality?

Personality is an elusive concept but character is probably worse.

27th January - Is it a ‘sin’ to tell teachers how to teach?

No. Sometimes it's fine.

28th January - A definition of learning

As I keep getting asked what I mean by learning, it seemed like a good idea to have a post dedicated to my definition.

28th January - John Hattie and the magical power of prediction

In which I explore Hattie's confusion about 'self-reported grades'.

29th January - Ouroboros: a review

My review of Greg Ashman's book.

30th January - Proof of progress – Part 1

First in a series of posts about the process of using Comparative Judgement.

31st January - Scripts: whose lesson is it anyway?

Might scripting 'perfect' lessons be a good idea?

31st January - Some assumptions about scripted lessons

In which I deal with some of the most predictable assumptions pertaining to scripted lessons.