Advice from Uncle Ben

20May13

“With great power… comes great responsibility.”

misquote from Ben Parker, Marvel Comics.

Background

I’m a little late to the party, but I wanted to follow up the recent dispute about Michael Gove’s comments about history teaching. This was spurred by a twitter conversation with @oldandrewuk where it became clear that we disagreed vigorously about Gove’s approach. It seemed to me that I wasn’t explaining myself, something I shall happily blame on trying to fit my thoughts into 140 characters. Of course, this is why I have a blog, so I told Andrew I’d blog my point of view and look forward to reading his perspective. [EDIT: his post has been up for a few days - clearly much more efficient than I am - but I've yet to comment on it.]  Here we go…

Gove (mis)used some examples of what he saw as poor history teaching and quoted some surveys to make political points, in a speech at Brighton College  and a Daily Mail interview. His comments about the Mr Men revision activity – not used for initial teaching, but to encourage students with a good understanding to rephrase and transform their knowledge for younger classes – have been expertly answered by the resource creator, Russel Tarr. A retired teacher with a Freedom of Information request demonstrated that ‘survey after survey’ was, perhaps, overstating the evidence. Ironically, both suggest that Gove has failed to grasp the importance of context when giving evidence to make a political point.

Power and Responsibility

Let me be clear about something. Gove has every right to have strong opinions about teaching. In fact as the Minister responsible, you could argue that he has an obligation. He has the power to change the education system, subtly or greatly. He can influence funding, celebrate the best of us and condemn the worst. But as Uncle Ben (more or less) said, this power is accompanied by responsibility. And this is a responsibility which is easy to put into words.

What he says must be based on facts.

He doesn’t have to be right every time. He doesn’t have to be popular (which is probably a very good thing). He doesn’t have to be perfect, and to be honest I wouldn’t expect his grammar to be flawless; he’s human after all.

But his opinions are not those of a private citizen when he is speaking or writing about education. He speaks and writes as a government minister, the Secretary of State for Education. Which means he has a responsibility to his government, to his colleagues, to his teachers and most of all to the young people he effectively works for. A responsibility that, by the way, we as teachers share. A responsibility not to spread bullshit.

His Job

Gove’s role is to set policy. It’s to hold us to account. It’s to set national aims, priorities, deadlines. I might disagree with his policies and those of his party, but that’s how politics works. Tell your elected representatives if you don’t like what they’re doing. If you object strongly enough, vote against them next time. If ideas are based on ideology or personal belief, not observable facts, then elected politicians must have the courage and honesty to say so.

His job is not to decide classroom methods, any more than a Health Minister would advise surgeons on the best way to transplant a kidney. The professionals work out the best way to achieve the aims, as defined by the government. If politicians care, they allocate cash for the research to happen. They quote the data – selectively, I’m sure – which supports their opinions and, hopefully, those of their constituents. But they don’t get to make things up. If they over-rule the experts – as is their right to do so, hopefully with a good justification – then they must expect to be challenged.

Gove’s job, and that of every politician, is to find the best people to do all the other jobs. I’d love to think he appreciated my workload through personal experience, but the truth is that doesn’t matter. Instead he needs to know what he doesn’t know, and stay out of it. It would be naive for us not to realise that his speeches and interviews are intended to support the policies he chooses to promote, to encourage validation of his ideas. But if his opinions are intended to justify policy decisions, curriculum changes and funding cuts, then they are government business and so must expect the same scrutiny as formal documents from the Department for Education. Bring facts, Mr Gove, or stay quiet.

What’s concerning with Gove’s curriculum reforms, which seem rushed and ill-considered to many, is that he’s ignoring those people who know what they’re talking about. Last year BERA responded to his wholesale refusal to listen. Subject groups, including the Historical Association and the ASE, have concerns with their specific areas. The related exams review even concerns Ofsted, who called it ‘challenging’ and ‘ambitious’. These are the people who mediate between political hopes and classroom reality. And they’re being ignored or, in many cases, ridiculed.

Sadly Gove has not always responded reasonably to requests for clarification or explanation, let alone to direct challenges. He and his team have even attempted to hide their email conversations from FOI requests, conceal their identities when making political claims (@toryeducation anyone?) and sometimes even let others do their dirty work. Changing this approach would, of course, earn respect from all quarters. Fingers crossed…

Our Job

This isn’t just a political rant, although my apologies if it comes across that way. My frustration is that Gove – like, I’m sure, many other politicians – seeks to move beyond policy (telling us what to do) into professional methods (telling us how to do it). One example I’ve mentioned before is the inclusion of one specific technique, synthetic phonics, in the Code of Practice. Does the Hippocratic Oath specify the one true method to remove an appendix?

Classroom methods are our department – but we equally have a responsibility to base what we do on evidence. We need to use techniques that have been shown, as much as possible, to work. RCTs may not be the only answer but a general aim to improve the quality of evidence can only be a good thing. The next step is to make sure it’s shared much more effectively, something the EFF is hopefully going to make progress with. We need to question our own professional practice and be prepared to defend it when justified. But like Gove, our determination can only be respected if we are prepared to change what doesn’t work.

Anecdotes and value judgements have their place in the classroom, but not at the expense of better evidence. We can use personal stories or topical examples from the media to illustrate our points, but must be prepared to explain why they matter if challenged. For example, using nonsense like BrainGym to justify giving kids water bottles in class devalues us and our professional perspective. Like Gove, we must expect that if we fail to pay attention to details then we will be mocked for our mistakes.

Teachers have great power in the classroom. We are the people tasked with turning children into citizens. We’re certainly the ones who get the blame when it doesn’t work out, despite the wider context! Teaching, like being a parent, is a big job. Our students trust us to tell them the truth, which makes developing scientific models challenging, to say the least. But I hope my students know that I’ll be straight with them, that I won’t use nonsense to back up what I tell them. Because if I did, and they figured it out – which they would – then they’d lose faith in everything else I tell them. Like Gove, we rely on our reputations to have credibility.

With great power comes great responsibility. Politicians have power over government policy, which means they have a responsibility to show they are taking it seriously. Maybe Gove needs to remember that.

PS To those who realised that despite me not changing my avatar to ‘Mr Chalk’ I’ve used this post to reference a different cartoon, well done. And before you accuse me of dumbing down, I’d argue that every kind of popular culture (including Shakespeare) has been looked down on by those referecing their own favourites of the past.

Filed under: political, teaching   |  5 Comments
Tags: Michael Gove, teaching

From the Classroom Up

09May13

So we had a Journal Club.

Getting on for 200 tweets from a small (but dedicated) group of Science teachers, with some tentative conclusions as Storified elsewhere. Although participants commented on the weak results from the case study – unavoidable with small groups on a single site – it certainly seemed interesting.

Could we show improved understanding, and hence achievement, by moving away from HSW skills integrated with content, and instead start KS3 by teaching these skills discretely? Enquiring minds want to know. If only there was a way to expand an interesting case study to get more reliable and/or generally applicable results. If only there was a general move towards gathering more evidence at a classroom level that could be widely shared in the profession…

“Hang on, fellas. I’ve got an idea.”

 Where We Are

An interesting case study has found a benefit from one approach (discrete teaching of Sc1 skills at the start of KS3) over another (gradually introduced over the year). A small sample was involved at one school.

What We Could Do Next

As several people pointed out, we need more data before proceeding to a full trial. The next step would be collecting information about schools which use these two approaches and how well they work. How do schools assess students’ understanding of the language and methods? A Googleform or similar would be an easy way to acquire the data without a high cost at this stage.

Trial Design

I should possibly leave this to the experts, but the whole point of this teacher-led approach is to get us involved. (Alternatively, the DfE could press release a huge study but not tell us what they’re actually investigating.) As I understand it, we’d need to

1. Get an education researcher to co-ordinate design/timetables/data analysis.
2. Produce standard resources to be used either all together (discrete unit) or spread through the year (integrated learning) – this could be based on CASE or similar approaches.
3. Design outcome measure, ideally something cheap and non-intrusive.
4. Recruit participant schools.
5. Visit schools during trial (in both arms) to observe delivery, consider deviation from ‘ideal script’, and also raise profile of organisation/idea.
6. This provides good ‘teacher/researcher’ links and could be used as a way to observe CSciTeach candidates perhaps, or at least accredit ‘teacher-researchers’.
7. Collect data on outcomes for both groups. Tests need to be blinded, ideally marked externally or by computer. Workload!
8. Data analysis – which approach gives the best results? Is this correlated with some characteristic of the schools?
9. Share results widely, provide materials and best practice guidance based on evidence.
10. Plan the next RCT, perhaps looking at the materials used.

Funding and Support

I’ve a few ideas, but they’re probably way off. I don’t know how much it would cost, either in terms of money or time. The EEF is focused on attainment of particular groups, so I don’t know how relevant it would be to their aims. (But their funding round closes in October.) The ASE, I suspect, would have the organisational skills but not the money. Might the Science Learning Centres have a part to play, if we consider this from the point of view of teachers developing themselves professionally while conducting research? It would also nicely complement some of the aims of YorkScience. And we shouldn’t forget the original author, Andrew Grime, although I don’t think he’s on Twitter. (We probably should have tried harder to get in touch with him before the Journal Club session, come to think of it…

I’m sure there are many other questions that could be answered in UK Science classrooms. But the question should be, which one shall we try to answer first? Instead of complaining from the sidelines, teachers should, ideally through coordinated projects and their professional associations, get involved. This seems like an ideal chance to make the most of the Evidence-Based Teaching Bandwagon and could perhaps be launched/discussed at ResearchED2013. If we want to make something of it.

Do we?

 

An apologetic postscript: sorry to followers of the blog who got spammy emails about a post which wasn’t there. This was because I hadn’t read the fine print on Storify about not being able to embed the material on a WordPress.com blog.  It’s the same Storify I link to above, now happily live at the SciTeachJC site.

Filed under: assessment, ed-research, practicals, teaching   |  5 Comments
Tags: Education, Journal Club, Science Learning Centres, teaching

The Ethics of Tutoring

28Apr13

The last few posts have been short but practical – lots of links and resources. So for a change this evening’s will be short and philosophical, prompted by several Guardian articles that caught my attention. The first didn’t seem sure about whether there was a real need, or just a perceived one. The second was a series of personal viewpoints, from tutors, parents and the tutees.

I know of several students in each of my classes who have tutors; I’m sure there are more who haven’t mentioned it. There are no doubt a range of reasons and a range of benefits, but I can’t help wondering if the parents are necessarily doing the right thing.

In some cases – hopefully none of mine! – parents are trying to make up for a perceived inadequacy in the classroom. This could due to a teacher, concern about numbers or a child who is being missed. In others, a child is being tutored to try and boost them above an important threshold. The focus in schools is often seen as being about the C/D borderline, so parents may feel that if their child is being neglected then extra time is worthwhile. Parents who are hoping for a particlar school place, scholarships or an 11+ exam would fit into this category.

For many, I suspect the real value – whether this is made explicit to the student or not – is that they have a structured time to work, with guidance. And by this, I mean to make sure the kid does some work, at some point. Many teens struggle to focus when there are so many distractions. Knowing that on Wednesday evenings between 5 and 6 they will have to ask and answer questions on an identified weak area probably helps concentrate the mind. And when the sessions are one-to-one, there’s the chance for personalised revision tips, extra examples or quick tests. This might particularly apply to students who are easily distracted in school, for whatever reason.

Of course, in some cases tutoring is a waste of time. I’ve had students who have been taught material at home that’s wrong, or pitched at too high a level. I had one kid who had been taught all the topics in advance, jumped in with all the answers during discussions yet hadn’t practised the things they needed help with. Other times, pupils have clearly rehearsed the general ideas but not applied them in any kind of a useful way. And to be honest, it’s frustrating to have homework handed in which is clearly above the ability of the student. This wastes my time as well as theirs, seeing as when it comes to the test the scores tend to be a better reflection.

The real problem

I don’t want my kids to need a tutor. They already pay for one – me. I promise my students at the start of the year that I’ll always be around if they need support. They write down where to find me at break and lunch. As long as they don’t mind me eating a sandwich or drinking coffee while I talk, I’ll help them whenever I can. I’ve not often turned kids away – but they’ve not often come asking either. So whose fault is it if pupils don’t ask me for help and their parents end up paying someone else instead?

Hypocrisy

The thing is, I’ve tutored before and probably will again. I don’t advertise, I’m not with an agency and I don’t tout for business. Obviously I don’t tutor children from my school, unless you count lunchtime revision sessions put on by the department. So does this make me a hypocrite? I guess it does. The truth is that any child will benefit in some way from having an extra session a week on a subject. It might be about confidence, it might be a concept they struggle with, it might just help them organise their revision. But there will be something. Personally – and I’ve said this to parents of pupils and tutees – I think that it’s not very cost-effective. But I suspect many parents would either feel they wouldn’t be confident with the content or value a neutral adult who can support a struggling teenager. I’ve never been asked to provide inappropriate support with coursework and I’ve never done a kid’s homework for them; at most I’ve given similar examples and worked though some equivalent problems with them. My conscience is clear. But I’m still a little uneasy.

An Alternative

This is basically why I’ve been putting together – slowly, painfully and missing every deadline I’ve set myself – a secondary blog. It’s studenttoolkit.co.uk and it uses some of the same ideas I promote in class. It’s not science-specific, so the ideas can be applied in any subject. It’s careful not to blame teachers or pupils for difficulties. It doesn’t suggest there’s a quick fix – in fact, I should add a version of this post to make clear tutoring is not a simple solution. Instead it provides resources, ideas and suggestions to make it easier to succeed in schools.

I’d value any suggestions about it, as well as comments on the ethics of tutoring itself. Do you tutor, or do you hate the idea? How do you feel when you find one of your students pays for a personal replacement for your help? Am I being overly-sensitive?

Answers on a postcard…

Filed under: revision, students, teaching   |  3 Comments

GCSE Science Revision

21Apr13

The second half of this post will be mostly relevant to AQA Science A and Additional, because that’s mostly what I teach. The rest will be my own opinions on revision. I say opinions, but I try to make sure these are evidence-based, because that’s what we try to do, right? Let’s start off with active revision, what it is and isn’t, and how to convince kids to do it. You could argue this puts the responsibility back on the students rather than us doing it, which strikes me as both moral and effective. It’s incredibly depressing when kids turn up at a scheduled ‘revision class’ expecting to listen to a teacher read through the syllabus. Pointless, frustrating and demoralising for everyone concerned; surely there’s something more constructive they could be doing?

Most of the hyperlinks are to my own posts, because I could find them quickly. I’d love for comments to be added with more/better stuff, so please do!

Active Revision inc MORSE

I like the acronym MORSE, standing for

• Mnemonics (Yes, I know, relatively small benefit, but can’t miss it out)
• Organisation (links between concepts, not remembering your calculator)
• Rehearsal/Repetition (ideally using the ideas behind ‘spaced revision’)
• Simplification/Summarising (key words, lists, page to paragraph to sentence)
• Extension (applying facts to new situations)

I presented on this ages ago at a TeachMeet, but it’s continued to be useful when working with my students. It’s a straightforward checklist to make sure that whatever they’re doing, it’s active rather than passive. As I explain to my classes, although there are some surprises, most revision advice is simple. Like healthy eating, it’s not about mysterious secrets, but about willpower.

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Michael Pollan, 2007

Active revision isn’t a complicated idea. It’s about doing something. Writing, not reading. Describing or thinking or explaining, not just watching or listening. It’s quite telling that when I asked a student how they had revised for a recent test, they told me they’d “looked at the revision guide.” Not even read the revision guide, you notice. Have you seen that students seem to treat revision guides like gym memberships? Owning them is enough to ensure the result you wanted, apparently…

Anyway. I like to get students:

• using past papers in loads of ways
• writing revision notes as summaries from a range of sources
• producing mindmaps/revision cards then using them
• asking and answering questions with peers
• rote learning definitions using cover/write/check
• linking concepts with examples and consequences for the 6 mark questions.
• advantages/disadvantages, comparisons with linked ideas/examples (eg the Five Cs format)
• practising mathematical situations, both clear and challenging

..and of course much more. I’m constantly behind in updates to my student-focused site, studenttoolkit.co.uk, which has a revision category. New ideas, contributions, referrals all welcome of course!

AQA-Specific Links

Booklets for students to complete, with checklists. These are all in .pdf format.

• B1 Revision Summary
• B2 Revision Summary
• P1 Revision Summary
• P2 Revision Summary

Nothing for Chemistry, on account of me being a Physicist who can also teach the squishy stuff, but is more likely to blow himself up accidentally rather than on purpose.

Hope some of the above is useful – please met me know what you think, whether positive or negative.

Related articles

• Secret Teacher: where do teachers draw the line in helping students achieve? (schoolsimprovement.net)

Filed under: AQA, L2L, revision, teaching   |  8 Comments
Tags: AQA, revision, teaching

B2 Revision Activity

19Apr13

Another short and sweet post, aimed mainly at teachers of AQA Additional Science or Biology. I put together a (mostly blank) summary booklet for my students, and perhaps yours might find it useful too. I see it mainly as a starting point, and emphasize that this should then lead to more detailed, interactive resources for them. A good way to use it might be to split students into six groups and then have them produce two or three resources per table; a mindmap, a set of questions and answers, a 2minute presentation and so on. If they produce things electronically, they could then share them all and everyone gets the benefit.

B2 summary activity as .pdf

Anyway, you could simply hand it out and ask them to start by filling it in. Let me know how it works out and if you want an editable version (in .docx format) you’ll have to leave a comment. I’ll aim to email it out by… say Wednesday 24th? Seems fair.

 

Related articles

• Revision Lessons Don’t Have to Be Boring – Some Ideas to Spice it Up! (makinglearningeasier.wordpress.com)

Filed under: AQA, printables, revision, teaching   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: AQA, printables, revision, teaching

Patterns in Graphs

17Apr13

This activity is intended to help with ISA preparation, language and graph skills. I’ve deliberately modelled it on the last part of the second paper (on the AQA specification) but it should still be useful in other situations. The patterns in graphs lesson outline follows the 7Es model, and is matched with a powerpoint and student worksheet.

The powerpoint refers to desk signs; these are a good way to define pairs of students, check names if working with an unfamiliar class and also give students some vocabulary that might be useful; this can work as a good starter activity.

There – my shortest even blog post! Please feel free to leave long and detailed comments, though…

 

 

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Tags: graphs, ISA, teaching

Herd Immunity

14Apr13

A very quick post as I’ve loads of other things I should be doing. Like ironing shirts for the first day back tomorrow. But I got into a brief discussion on Twitter about measles data being a topical way to get kids thinking about patterns, and it was pointd out to me that I never finished off my mini-scheme about MMR from ages ago. Obviously this is topical (and tragic) at the moment. I don’t have time to do this properly, but this is the easiest way to share the ‘herd immunity’ activity I put together then.

Herd immunity is a simple idea; if most of the population are protected against a disease, then it is much less likely to spread and so even those unvaccinated are effectively protected. Scientific views about the precise percentage that need to be immune vary, but it’s certainly well above the current proportions, especially for MMR. This can be blamed on the media, who gave headlines and airtime to Wakefield (struck off for poor ethics, not to mention falsifying data) and many of the anti-vaccination groups. Some organisations, like the BBC, say they need to provide ‘balance’. Others know better but seem to like the increased sales the scare stories bring in.

Anyway, enough ranting. Back to herd immunity.

Some people aren’t vaccinated yet or their vaccinations, for many reasons, have resulted in them being less than 100% protected. This group includes young babies, the immune-suppressed and so on. This is less than ideal but unavoidable. Others remain unprotected because they or their parents believed the media intead of the science. There’s some interesting research to show that people feel more guilt when they have acted to cause a problem, than when their inaction causes an equivalent problem. I just can’t find the link – anyone?

If you never meet anyone who can pass the pathogens on to you, then you won’t get the disease. It’s simple. So more people protected means less chance of bumping into someone who gives you horrible germs. Yes, I’m simplifying, partly because I’m a physicist and partly to put this in classroom-suitable terms. This is herd immunity, where the whole population is effectively protected because enough of them are actually protected. (It has the additional benefit that by removing possible reservoirs there’s less mutation and outbreaks tend to be less severe.)

Herd Immunity as a pdf

The above worksheet gives students a chance to see why even those who are unvaccinated get protection. You’ll need to give them the background, or send them off to research it. Hopefully not just on Wikipedia.

Finally, some extension questions:

• should immunisation be compulsory when medically possible?
• should vaccination be required before starting school (true in some parts of the USA)?
• is it unethical to rely on herd immunity if you are not prepared to risk the small but measurable (millions to one) possibility of adverse effects of a vaccination? (I mentioned this in a guest post for NoodleMaz in January)

Filed under: badscience, biology, printables, science, teaching   |  2 Comments
Tags: Herd immunity, mmr, printable, teaching