Reading Time: Approx 4mins
By Professor Rob Coe, Director, CEM
It has become common, although I still find it surprising, to hear teachers use the word ‘data’ as if it were a bad thing.
‘Data drops’ have come to epitomise a pointless exercise in collecting meaningless numbers and feeding them into a system that can have no possible benefit for learners. People even say that Ofsted is ‘too reliant on data’, as if a judgement process could - or should – rely on anything other than data...
Reading Time: Approx 2mins
By Mark Frazer, Teaching and Learning Lead, CEM
In my previous blog post, I considered some of the findings from the 2015 PISA study.
The data appear to suggest that independent or student led activities do not support outcomes as effectively as more traditional teacher led activities.
In reality, can either approach be solely relied upon?...
Reading Time: Approx 3mins
By Sue Holt, Vice Principal, New Cairo British International School
It would be an easy task to list the benefits of working in an international school.
Less easy would be finding ways to meet some of the unexpected and complex challenges that face senior leaders in an international education...
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Believe it or not, there were bookcases before IKEA’s ubiquitous BILLY bookshelf.
We’ve been putting things on shelves for thousands of years. Archaeological remains from earliest times suggest that clay and stone tablets were kept in some arranged order by their authors or collectors...
Has the removal of national curriculum levels in England created a broader interest in assessment practices?
The removal of levels back in 2014 caused chaos, confusion and consternation amongst many educators. To some, levels were a secure, reliable, dependable way of scaffolding a child’s journey through school. To others, they represented the limitations of people’s understanding about learning and assessment practice...
Reading Time: Approx 4mins
By Mark Frazer, Teaching and Learning Lead, CEM
Since the publication of the results from the most recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), many researchers and educational bloggers have drawn attention to, and have questioned, the results. For example, Greg Ashman has discussed the implications of the 2015 study on several occasions.
The 2015 PISA study involved assessing the performance of over half a million 15 year olds in 72 countries using a series of computer-based tasks and questionnaires...
Reading Time: Approx 3mins
By Dr Deborah M. Netolicky
It makes sense that the most effective teaching methods are used in classrooms, and that the most effective leadership governance practices are used in schools, but how do educators decide on what evidence on which they should rely, to whom they should listen, and how they might engage meaningfully with research findings? How do we know what research is worth listening to, what is worth ignoring, and what has been debunked?
In my last post for the CEM Blog, I explored the dangers of educators accepting seemingly simple solutions to the complex problems of education. In this post I suggest five ways in which teachers, schools, and systems can meaningfully engage in research...
Reading Time: Approx 4mins
By Dr Deborah M. Netolicky
Teachers, school leaders, schools, and education systems around the world are increasingly expected to use data to inform practice.
The Australian school system in which I work is grounded in the 2008 Melbourne Declaration on Education Goals for Young Australians. Among other things, the Declaration outlines the need for schools to have reliable, rich, good quality data on the performance of their students in order to improve outcomes for all students by: supporting successful diagnosis of student progress; supporting designing of high quality learning programs; and informing school approaches to provision of policies, programs, resourcing, relationships with parents and partnerships with community and business. It additionally notes that information about the performance of students helps parents and families make informed choices and engage with their children’s education...
Reading Time: Approx 3mins
Mark Steed, Director of JESS, Dubai
There is broad agreement in research that effective use of data is vital to school improvement. We know that the effective use of data can promote better teaching and learning through practices such as tracking pupil progress, setting targets, identifying where students need further support, strategic planning and performance management.
Therefore, it stands to reason that there is also a need for school leaders to have high levels of assessment and data skills...
Reading Time: Approx 3mins
By Dr Gary Jones
We are delighted to host this piece by Gary Jones, in which he draws out the parallels between guidance on the meaning of evidence-based medicine and evidence-based practice in education.
Talking about evidence-based practice often generates a level of concern among teachers who worry that this is an attempt to control or dictate what they can and cannot do; that it removes or devalues their professional judgement; that it reduces the complexity of school and classroom interaction to simplistic recipes based on a narrow range of research methods...