Randomisers

by Hannah Gurr and Katherine High

Tutors on our pre-sessional this year will now be familiar with Dylan Wiliam’s 2010 BBC2 documentary The Classroom Experiment. In it [from 7:21], he says:

The children who are answering everything you ask them are actually getting smarter – their IQs actually go up. And there are other children in the same classroom who are foregoing that opportunity to get smarter. So, if you are allowing children to volunteer to participate or not in your classroom, quite simply you are making the achievement gap bigger. (more…)

Fish-bones and Flesh: developing critical thinking skills through structured planning, drafting and editing

by Katherine High

Fish skeleton

How can I help my post-grads improve coherence in their writing?” exclaimed a friend of mine who has recently moved into an academic teaching role. I began to sketch the outline of a fish-bone while asking her some questions, “so if the fish-bone represents an essay, what is the head?(more…)