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Jul 4, 2021 β€’ 8 tweets β€’ 2 min read β€’ Read on X
Routines redeploy attention

β†’ They enable students to spend less time thinking about the *process* of their learning and more time thinking about the *content* of their learning.

🧡... Image
First, let's zoom out a bit. Routines can be both behavioural and/or instructional:

β€’ Behavioural routines (eg. classroom entry) create more time and space for learning.
β€’ Instructional routines (eg. cold call) make learning more efficient.
Both types bring a range of benefits:

β†’ Reduction in behaviour management burden
β†’ Increased student motivation, confidence and safety
β†’ Freeing up of teacher mental capacity to monitor learning and be more responsive
But imho the main benefit is how they shift the balance of attention:

Routines enable students to spend less time thinking about the *how* of their learning, so they can spend more time thinking about the *what* of their learning βš–οΈ
They do this by stripping out decision costs, reducing the amount of novel information that needs to be processed, and employing our ability to think less about the things we repeatedly do.

They hack the attention economy of the classroom to help pupils learn things faster.
Routines are often thought of as boredom-brokers and creativity-killers, but I'm not sure this is always true...

β†’ Effective routines can secure success and so act as an antidote to boredom.
β†’ They also free up the precious mental capacity needed for creativity to flourish.
Caveat: I'm not saying that lessons should be formulaic.

Instead, I find it more useful to think about having a broad 'repertoire of routines' to draw upon.

This ensures that teaching can be both efficient *and* responsive: to help meet the needs of students and the curriculum.
Finally, for any PD folks who've made it this far:

A reminder that teaching teachers is just teaching: routines can be also be powerful in a PD context.

This is why instructional coaching has such potential: as a finely-tuned routine for ongoing teacher development.

β€’ β€’ β€’

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More from @PepsMccrea

Feb 5
16 must-know edu-research papers from the last 16 weeks:

(all open source πŸ”“)

↓
1/ Study exploring β€˜warm-strict’ teaching

β†’ finds that combining deep care and high expectations helps to guide learning and build strong relationships

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…Image
2/ Pre-print comparing ability grouping vs mixed-ability from @JohnPeterJerrim

β†’ finds no clear differences in student outcomes (but primary teachers feel slightly more able to help struggling and high-achieving students with ability grouping)

johnjerrim.com/does-within-sc…Image
Read 18 tweets
Feb 2
Norms are more powerful than rules. How to leverage this idea in school:

↓ Image
Norms are the unwritten rules that govern the behaviour and attitudes of a group (such as a society or school).

They are so powerful that they tend to override more formal rules or policies. Which is why, in schools, we ignore them at our peril.

The power of norms arises from two main mechanisms:
1/ Life is complex and uncertain.

Adopting the behaviours and attitudes of others is a quick and safe bet. This is why authors (like me) strive to get quotes on the front of our books and 5-star reviews on Amazon.
Read 12 tweets
Dec 8, 2024
40 of most fascinating edu-threads from the last 4 months:

↓
1/ @C_Hendrick on the history and evidence around open-plan classrooms

@C_Hendrick 2/ @teacherfeature2 on how to cultivate psychological safety in school

Read 43 tweets
Nov 24, 2024
A quick thread on 'retrieval resistance':

(co-authored with ace memory psychologist William Wadsworth @examstudyexpert)

↓ Image
@examstudyexpert Retrieval practice has the potential to be powerful for revision.

However, despite our efforts to educate students on this approach, it isn't always embraced wholeheartedly.

And so, we must also put in place steps to overcome what Wadsworth calls 'retrieval resistance'.
@examstudyexpert Retrieval is the act of pulling information out of memory rather than putting it in.

Such as quizzing ourselves with flashcards or writing down everything we can remember about a topic (in contrast say to re-reading something).
Read 15 tweets
Nov 20, 2024
(I tried to post this thread a couple of weeks ago but I didn't get to finish it smh)

For the last 8 years, over at @Steplab_co, we've been working on a project to codify HIGHLY EFFECTIVE TEACHING.

A long-ish summary of what we've learned:

↓ Image
@Steplab_co One of the essential ingredients of effective professional development is the provision of concrete & granular teaching 'strategies'.

These can be used as examples of 'what good looks like', which teachers can translate for their context, and practise in a productive way.
@Steplab_co However, it's also critical to help teachers see how such granular strategies fit into their broader teaching repertoire.

*Context* is as important as *content*.

Eg: How Cold Call fits into the wider goal of maximising pupil thinking, alongside Wait Time and other strategies. Image
Read 25 tweets
Nov 17, 2024
CONTINGENCY BLINDNESS

(aka why graded lesson observations don't work)

A mega-geeky thread I've been sitting on for 5 years:

↓ Image
Imagine we wanted to create a system for evaluating doctors' effectiveness.

Suppose we designed a rubric outlining all the actions effective doctors typically perform:

β†’ Prescribe painkillers
β†’ Refer to specialists
β†’ Order blood tests
β†’ Conduct physical exams
β†’ etc.
Now imagine this system judged doctors solely on how well they fulfilled this rubric, regardless of whether these actions actually improved patient health.
Read 14 tweets

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