NEW BLOG: Educational Amnesia: Why England Is Sleepwalking into a Scottish Mistake emaths.co.uk/blog/general-ed…

Yesterday morning, I placed copies of seven example-based You Teach You geometry worksheets in separate piles on a table in my classroom so that my GED students could work through them one at a time when they came in. They were used to the “see it, do it, check it” format from previous classes and settled in to work, coming to me for assistance (not as often as you might think since the 1:1 ratio of examples to practice problems makes the worksheets self-explanatory) and to check their work against the keys (which I showed them one at a time on my laptop, without comment). There were a few “Oh, I see what I did wong!”s, a number of “Yesssss!”s, three or four questions, and one high five as I revealed the keys, but mostly the students simply looked at the solutions and smiled to themselves in silent contentment; confident that they were actually mastering the math they’ll need to pass the GED. These are individuals who, by their own admission, have never felt confident in math class before, so the looks on their faces spoke volumes. And something else spoke to me too. There happened to be seven students in the class at the time, same as the number of worksheets, and at one point each of them was working on a different one. Students work at different rates, often vastly different rates. When we don’t account for that, some feel rushed and fall behind while others get prevented from going further. When we do account for it, they all get precisely what they need to succeed. #YouTeachYou #Reproducible #MathWorksheets #GED #AdultEducation #RemedialMath #InexpensiveMathSolutions

In debates and discussions around education, it is often the case that when people say this or that approach doesn’t work / is harmful / should be banned / is anti-child / etc, they really mean “but this isn’t how things were when I was at school.” This understandable human desire to recreate the world or our childhood is why we are stuck in a never ending cycle of fads and fashions, be that in education practices or popular music or dress sense or pretty much everything. It is the main culprit when it comes to understanding why education rarely goes with the evidence base and instead opts for what makes people feel comfortable.

Great episode @MrZachG. Worth noting from Robin: -Games not great for fluency-building; helps for cumulative review, not fluency -well-designed computer practice helps but some data shows it doesn't always transfer to pencil/paper; use pencil & paper too podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcas…

This old blog, from 2018, appears to remain popular. It is an in-depth discussion of the mastery approach and a thorough review of cognitive science. BLOG: Teaching for Mastery, Part 3 emaths.co.uk/blog/general-ed…

This is really encouraging for education in Northern Ireland. @lucy_crehan is a great choice to be leading this review. Clear, calm and precise. The outcome will undoubtedly be beneficial for children across the country.

Here's a 14 minute podcast about my book Teaching for Mastery emaths.co.uk/images/Intervie…

Neglecting basic math skills: "It's like asking someone to read a novel before they know the alphabet. No wonder math can be so frustrating sometimes" This & other gems in a remarkably authentic-sounding AI podcast on @P_A_Kirschner's paper "Designing math standards in agreement with standards"

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