teacher training — Terry Freedman's ICT & Computing in Education blog — ICT & Computing in Education

Some research findings about effective education technology training for teachers

January 7, 2021

There are a couple of interesting things in the newsletter below. One is the findings from a study at Reading University about the most effective approach to training teachers. I’d be very surprised if a study carried out today didn’t yield similar results.

Tech training then and now: spot the difference

December 11, 2020

It would be great if the DfE could organise laptop schemes that work properly, and identify the schools and teachers who have managed to achieve great things in online learning and disseminate information about how they did it.

Reflections from a teacher training course 2

May 27, 2020

I believe in simple instructions. Here are the instructions I gave to a new cohort of teacher trainees, plus a short commentary on what went right — and what didn’t.

Reflections from a teacher training course 1

May 18, 2020

My reflections on a first session I taught on a teacher training course are still apposite today.

We need more teachers, and not just master teachers. Picture from www.pixabay.com CC0

5 reasons there is a shortage of Computing at School Master Teachers, and what we can do about it

January 12, 2016

Over three years since the new Computing curriculum in England was mooted, and more than a year since it came into being, there are still not enough teachers who feel competent and confident to teach it. This is not least in part due an insistence on an elitist approach to training them. In this article I suggest a few possibly more fruitful approaches.

Recent book reviews

Review: Social Media for Academics

This book is very readable, and if I sound surprised that is because it’s not always true of academics!

Quick looks: VIBE Coding by Example

For the time being, this book is free in Kindle format.

Review: The Game Changers: How Playing Games Changed the World and Can Change You Too

Despite the relative paucity of immediately obvious National Curriculum links, teachers will find several of sections of this book to be highly engaging.

Review: The Dictators: 64 Dictators, 64 Authors, 64 Warnings from History

In some respects one could view this book as a single warning repeated 64 times.

Review: The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick Maker: A History of the High Street

Taking readers from the Middle Ages to (more or less) the present day, Gray charts how the places where we do our shopping and what we buy have changed over the centuries.

Review: Extraordinary Learning For All

As a source of potential ideas and inspiration, the book could be very useful indeed.

Review: Bad Education: Why Our Universities Are Broken and How We Can Fix Them

One has the impression that the main role of the university these days is to maximise profit, while that of the majority of teaching staff is to ensure the ‘correct’ views are passed on to students. All the while, students’ main concern seems to be to seek protection from anything that might make them feel unsafe.

Review: Next Practices - An Executive Guide for Education Decision Makers

Is a 2014 book on managing the computing provision in a school still worth buying?

Still relevant (sadly): How to lie with statistics, by Darrell Huff

Although this book is over 60 years old, it is remarkably apposite for our times -- and especially in the fields of educational research and assessing pupils' understanding and progress.

Quick looks: Bad Education: Why Our Universities Are Broken and How We Can Fix Them

It was a great source of pride to me, getting hundreds of students through their A levels and encouraging them to go to university. But for some time I have asked myself a question: would I recommend this route now?