Слайд 1
Everything
we know about education is
Wrong!
David Didau
ResearchED - 6th September
2014
Слайд 2How many research papers are published each year?
28,000 – 90,000
So, why
hasn’t research changed teaching?
Does research only tell us what was, not what might be?
Слайд 3What is education for?
Transmission of culture?
Making children clever?
Preparation for work?
Preparation for
effective citizenship?
Preparation for life?
Challenging the establishment?
Education is “values saturated”
Слайд 4We’re all wrong!
To err is human
Слайд 6The Illusion of Naïve Realism
Слайд 7The eyes see only what the brain is prepared to comprehend.
Henri
Bergson
Слайд 9The problem with intuition
Our brains are not rational or logical; we
protect ourselves from being wrong
Confirmation bias & the Backfire Effect
The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight
Sunk Cost Fallacy
The Anchoring Effect
David McRaney, You Are Not So Smart
Слайд 10I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I
think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong.
Richard Feynman
Слайд 12Darwin & the myth of progress
The growth of our knowledge is
the result of a process closely resembling what Darwin called ‘natural selection’; that is, the natural selection of hypotheses: our knowledge consists, at every moment, of those hypotheses which have shown their (comparative) fitness by surviving so far in their struggle for existence; a competitive struggle which eliminates those hypotheses which are unfit.
Karl Popper
Слайд 13What we think success looks like
Слайд 15When others disagree
We assume:
They are ignorant
They are stupid
They are evil.
Слайд 16The problem with evidence
It’s not the same as proof:
“You can
prove anything with evidence!”
Слайд 18“You can prove anything with evidence!”
Effectiveness of leech therapy in chronic
lateral epicondylitis: a randomized controlled trial (Pain 2011)
Maggot Therapy Takes Us Back to the Future of Wound Care: New and Improved Maggot Therapy for the 21st Century (Sherman 2009)
Laser drilling holes in components by combined percussion and trepan drilling (Emer 1998)
Слайд 19The problem with evidence
It’s not the same as proof:
“You can
prove anything with evidence!”
Context is king
can we generalise?
What if it conflicts with our values?
Слайд 20Where’s the evidence!
Getting behaviour right should be schools’ top priority
Students should enjoy
learning, but enjoyment should not be our aim
Everyone can be better at anything
Learning happens when you think hard
Any policy predicated on the belief or expectation that teachers can or should work harder will fail.
Слайд 21Correlation is not causation
How can we isolate the variables in classroom
research?
If you look for a link, you’ll probably find it…
Слайд 28Where’s the evidence!
The existence of the experimental method makes us think
we have the means of solving the problems which trouble us; through problems and methods pass one another by.
Wittgenstein
Слайд 29How People Learn (Donovan 2001)
To develop competence in an area of
inquiry, students must:
have a deep foundational knowledge of factual knowledge,
understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and
organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application
No amount of empirical research could ever demonstrate that these things are not connected!
Слайд 30Measurability
Do we look for what’s easy to measure rather than measuring
what’s important?
What is the ‘unit of education’?
Can we really trust effect sizes?
Слайд 31So, what should we do in schools?
What the research says?
What we’ve
always done?
What works for us?
What gets results?
Or, make predictions that are meaningful and measurable?
Слайд 32The power of prediction
Does a physicist have to examine all atoms
to be able to make predictions about the behaviour of all atoms in all contexts?
Do we believe children are broadly similar or different?
Can we make generalisations about how we learn?
Слайд 33Bayes’ Theorem
P(A), the prior probability - the initial degree of belief
in A.
P(A|B), the conditional probability - the degree of belief in A having accounted for B.
The quotient P(B|A)/P(B) represents the support B provides for A.
Слайд 34The burden of proof
How likely does a prediction seem?
Does it look
like a duck?
“Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.”
Is it falsifiable, replicable, controlled, large enough, published?
Always remember the bias blindspot!
Слайд 35Things which seem probable
The spacing effect
The testing effect
Cognitive load theory
Слайд 36“As learning occurs, so does forgetting…”
Слайд 37Hermann Ebbinghaus, 1885
The spacing effect
About 90%?
Слайд 38The Testing Effect
Which study pattern will result in the best test
results?
STUDY STUDY STUDY STUDY – TEST
STUDY STUDY STUDY TEST – TEST
STUDY STUDY TEST TEST – TEST
STUDY TEST TEST TEST – TEST
Слайд 39Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis
— which is tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism — especially rejection of new ideas before they are adequately tested — and you’re not only unpleasantly grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A judicious mix is what we need.
Carl Sagan
Слайд 40To get anywhere, or even live a long time, a man
has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer.
Robert A. Heinlein
Слайд 41
Dubium sapientiae initium
@LearningSpy
ddidau@gmail.com www.learningspy.co.uk