A great set of Teacher Ollie’s Takeaways this week! I found Emina’s presentation (Takeaway 1) particularly useful in getting my head around the RTI idea, but there’s also a lot of interesting food for thought about how much productive work we can do each day (T2), Zoom fatigue (T4), and much more. Enjoy!

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Supporting high quality literacy instruction with a Response to Intervention framework, via @EminaMcLean

Response to Intervention (RTI) is something that I’ve heard lots of people talk about, and I had a vague idea about the Tier 1, 2, and 3 approach, with increasing support, but I’m ashamed I’d never really looked into it in detail.

That was why I was so happy to come across this excellent presentation by Emina McLean on the topic. Watch Emina’s presentation, and download her slides, here.

You can download my summary here.

You can only do 3-4 hours per day of focussed mental work, via @oliverburkeman (ht @HFletcherWood)

This article came at a great time for me. I’m currently on holidays, and in lockdown, and that means I’ve been trying to work all day. So this was a welcome message for me to take more of a break!

The real impact of Instagram on young women, via @JonHaidt (ht @sccenglish)

The following is lifted directly from Julian Girdham’s excellent fortnightly newsletter:

Every now and then I'm allowed one depressing thing in this Fortnightly, I'd say, and this is important (especially depressing if you're a teacher or parent). Jonathan Haidt (today described in the Irish Times as ‘impeccably fair') here comments on the horrendous impact of Instagram on girls especially, following the Wall Street Journal's expose of Facebook documents: ‘On social media and mental health: nearly ALL of the research assumes a dose-response model—SM harms only the user. But SM and esp. Instagram have emergent systemic effects, putting all teen girls into a prestige economy based on their appearance.'

Read the Jonathan Haidt thread here.

And see some other related links under the heading, ‘Every now and then’ in Julian’s newsletter.

Zoom fatigue is greater with cameras on, via @kshockles (ht @DTWillingham)

This is a really interesting study with implications for online teaching and learning. My students seem to continually turn their cameras off in class. I’ve always wondered why. This study hints at the fact that it could actually be a self-preservation mechanism! Will have to think about this one more…

Can student surveys provide useful feedback for teacher learning? Via @EvidenceInEdu

A few years ago I made a student feedback form based upon Rob Coe’s research into what makes great teaching. Since then, Rob’s work has grown into the Great Teaching Toolkit, and it seems that Evidence Based Education is now also experimenting with a student feedback form based upon the model. Very exciting! Check out this post and go in the running to gain free access to the Great Teaching Toolkit too.

Two-thirds of college students now say it’s okay to shout down a speaker, worrying. Via @rickhess99 (ht @dylanwiliam)

In my podcast with Harry Fletcher-Wood, this was Harry’s final call to action:

Find the smartest people you disagree with and read their work, right…your side will be busy dunking on the stupidest points made by your opponents. The interesting thing is to find the really smart people who you disagree with, and try to learn from them. And there will almost certainly be something in it.

I couldn’t agree more. It is incredibly important for us to actively seek out alternate views for us to move education forward, and this is true in any discipline. In light of this, the findings from this article are a real worry!

Video: What is the difference between Assessment for Learning and Formative Assessment? Via @dylanwiliam

Here are my takeaways from the video:

  • Formative assessment is a sub-component of assessment for learning
  • Assessment for learning is about the impact of the assessment itself on learning (e.g., assessment can prompt retrieval, which has beneficial memory impacts. Weighing the pig does actually fatten it!)
  • Formative assessment is about the way that the assessment forms future instruction and learning activities

Dylan also speaks in this video about his FA PD pack, which I’ve used and loved! More about that in our podcast discussion together here.

Concise paper on a range of strategies to enhance* learning experiences in the classroom, via @pdkintl (ht @PepsMccrea)

The ‘Brilliant’ online learning resource (maths, science, logic, engineering, +) is now free for educators, via @brilliantorg (ht @rhwave2004)

Great idea: Bookmarks as mini references/knowledge organisers! (printable), via @__codexterous

Flow chart for child independence: get them to do the dishes, laundry, etc, vis @DTWillingham

Just for fun: the record player model of feedback, via @LongFormMath

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