ERRR #073. Harry Fletcher-Wood on Responsive Teaching (Formative Assessment)

Harry Fletcher-Wood is a phenomenal educator with a wide-ranging career teaching in japan, rural india, the uk, and working in such fantastic organisations as teach first, the ambition institute, and more recently, Steplab and Teacher Tapp. 

Harry is the Author of a number of books, including his first book, Ticked Off, Habits of Success, which was the subject of ERRR episode 57 (which, I might add, is the second most downloaded ERRR episode, behind only Anita Archer), and Harry has also written Responsive Teaching, which is the topic of today’s discussion. 

We’ve done these two books in the wrong order!

But I went back and read this book recently because Josh Goodrich said it’s the best book on teaching and learning! That’s a real vote of confidence!

Responsive teaching is very closely related to the idea of formative assessment. It’s essentially the same thing, that is, ensuring that initial teaching is clear, and then checking what students have and haven’t learnt, and adjusting your teaching accordingly. This is absolutely core knowledge for all teachers and is arguably the most important idea for teachers to master. 

And I can confirm that the book that we’re discussing today, Responsive teaching, is The best book, that I have ever come across about the idea of formative assessment. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

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Here's the back of the envelope image that Harry and Ollie discussed during the podcast.

Links/resources mentioned in the show

• Book: Responsive Teaching – Harry Fletcher-Wood
• Harry's calls to action are to check out:
  • Improving Chapter for a draft book chapter
  • Responsive Teaching resource pack
  • School Surveys
• Harry's Three book recommendations
  • Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed – James Scott
  • That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea – Marc Randolph
  • Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon – Colin Bryar and Bill Carr
  • The Machine That Changed the World  -James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos.
• Ollie's Books, Cognitive Load Theory in Action and Tools for Teachers
• To get a summary of this episode, sign up at www.patreon.com/errr 

This episode of the ERRR Podcast is brought to you by John Catt Educational. Use this link along with the code provided within the podcast to get 30% off all books from John Catt Educational! https://www.johncattbookshop.com/books/errr

This episode of the ERRR podcast is brought to you by Catalyst. Catalyst transforms students' lives through learning by developing excellent teachers and Leaders through evidence-based professional learning programs. Find out more at https://catalyst.cg.catholic.edu.au/

Listen to all past episodes of the ERRR podcast here.