As the year draws to a close, it’s traditional to look back over the year at some of the best blogs we have shared. For each month, we will share one blog from classteaching and one blog of the week.
Many thanks to all the bloggers out there who use their own time to write these blogs and in doing so, share such great insights and ideas.
Have a great Christmas and all the very best for 2020.
January
‘Explanation Made Easy‘ by Fran Haynes – 7 strategies we can all use to make our explanations more effective.
‘This much I know about…how to use research evidence to improve both my teaching and my students’ outcomes’ by John Tomsett – a brilliant exploration of how John has reflected on his own classroom practice and used research evidence to develop it.
February
‘The Importance of Questioning‘ by Ben Crockett – Ben offers 5 strategies to reflect on, in order to make our questioning more effective.
‘Modelling: The 4th Dimension‘ by Paul Moss – Paul shares his thoughts on the ‘I,we,you’ approach to modelling.
March
‘The highs and lows of spaced practice’ by Andy Tharby – 9 suggestions for how spaced practice can be integrated into our day to day teaching and curriculum design.
‘Ofsted and deeper learning: it’s like learning, but deeper‘ by David Didau – no list of edublogs would be complete without an entry from David. Here he makes us think about what we might mean by ‘deep learning’.
April
‘Explaining through Dual Coding‘ by Chris Runeckles – 5 ways in which teachers can make slight adjustments to how they present information to students.
‘Whole class feedback: improve the curriculum, not just the pupil‘ by Daisy Christodoulou – a fabulous exploration of the benefits of whole class feedback.
May
‘Thinking About Teaching’ by Shaun Allison – a look at the research evidence that sits behind the 6 pedagogical principles used at Durrington.
‘The follies of yoof: mistakes I made so you don’t have to’ by Adam Robbins – Adam is quickly establishing himself as one of the best new bloggers out there. Here’s an example of why!
June
‘Improving behaviour – strategies for teachers‘ by Chris Runeckles – 2019 has seen a number of excellent guidance reports coming from the EEF. In this post, Chris explores how teachers can mobilise the evidence from the behaviour guidance report.
‘What we already know determines what, how and how well we learn‘ by Paul Kirschner and Mirjam Neelen – a brilliant blog that pulls together a number of key threads from cognitive science.
July
‘Improving secondary literacy – ideas from the EEF guidance report’ by Ben Crockett – another month, another EEF guidance report! This time Ben explores how his team have used the literacy report.
‘Supporting Working Memory in the English Classroom‘ by Zoe Enser – one of the great things about blogging, is that it allows you into the minds and classrooms of teachers up and down the country. This is a great example of that.
August
On holiday!
September
‘Metacognitive Learners‘ by James Crane – an interesting look at the different types of metacognitive learners within our school.
‘Working with a bottom set year 11; how do I do it?‘ by Adam Boxer – an incredibly useful blog, written by one of the sharpest teachers out there.
October
October was a bumper month for blogging, so here are two from classteaching:
‘An introduction to cognitive load theory for teachers’ by Andy Tharby.
‘Thinking about formative assessment’ by Deb Friis – this was Deb’s first blog on classteaching and it’s a great one!
‘The #1 problem/weakness in teaching and how to address it’ by Tom Sherrington – a barnstorming blog by Tom…as is often the case!
November
‘Five ways that the implementation of evidence-informed practice can go wrong‘ by Andy Tharby – another blog inspired by an EEF guidance report. This time it’s the implementation guidance report.
‘The indirect manifestation of knowledge: (A) curriculum as narrative’ by Christine Counsell – lots of people are talking about curriculum at the moment. Very few do so with the clarity of Christine Counsell though. A must read for leaders.
December
‘Hinge questions in humanities‘ by Chris Runeckles – Chris rounds off his blogging year with a description of how he is using hinge questions as a history teacher.
‘Typicality in G007′ by Michael Chiles – there seems to have been a theme running through this selection, teachers opening the doors of their classrooms and revealing their day to day practice. Here’s another great example of this.
Class Teaching 