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What is flipped learning?

Flipped learning (sometimes referred to as flipped classrooms) is a pedagogical approach that inverts the traditional method of the teacher leading learning, instead handing responsibility over to the student.

This is a learner-centred approach that involves students being active in, and accountable for, their development. In the flipped-learning scenario, pupils are given materials and tasks prior to a lesson and instructed to work through these independently.

The technique proposes completing what is generally considered more traditional class work at home and extended homework tasks in school.

Where did it come from?

Although practices involving peer instruction and students assuming the role of teacher have been around for some time, the term "flipped learning" came into use around 2012 with the work of two science teachers, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams.

Both were interested in the best way to use face-to-face lesson time with their students and investigated different ways of using independent study (homework) and technology to free up lesson time for deeper and more developed thinking.

How is it used in schools?

There are numerous ways to flip a classroom but some of the following strategies can help:

Set pre-lesson content and material that is engaging. Assuming that all pupils will read challenging, lengthy texts or complete detailed research from vague instructions may be unrealistic. Tasks should raise questions, spark interest and have clear, attainable goals that students can reach independently.

Make use of technology. Many flipped-learning teachers use videos and online resources to create a form of tutorial outside of designated lesson time. This leaves them free to engage with students individually and provide support and extension more effectively when back in the classroom as they are not leading from the front.

Set up expectations before flipping the learning so that all students know what they will be required to do and produce. Effective flipped learning happens with pupils who are comfortable with the process of studying independently and have clear structures to follow. Teachers should model desired approaches to research and note-taking and teach pupils how to go about tasks before sending them off to complete them individually.

Make students accountable and ensure that the expected work has been completed by building in comprehension tests or informal assessments. Simple tests of learning can be set via online programmes for students to complete prior to the lesson, or starter activities that make use of knowledge from independent study might be used to gauge the level of work completed (or, more importantly, the range of understanding across the classroom).

Further reading

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As part of our Pedagogy Focus series, we look at the flipped-learning teaching method and how it is used in lessons

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Oracy In The Classroom: A Teacher's Guide

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Oracy In The Classroom: A Teacher's Guide

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(Structural Learning)

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In this article, we explore ways of developing a strong culture of language use in the classroom. The importance of oracy in language development cannot be emphasised enough. Discussion is central to all aspects of the curriculum including areas such as grammar development. If the conditions are set up correctly with the right sort of tools, children can have purposeful discussions about the possibilities, effects and meaning of the curriculum.

Oracy can be described as learning to talk and learning t hrough talk. This article focuses on the latter, we are particularly interested in how using active discussions can form the foundation for pupils understanding of curriculum content.

Enabling children to understand the different types of discussion roles available to them broadens their repertoire of classroom talk. As well as being a tool of communication, effective oracy skills enable pupils to participate in deep learning activities where they can exchange ideas, explore new areas and challenge assumptions.

This area of pedagogy has particular significance for disadvantaged or low-attaining pupils. Within this article and the rest of the website you will find examples of how classroom talk can be used for knowledge acquisition and the development spoken language skills. Oracy is the art of speaking eloquently and persuasively. When someone speaks in a persuasive manner, they try to convince others of their point of view. While this type of communication is common in everyday life, it's also a fundamental part of the curriculum.

Speaking is one of the most basic skills that humans possess. We learn to talk early in life, and our ability to communicate continues to develop throughout adulthood. Regardless of whether someone speaks fluently or struggles to express themselves, learning to speak is the foundational building block of literacy. Learning to read and write is much easier when you understand the basics of spoken communication.

For example, knowing how to pronounce certain letters and sounds allows children to recognize letter patterns and build vocabulary. When kids grow into adults, they continue to rely on their knowledge of pronunciation to decode written text. It's no surprise then that mastering the art of speech is a critical part of developing literacy. People who lack proficiency in speaking tend to fall behind academically, especially when it comes to reading comprehension. Organisations such as Voice 21 I've been promoting effective oracy skills across schools in the UK, it is clear that providing children with the tool of communication sets them up for a lifetime of success.

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In its simplest form, oracy is to be able to express oneself well. It relates to having a broad range of vocabulary to say what one needs to say and the proficiency to structure thoughts so that the person makes sense to others.

More recently, oracy has become even more important. This is because, education in schools is predominantly provided in English (in the UK), but many children lack spoken communication skills because they speak another language at home. Once schools begun reopening after the initial pandemic lockdown, many educators reported a dip in oracy skills particularly in children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

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How do you measure Oracy Skills?

Many studies have discussed the potential role of teachers and schools in building Oracy skills in students. In recent times, online learning has made serious negative impacts on students such as social isolation, and poor communication skills. After opening, the majority of schools can reduce the negative impact of online education through different competitions, programmes and resources based upon 4 key oracy skillsets: evidence and reasoning; response and listening; delivery and expression; and prioritisation and organisation. Schools must teach and develop students' proficiency in these skillsets just like literacy and numeracy.

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Improving Oracy Skills in the classroom

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Schools can take the following steps to build strong foundations of oracy skills for the students in a classroom:

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1. Allocating Extra Classroom Time for Oracy Techniques: More than anything else, classroom time is needed for building correct language speaking skills in the students. Although each class has a fixed timetable to follow, the teachers must try to engage students in oracy explicit activities within the classroom time. Also, teachers must not be hesitant to make oracy an objective or focus for a lesson. Learning through Oracy must be practised in every classroom.

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2. Promoting Oracy in the Classroom: The most effective teachers take the responsibility for the language development of children very seriously. They make sure to commemorate oracy in their classroom environment. Following are some of the ways to promote oracy in the classroom.

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a. Children's verbal comments must be gathered and displayed in the classroom.
b. Teachers must frequently read aloud and tell stories to the students.
c. Children must be invited to perform the poetry and plays.
d. Displaying unusual objects in the classroom and encouraging children to talk about them.
e. Making a ' talking corner' in the classroom and inviting guests to talk about an interesting topic with the class.
All the above activities will build students' confidence and enhance their oracy skills.

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5. Practice to Elaborate: An element of communication that's extremely powerful is ' elaboration.' Elaboration means to explain one's idea to someone else and add details to it. This method acts as a verbal rehearsal before writing ideas on paper. For young learners, oral practice separates the process of the creation of ideas from the more complex task of writing them. Older children can practice elaborating which help them in trying out different ways to write sentences and to listen to their writing aloud.

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7. Make Oracy a fun-filled Activity: It is necessary to enjoy oracy explicit activities in the class with children such as games, role play, performances and debates. Teachers can design a thorough curriculum for oracy including many oracy related activities to improve oracy in children.

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What are the benefits of Oracy Skills for the pupils?

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High-quality language development activities in primary classrooms can greatly improve educational attainment, from improving science and SAT results in maths to enhancing reasoning, reading and writing skills.
There is an extensive body of evidence that suggests that students with better communication skills are 4 times more likely to achieve five A* at GCSE.

When teachers engage students in cognitively challenging classroom talk students do not only improve their language skills but also gain additional progress in subjects like science and mathematics. High-quality oracy education improves different techniques of writing in students; mainly including extended writing and collective writing skills. Oracy also has a positive impact on children's spelling and reading comprehension. The spoken language supports children's cognitive development, helping them to understand the world around them.

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According to academic evidence, pupils' average contribution in each class remains limited to just four words per lesson. Therefore, it is suggested that just as literacy and numeracy, oracy framework and key oracy skillset must be taught and, essentially practised for developing communication proficiency in students.

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Building learning conversations

As a teacher you can't give them what you know. Learners have to take it and make it their own, and it's the discussion that really helps to do that. You can really support this by giving children tasks that require them to create several versions of something and then discuss which is best.

Using the 'Writer's block', we have seen children make changes and then reason their ideas to someone else. So you might say, 'write several opening sentences and discuss which one is the best'. The children can then use the Structural Learning blocks to move and change the parts of the sentence without any fear of 'getting it wrong'. As learners make changes, they always justify their thinking to their peers, a gateway to critical thinking.

There are many different types of communication skills, including speaking, listening, asking questions, giving feedback, and presenting ideas. Each type of skill requires a specific set of techniques to master. Speaking is the most fundamental form of communication to learn.

When facilitating classroom talking exercises, focus on your learners practicing their voice inflections and pronunciation. Once they feel comfortable with their speaking abilities, try practicing public speaking. Listening is another key component of effective communication.

While you might be able to read someone's body language, you still need to pay attention to their tone and volume level. Try to practice active listening by actively participating in conversations.

Questions are another useful technique for communicating effectively. Asking open-ended questions allows others to share their opinions and feelings. Avoid leading questions, however, which can lead to answers that aren't entirely honest. Instead, ask questions that allow others to answer honestly.

Giving feedback is yet another way to communicate effectively. Giving constructive criticism in the classroom is helpful for improving relationships and encouraging academic growth. As with any performance, avoid faulting students directly; instead, offer suggestions for improvement.

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Classroom talk for generating ideas

Another important role for talk in writing is the kind of talk that helps children to generate the ideas.

You can't write if you haven't got anything to say and the talking to generate ideas helps you to work through your ideas in a logical way. One element of talk that's particularly powerful is elaboration. This is the idea of explaining your ideas back to someone else and adding details along the way. This approach acts as an oral rehearsal before pen is committed to paper. For very young children, oral rehearsal separates the formulating of a sentence from the very difficult demand of writing it.

With older children it helps them try out different possibilities for sentences and to hear their writing aloud. And finally, talk is important for reflection and evaluation. We all know how hard it is to get children revising their work. Support children to reflect and evaluate on their writing - not just after they've written but also as they're developing their ideas and vocabulary. The block structures can easily be manipulated into different combinations, it's a lot less daunting than putting a line through it. Focus their revision with key evaluative questions tied to the learning focus.

Remember, talk is the foundation of all learning.

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Key Principles of Promoting Classroom Dialogue

1. Differences in Home Backgrounds: There might be significant disparities in the experiences of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, including those who receive pupil premium funding, compared to their peers. These disparities often stem from differences in home environments, particularly in terms of the amount and quality of dialogue students are exposed to.

Implication: It is crucial for educators to be aware of these disparities and strive to create an inclusive classroom environment where all students feel valued and capable. Additional support and resources should be provided to students who may come from less dialogue-rich environments or who may feel overwhelmed or underprepared. This could include additional opportunities for these students to engage in meaningful dialogue in the classroom, as well as targeted support to help them develop their language and communication skills.

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2. The Role of Language in Learning: Language plays a crucial role in the teaching and learning processes. It shapes ways of thinking and expressing ideas.

Implication: Educators should incorporate language-focused activities into their lesson plans. This could include vocabulary building exercises, reading comprehension activities, and opportunities for students to practice expressing their ideas verbally.

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3. Ground Rules in Discussions: The concept of "ground rules" in discussions is crucial. These are the implicit norms that guide how people interact in a conversation. Students often use unproductive ground rules in group discussions, such as only speaking when they know a lot about a subject or only agreeing with their friends.

Implication: Educators should explicitly teach and reinforce productive ground rules for discussions. This could include norms like everyone participating, listening attentively to others, providing reasons for their views, and respectfully challenging others' ideas.

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4. The Role of Lectures in Demonstrating Academic Discourse: Lectures offer an opportunity to witness how academic argument works in real time. The value of lectures is not in covering the ground but in demonstrating the discourse.

Implication: Educators should model academic discourse in their teaching. This could involve demonstrating how to construct an argument, how to use evidence to support claims, and how to engage in respectful academic debate.

Practical Classroom Activities:

1. Role-Playing Activities: To help students understand the experiences of their peers from different backgrounds, teachers could organize role-playing activities. This could help students develop empathy and understanding for their peers.

2. Language-Focused Activities: Teachers could incorporate activities that focus on vocabulary building, reading comprehension, and verbal expression. This could include word games, reading circles, and debate clubs.

3. Group Discussion Norms: Teachers could establish and reinforce productive ground rules for group discussions. This could involve creating a poster of discussion norms and referring to it during group activities.

4. Modeling Academic Discourse: Teachers could model academic discourse in their teaching. This could involve demonstrating how to construct an argument, how to use evidence to support claims, and how to engage in respectful academic debate.

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Oracy tips for your classroom

Communication is one of the most important aspects of learning. Children learn best when they are actively involved in the learning process. They learn best when they are engaged in meaningful tasks. Children who are able to express themselves clearly and effectively are much more successful learners. This means that teachers need to pay attention to the communication skills of students.
1. Be Aware of What Students Say
It's important for teachers to listen carefully to what students say. Teachers should ask questions to find out what students think and understand. Teachers should also encourage students to explain things to each other. For example, if a student has an idea for a project, he/she may want to discuss it with another child.

This helps students develop their understanding of others' opinions and encourages them to talk about their ideas.
2. Encourage Students to Talk About Their Ideas
Encouraging students to talk about their ideas is a great way to improve their ability to communicate. If students don't have any ideas, they won't be able to talk about them. However, encouraging students to talk about their thoughts and feelings is a great way to promote self-expression.

When students feel comfortable talking about their ideas, they are more likely to participate in class discussions and projects.
3. Help Students Develop Their Writing Skills
Writing is a skill that develops over time. Educators can encourage students to write down notes and then elaborate on their ideas which helps them join their points together. This type of practice helps children create logical arguments that fit together.
4. Provide Opportunities for Students to Practice Speaking
Speaking is another area where students often lack confidence. To help students overcome this problem, teachers should provide speaking opportunities. These opportunities could include giving presentations, participating in debates, or presenting information orally.

Providing these opportunities gives students the chance to practice speaking in front of groups of people.
5. Give Students Time to Think Before Responding
Sometimes, students respond without thinking. This can make them appear rude and abrupt. Giving students time to think before responding is a great way to avoid such problems. Teachers should allow students to pause after asking a question before answering. This allows students to reflect on their answer before replying.

By doing this, students are more likely to come up with thoughtful responses. Asking students to pause before responding is a simple way to teach students to think before they speak.

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Oracy in the classroom: a teacher's guide

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Oracy in the classroom: A teacher's guide to the development of pupils speaking skills for knowledge acquisition.

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Teaching oracy: 10 strategies for your classroom

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Teaching oracy: 10 strategies for your classroom

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Teaching oracy: 10 strategies for your classroom communication skills speaking vocabulary school students teaching teachers learning education

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Drawing on the work of two schools, Dr Leila Khouja Walker offers 10 helpful ideas and approaches to support oracy education in the classroom and across the school

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Alex Quigley 2018

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As teachers grapple with the challenge of a new, bigger and more challenging school curriculum, at every key stage and phase, success can feel beyond our reach. But what if there were 50,000 small solutions to help us bridge that gap? In Closing the Vocabulary Gap, the author explores the increase…

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Alex Quigley (Routledge Publishing, 2022)

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""Our lives can be filled and fulfilled by writing," says Alex Quigley. In this important new book: "That story begins with our birth certificate and ends with our epitaph ...". I can't think of a text which better articulates the importance of writing, and then goes on to articulate how to put ambition into practice. It is a book of wise principles and practical implementation. In it, Quigley establishes himself even further as my go-to source of insights into the all-important subject of whole-school literacy."

Geoff Barton, General Secretary, Association of School & College Leaders, and former English Teacher

"This book provides an easy-to-read and entertaining synthesis of research on writing, beginning with a compelling overview of how writing developed. It has written text at its heart and offers readers a succinct insight into textual research and its practical application to the writing classroom. The book is a rich source of directions for further reading and examples of strategies for teaching writing which will support teachers to reflect on what happens in their writing classrooms and to make enabling changes."

Professor Debra Myhill, Director of the Centre for Research in Writing, University of Exeter, UK

"Alex Quigley has written another brilliant book for classroom teachers and school leaders. This book gets right to the heart of closing the writing gap; it is thought provoking for the reflective teacher whilst also offering helpful guidance and advice for every teacher. Alex is an exceptional writer himself, communicating his expertise and experiences with clarity and precision."

Kate Jones, History teacher, education consultant, author, and blogger @KateJones_Teach

"As this important and necessary book makes clear, many teachers struggle with the teaching of writing. Teachers recognise the huge significance of writing, but they find it difficult to translate their own writing expertise for the benefit of their students. In Closing the Writing Gap Alex Quigley provides evidence-informed, highly practical strategies to bridge this pedagogical chasm. Both erudite and accessible, it covers the vital ingredients of effective writing teaching - from the building blocks of the grammar to art of rhetoric and the pragmatics of the drafting and editing process. Closing the Writing Gap is an essential addition to the bookshelves of all teachers."

Mark Roberts, English Teacher, and Author of 'The Boy Question'

" Closing the Writing Gap is the perfect antidote to the problems surrounding writing in the classroom today. Alex Quigley's razor-sharp focus pinpoints the clear ways teachers can address and improve writing in the classroom. The book's real strength, for me, is its practical approach to writing, offering strategies and methods that all teachers could, and should, use in the classroom. Alex walks you through the various aspects of writing and provides a brilliant insight how practitioners can support and improve writing in their classroom today. The book to read if you want to improve disciplinary literacy in a school."

Chris Curtis, Head of English and author of 'How to Teach English'

" Closing the Writing Gap is a clarion call to take the three Rs seriously... I hope the revolution it has started in my classroom is repeated everywhere."

Robbie Burns, Schools Week

"In Closing the Writing Gap, Alex Quigley weaves the history of writing and writing instruction with evidence-based practices and concrete examples that address key components of school-based writing... As you read this book, you feel as if Quigley is speaking directly to you, posing important questions, providing answers, and giving you explicit examples to support your understanding of each writing component."

Lori Czop Assaf, Teachers College Record

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This book explains seven critical steps to improve children's writing. Though seemingly 'natural', writing proves devilishly difficult for far too many school pupils and closing this gap can have a lasting impact on their academic and life success.

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'A guide to Language Education in Pandemic situations - and beyond'

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'A guide to Language Education in Pandemic situations - and beyond'

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The challenges of the pandemic, of coping with remote learning and teaching, and with social distancing have led schools and teachers to develop new skills and resources. A positive outcome of the experience is that language educators are rethinking their practice and applying some of the lessons learned to “normal” practice.

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“When I wake up I dream of electricity”: The lives, aspirations and ‘needs’ of Adult ESOL learners

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“When I wake up I dream of electricity”: The lives, aspirations and ‘needs’ of Adult ESOL learners

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Adult ESOL learners bring to their classrooms diverse experiences and dynamic multiple identities. This is a series of interviews carried out with learners in their dominant language and discuss how their experiences outside the classroom and their positioning as migrants and members of linguistic and ethnic minorities structure their access to education, work and the target language and condition their aspirations for the future.

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"When I wake up I dream of electricity": The lives, aspirations and 'needs' of Adult ESOL learners

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What are the aspirations of Adult ESOL learners and what social and institutional factors constrain them? What are the consequent implications for Adult ESOL practitioners? This paper draws on a corpus of 76 interviews with adult migrants learning English in the UK, analyzing four of them in detail using a case study methodology.

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OTLA 7 Project summary Booklet.
Look here to read about the great projects from last year's action research projects.
Also, the great Guide to Action Research recently published.

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Outstanding Teaching Learning and Assessment (OTLA) - The Education and Training Foundation

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empowering practitioners to focus on effective practice that is most helpful for their own challenges.

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Alex Quigley (Routledge Publishing, 2018)

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As teachers grapple with the challenge of a new, bigger and more challenging school curriculum, at every key stage and phase, success can feel beyond our reach. But what if there were 50,000 small solutions to help us bridge that gap? In Closing the Vocabulary Gap, the author explores the increase…

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The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads - Willingham, D. (2017)

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The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads - Willingham, D. (2017)

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As recommended by Dr Vicky Butterby.

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The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads

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Buy The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads 1 by Willingham, Daniel T. (ISBN: 9781119301370) from Amazon’s Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

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Capital Letters - Readability Guidelines

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Capital Letters - Readability Guidelines

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Part of: Grammar points

Last updated: 20 December, 2019

Following this helps people with:

time pressures: words in all caps are hard to scan and comprehend

stress: if you're anxious you need content that's easy to read

multi-tasking: capped words are difficult to read

cognitive impairments: easy to read text takes less cognitive load

Guidelines

Capitalised words are not easy to read for many reasons. We're more used to reading words in lowercase letters, so our brains find lowercase words easier to scan and absorb.
1. Do not capitalise whole words or phrases. 2. Use sentence case in headlines and subheads. 3. Use sentence case for buttons. 4. Proper nouns are an exception. 5. Do not capitalise terms, unless they are proper nouns. Usability evidence
1. Do not capitalise whole words or phrases.

They are harder to read.

2. Use sentence case in headlines and subheads.

It's easier to scan.

3. Use sentence case for buttons.

It's easier to scan.

4. Proper nouns are an exception.

It's fine to capitalise the following:

names of people, places and things, including buildings and brands

specified committee, faculty, department, institute or school: Public Administration Select Committee

names of groups, directorates and organisations: Affordable Housing Action Group

titles of specific acts or bills: Human Rights Act (but 'the act' or 'the bill' at second mention)

names of specific schemes known to people: Right to Buy

names of wars: World War 1 and World War 2

job titles following the person's name

titles like Mr, Ms, Dr, the Duchess of Cambridge (the duchess at second mention)

titles of books: 'Content Design'

header cells in tables: Yearly budget

5. Do not capitalise terms, unless they are proper nouns.

Generally, terms are not proper nouns, so should not be capitalised. Technical terms are not proper nouns. But if a word or term is branded as a distinct thing, treat it as a proper noun.

Examples:

As a marathon runner, you'll get a medal and a massage.

Not

As a Marathon Runner, you'll get a medal and a massage.

But

I'm running in the Virgin Money London Marathon.

Not

I'm running in the Virgin money London marathon.

And

We're running a sustainability project.

Not

We're running a Sustainability Project.

But

Usability evidence

'The science of word recognition', Mike Jacobs, 2003

A to Z style guide UK government website

'How Capital Letters Became Internet Code for Yelling', Alice Robb, The New Republic, 2014

'100 Things You Should Know About People: #19 - It's a Myth That All Capital Letters Are Inherently Harder to Read', S. Weinschenk, 2009

'Say hello Writing readable content (and why All Caps is so hard to read)', Marty Friedel, 2015

'The science of word recognition', Mike Jacobs, 2017

'The Effect of Type Size and Case Alternation on Word Identification', F. Smith, D. Lott and B. Cronnell, The American Journal of Psychology, 1969. Part-locked: free to access online with MyJSTOR account.

'Case alternation impairs word identification' Coltheart, M. and Freeman, R. 2013

Relevant wiki content

In this section:

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Part of: Grammar points Last updated: 20 December, 2019 Following this helps people with: time pressures: words in all caps are hard to scan and comprehend stress: if you're anxious you need content that's easy to read multi-tasking: capped words are difficult to read cognitive impairments: easy to read text takes less cognitive load Capitalised words are not easy to read for many reasons.

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A useful image that can help you work with or explain typeface features

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A new study proves that text written in capital letters is harder to read. So why use it?

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A new study proves that text written in capital letters is harder to read. So why use it?

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Contractual agreements often make generous use of capital letters ("ALL-CAPS") to draw special attention to the important parts of the text. The idea, ostensibly, is that by making those capitalized terms stand out, consumers will pay more attention to them.

But as the authors of a new paper on all-caps explain, the notion that this archaic technique improves consumer consent has never been validated. Even today, there is still no empirical evidence to support it.

So researchers Yonathan Arbel and Andrew Toler, of the University of Alabama School of Law, decided to put all-caps to the test. In several experiments, they found no benefits to capitalizing blocks of text in a contract. If anything, readers, especially older readers, found that text written in all capital letters is harder to understand.

Their new paper appeared in November in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. Its authors say it is the first "to empirically examine the effectiveness of all‐caps."

A bad idea with a long history

This lack of prior research into the contractual use of all capital letters is odd. The practice is quite old, and the stakes are high. The belief in the benefits of capitalization dates back to at least the 19th century. And even today, many courts, legislators, and government agencies still insist that the key terms of a contract be displayed in all-caps, ostensibly to protect consumers.

Courts, for example, often rule that text written in capital letters makes it sufficiently conspicuous. Likewise, if key parts of a contract are not written in all-caps, courts will often deny enforcement.

This practice has serious and wide-ranging effects. It influences contractual liability in areas such as arbitration agreements and consumer warranties.

So if all‐caps formatting does not in fact improve "the meaningfulness of assent," as the authors write, "then courts have been erroneously enforcing onerous terms," and have been "depriving consumers of recourse based on faulty assumptions."

Capital letters as popular as ever

For this study, the authors collected standard contracts from 500 companies in the United States, such as Google, Facebook, Uber, and Amazon. They found that 77% of these contracts have at least one clause in all capital letters, suggesting the practice is still very much alive.

They also tested whether all-caps formatting actually helps people to comprehend or recall such contractual clauses. Using Amazon's Mechanical Turk, they recruited a sample of 570 participants in the United States. About 45% of them were female, and their average age was 38.

The researchers instructed the participants to read through a two‐page contract, containing 15 paragraphs. They modelled this document on Spotify's end-user agreement. One version, read by half of the participants, contained one paragraph written in all-caps. The other half of the subjects read the same contract, only with this paragraph written using normal capitalization. The researchers then tested how accurately the participants answered questions about a term that appeared in that paragraph.

No helpful effect at all

They found that all‐caps had no effect on improving the readers' comprehension or recall. Instead, they found some evidence that all‐caps actually decreases comprehension for older readers. Participants older than 55 were 29% more likely to misunderstand their obligations when they read the contract with the capitalized paragraph. In fact, "the older group answered incorrectly at almost double the rate of same‐age peers in the control group," who read the same paragraph with normal formatting.

A smaller experiment also found that all-caps offered no benefits when the text had to be read very quickly. Another test showed that an all-caps version of a text was 22% more difficult to read and understand. And a final experiment demonstrated that all‐caps paragraphs take 13% longer to read, without leading to any improvement in recall.

Why do capital letters fail?

Past research has shown that all‐caps formatting obscures the differences between letters, because capital letters lack ascenders and descenders. That sameness makes the text harder to read.

Cultural changes also play a role. Long ago, capital letters signified grandeur and seriousness. But in today's Internet culture, the authors point out, "there is a growing convention that all‐caps is similar in effect to yelling." This negative emotional association might encourage readers, consciously or unconsciously, to ignore text written in all-caps.

Add to that the fact Americans' vocabulary levels are dropping, and it soon becomes clear that a lot of contractual texts aren't being properly read.

Dubious incentives to hide contractual liability

Though typical sales texts will capitalize some words (BUY NOW!), they rarely capitalize entire paragraphs in the way contracts do. In other words, when companies want to make important features conspicuous, they use a range of design tools such as varying colors, typefaces, and backgrounds. These texts "have no resemblance to the texts they use to obligate and bind consumers," the authors write.

So why do companies continue to use all-caps in texts that should ideally make contractual liability crystal clear? Do they "genuinely believe," the authors ask, "that using all‐caps will promote consumer understanding?" A more sinister interpretation is that companies "take advantage of judicial naiveté to hide some of the most onerous and costly terms in plain sight by using all‐caps." In this scenario, the authors write, "not only do courts not protect consumers' interests by favoring all‐caps, they invite abuse."

A better and bolder alternative to capital letters

So if archaic and shouty all-caps formatting doesn't work, what does?

The researchers compared four other ways of highlighting text, and found that boldface had the most promising results.

In two experiments, bold text outperformed "boxing" text in a so-called Schumer Box (New York Senator Chuck Schumer sponsored legislation to make credit card statements easier to understand).

It aso outperformed "single caps" (i.e. one sentence written in all-caps within a paragraph otherwise capitalized normally), or normal text. These results support prior research showing that readers prefer boldface over other types of emphasis. And they also demonstrate that formatting interventions can indeed improve consumers' ability to understand the important terms of the contractual agreements they enter into.

The authors of this paper pull no punches in calling for change. "We believe that there is a compelling reason to abolish judicial reliance on all‐caps," they write. "Courts should stop giving any weight to the use of all‐caps in contracts," and "should desist the century‐old policy of encouraging firms to use them in their contracts."

The latest in psychology news:

Cautiously optimistic: new study finds that unrealistic optimism actually decreases happiness.

This new study finds not knowing how to flirt is the main reason behind "involuntary singlehood."

Recent research has found that calling versus texting (or e-mailing) isn't nearly as awkward as people expect.

Why do couples look alike more and more as time passes? A new study finds that in fact there's no evidence for this popular notion.

New research on "indirect aggression" - also known as meanness - finds that mean children often grow into mean adults.

Study: "ALL-CAPS"
Authors: Yonathan Arbel and Andrew Toler
Published in: Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
Publication date: November 2, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12272
Photo: by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels

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A New Study Proves That Text Written In Capital Letters Is Harder To Read. So Why Use It?

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Contractual agreements often make generous use of capital letters ("ALL-CAPS") to draw special attention to the important parts of the text. The idea, ostensibly, is that by making those capitalized terms stand out, consumers will pay more attention to them.

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Does Comic Sans really help dyslexic learners?

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Does Comic Sans really help dyslexic learners?

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Despite it being widely considered as a gift to dyslexic students in the classroom, people outside of schools don't like Comic Sans much. If you want to know how much they dislike it, just look at tumblr.

When you type in Comic Sans you get pages like "Fuck no Comic Sans", which has racked up more than 11,000 likes. And you get "Comic Sans ruins everything". And you get "Comic Sans must die".

It's an angry place.

And when it comes to Comic Sans, the anger is not just directed at the font*, but at those who use it, those who keep it alive, those who "should know better", those like you.

For it is teachers, says the anti-Comic Sans narrative, who are muck-spraying Comic Sans on society, who are leading poor font-novices into a world of sin, and who are dismantling the beauty of the world one worksheet at a time (don't even get the haters started on display boards...).

This claim of teacher responsibility appears to be a valid one. You can't escape Comic Sans in schools: a Tes survey of more than 7,000 teachers found that 44 per cent were using it in their classrooms (both primary and secondary).

Their defence? Mainly, as above, they believe it is better than any other font for dyslexic students. But they also think it is better for reading, better for dyslexic students and better for modelling handwriting.

And some just think it looks nice.

The last is a matter of taste, but the first three responses, they sound like good reasons for a teacher to pick a font. But are those benefits actually real?

To find out, let's take a typographic journey. Let's find the truth about Comic Sans. I can promise you clarity but also, I can promise more: we may well also discover some of the secrets of the mechanics of reading that will benefit us all.

Dyslexia and Comic Sans

You have to feel sorry for Vincent Connare. In 1994, he was asked to design a font for a product called Microsoft Bob, a cartoon dog that would guide you around the Windows operating system via speech bubbles.

Connare thought a comic-book-style font would suit a comic-book-style dog, and designed Comic Sans. Microsoft seemingly disagreed (or did not have time to incorporate it into the product - depending on which narrative you read) and launched Bob without Comic Sans. But it did list Comic Sans as a font choice in Windows 95.

And that has brought Connare a lot of hassle.

For though Comic Sans is widely cited as one of the most used fonts on the planet, it is also one of the most vilified. Designers, in particular, detest it. Connare, a designer, has been lambasted by his own kin. And by plenty of others, too.

But as you can see from the video from Wired magazine below, he's far from disowning it.

Quite why the font attracts such ire is difficult to understand, but that it does is unquestionable.

Except in schools: nowhere is Comic Sans more eagerly embraced and defended than in education. And over the years the justifications for its use have grown more serious. Where once it may have simply looked 'fun' (and why not pick a fun font?), now it is credited as having huge benefits for dyslexic readers, for handwriting, and for reading in general.

Was there any proof of these benefits? Right, I thought, I'll find out.

I scotched the serif

And almost immediately I hit a problem.

A clear research picture is tricky because researchers look at the relationship between fonts and reading from two different starting points, says Dr Eva Marinus, senior research fellow in the department for cognitive science at Macquarie University, Australia.

"When considering the literature on fonts, I think it is important to bear in mind the background of who conducted the study," she explains.

"On the one hand, there are typography researchers who have produced quite a body of research focusing on subjective font preferences and aesthetics of text presentation.

"On the other hand, there are cognitive psychology/education researchers who tend to focus on the underlying processes that might explain why certain fonts are easier to read/better for beginning readers and children with reading difficulties."

The problem, she says, is that the two groups of researchers rarely work together.

"I think it would be good if researchers from both fields would combine their forces to get some more clarity about the impact of different aspects of font," says Marinus.

So what do the two fields say?

Do you really font to hurt me?

Let's take the typographic set (geddit?) first.

In this field, everyone points you towardsProfessor Sue Walker, of the typography and graphic communication department at the University of Reading.

Walker has been researching typography in school and childhood reading materials for many years. Her work with KS1 emerging readers suggests children can read sans-serif and serif fonts equally well. And that, by and large, font choice - if we refer to font as the shape and style of the letters - had a minimal impact statistically on how well most children in her study read.

She also says that the argument for using Comic Sans based on it having the rounded 'a' or 'g' is not backed by evidence.

"The kids I talked with had no problems with different forms of 'a' and 'g' (but teachers tend to think that single-storey a and g is better)," she says.

She cites evidence in her book, The songs the letters sing: typography and children's reading, that found the same.

What she will say is that there are some attributes of typefaces that definitely do not benefit children's reading.

"Typefaces with very short ascenders and descenders [the up and down lines on a 'b' and a ''p', for example] is one example, and another is those with very round or geometric letterforms, which are likely to reinforce similarities between confusable characters such as a, g and o," she says.

But she also stresses that not only letter shape is important when it comes to reading.

"Bottom line, in my view, is that space between lines and words - and length of line - are more relevant than typeface," she says.

Comic Sans? We don't want your type around here

So there is nothing to suggest Comic Sans is any better than any other font, in terms of letter shape, so far.

But what about the other field of research? Do those academics have its back?

In this field, most studies focus on dyslexia. As readability for dyslexic students was the chief reason for teachers saying they used Comic Sans, this is handy.

Professor Maggie Snowling, president of St John's College at the University of Oxford, is to dyslexia research what Walker is to typography in children's reading materials - everyone says to ask her first (you can hear her talk extensively about dyslexia and education in the below).

So does she know of any research that suggests Comic Sans should be the font of choice for dyslexic students?

Her reply was to the point: "I don't know of any serious work on this issue."

Several researchers also recommended speaking toProfessor John Stein, emeritus professor of physiology at the University of Oxford, and a dyslexia researcher of global renown,

His response is a little more detailed, but again he does not offer any grand endorsements of Comic Sans being dyslexia-friendly.

And he explains something the typographers also found: letter shape is far less important than between-letter and between-word spacing.

"It's a complicated subject," he explains. "The short answer is that the only things that really help dyslexics are larger letters and wider letter and word spacing as we showed nearly 40 years ago and that has been confirmed time and time again.

"Sans serif, monospaced and Roman sans serif are probably best for dyslexics. Italic is the worst . But italic 'dysfluent' fonts slow down everyone, yet everyone, including dyslexics, tends to remember the content better because they've had to concentrate more."

Pretty definitive. However, he then adds: "But they're all small effects."

Dyslexia support

More recent work on the 'spacing effect' has been conducted byDr Jenny Thomson, Reader in Language & Literacy in the Department of Human Communication Sciences at the University of Sheffield.

"This issue of letter spacing is something that I have carried out research on withProfessor Matt Schneps at Harvard University. We found that slightly increased within-word letter spacing was potentially helpful to some people with dyslexia," she explains.

And she suggests that the reason Comic Sans may have earned a dyslexia-friendly reputation could be down to this, rather than anything to do with the font's shape or style.

Write the same line in Comic Sans and in another font in MS Word, she says, one above the other, and the line in Comic Sans will usually stretch furthest along the page. It's more spaced out, basically.

Hurrah, proof! Alas, not so fast.

That spacing is not a particular feature unique to Comic Sans, and those spacing benefits can be easily replicated in other fonts, more of which you will hear about a little later.

The actual font itself, that's got no "serious" - to use Snowling's term - research backing it up as being dyslexia-friendly at all.

Game, typeset and match?

In response to our survey, some teachers said they had already worked out for themselves that Comic Sans was not a miracle cure for struggling readers and students with dyslexia.

Many pointed out they were now using fonts specifically designed for dyslexic students instead, such as Dyslexie.

Hurrah, again! A replacement miracle cure!

Alas, again, not so fast. The evidence for the benefits of Dyslexie is also problematic.

Theresearch cited by the Dyslexie font designers does suggest some benefits of use in terms of reduced error rate (of some error types) and "more efficient" comprehension, and some benefits when compared directly with a second font, such as Ariel. But the effects are small.

In addition, there have been plenty of other studies suggesting the effect of Dyslexie letter formations is minimal. One of those studies was by Eva Marinus.

"I would say that letter shape does not matter: children do equally well reading Arial and Dyslexie," she explains. "The spacing settings of Dyslexie font seemed to give a slight advantage. In our study, we found an advantage of 7 per cent, which is not much. [And] it is possible to change overall spacing settings in MS Word. If you would like to apply the exact spacing settings of Dyslexie font,our free app can be used."

She argues you can use that app and free up your font choice, saving you some cash. And she says several other papers support her own findings, including onepublished last year by Kuster et al, which found Dyslexie did not improve reading speed or accuracy, nor did children with dyslexia prefer it.

Robert Walder from Dyslexie responds that those behind the font welcome all research into its effectiveness, but he says the current literature is "inconclusive" because of both positive and negative findings.

He also questions the methodology of the Kuster et al study, particularly their choice of font size, chosen text and the adjustment of the Dyslexie spacing.

He adds that he hopes readers "are not discouraged to give Dyslexie font a try and judge for themselves (it's free for home users)" and that "Dyslexie font is not the solution for reading difficulties, but it is a tool that can help".

"We absolutely agree that more extensive research is needed to determine the benefits of Dyslexie font scientifically," he continues. "We are happy to help where needed. Until then, we know that the font is making a huge difference for many people and invite everyone to try and see for themselves."

But what of the Marinus research?

He has not fully assessed it yet, he admits, but he says he is keen to learn more, as the finding of benefits around spacing "triggers our interest".

You and me both, Robert.

Fonts of all knowledge

So why might between letter and between word spacing make a difference, whereas font choice may not?

"It seems that at least for some people with dyslexia, they are vulnerable to a phenomenon called 'visual crowding' when they read, this is likely not the "cause" of their dyslexia but an exacerbating factor and something that has developed over years of struggling to read," says Thompson.

"Crowding is an inability to distinguish closely packed visual information and so providing extra space between letters, or fonts that reduce the visual clutter (eg, sans-serif), can help mitigate this issue."

Dr Holly Joseph, associate professor of Language Education and Literacy Development at the Institute of Education, University of Reading, has looked at this issue very recently.

She has been conducting experiments with Dyslexie using eye tracking software and her findings are intriguing not just in terms of why she believes Comic Sans and Dyslexie are not 'better' fonts, but in terms of how we read, too.

Here comes a long but very interesting quote, get comfy.

"When we read our eyes move in a series of saccades (jumps) and fixations (pauses) and it is during fixations that we extract the visual information we need to start identifying words and understanding them," she explains.

"Most people look a little to the left of the centre of the word if we are reading fluently - which for most will be around the age of 7 - and they then see the immediate companion letters in their vision, and out from that the words get more 'blurry', if you can use that term. Hence, when we read, we are making guesses as to what the word is. So with the word 'because', you would focus on the 'c' and the 'e' will be right on the edge of your vision.

"Adults' fixations are generally 180-200ms, and typically developing children's (depending on their age) are closer to 250ms. Previous research has shown that children with dyslexia make longer fixations (perhaps 300ms depending on age and severity of dyslexia) and shorter saccades as they read, and this reflects their greater difficulty translating letters into sounds

"So if a special font were to work, we would expect to see fewer and shorter fixations in dyslexic readers when reading a dyslexic font than a standard font (all other things being equal)."

Her analyses of her data on the Dyslexie fonts is ongoing but she can say that what matters is not font, but - and I am aware this may be becoming repetitive, and I am not going to apologise for it - spacing between letters and between words.

"The spacing between the words is important as it provides information about where the next saccade ('jump') should be directed so it makes sense that fonts with extra space between words provide an additional clue to the oculomotor system about where to go next," says Joseph. "However, it is less clear how other aspects of font design such as shape and weight might benefit readers."

Comic Sans: the verdict

So there is agreement, of a sort, between the typographers and the dyslexia researchers: spacing, not letter shape, is key. However, all the researchers in this area stress more research is needed.

"My understanding of the literature is that it is still hard to draw strong conclusions and that effects of font tend to be small," says Marinus. "More target experimental studies teasing out the effect of different aspects of font (eg, letter size, letter shape, different spacing settings) on reading outcomes (both accuracy and speed) are needed. Also, more research is needed on the effects of different groups (eg, beginning vs. more advanced readers, typical readers vs struggling readers)"

But what would they suggest teachers do when it comes to font choice based on the current research?

"If I was a teacher and I knew I had some struggling readers in my classroom, I'd probably do a quick user poll of a few more 'spacious' fonts - Arial, Comic Sans etc. and see what the consensus was," says Thompson.

Marinus says she would not give it much thought at all.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it, as the effects are so small," she says. "I think teachers should mostly focus on appropriate teaching of reading, not too much on how the materials are presented.

"In general, I would stick to known fonts that children are familiar with. I would do a little bit of a literature review on the effects of letter size and spacing. For children with reading difficulties, I would offer the opportunity to read texts with enlarged spacing."

Joseph agrees: "I think it is a concern if teachers and parents spend their own money on specialist fonts like Dyslexie when the studies are clear that it makes no difference - it does not hinder students but it does not help them, either.

"I think that teachers can get far too caught up in trying to create visual supports for dyslexic students - and I can see why an overlay or a font choice are appealing because they offer some quick solutions.

"The research says, though, that what really works is doing the long-term, everyday grind work of a high-quality, systematic phonics programme. I am under no illusion that such work is really hard to get right in a mainstream classroom under the time and budget constraints and with 30 children to teach."

The big question of this article, then, has a clear answer: Comic Sans use should not be justified by claims of increased readability or benefits to dyslexic students or indeed for handwriting, but if you just like it, and your pupils like it, there is no good reason you should not use it. Or not use most other fonts for that matter. Font choice, it seems, is the least of your worries.

Yes, the tumblr haters may get on your back if you use Comic Sans, but who are they to judge? Be proud, if the kids like it, and you like it, then you should be allowed to shout "Fuck yeah, Comic Sans!" without fear (unless you are in school, of course).
Jon Severs is commissioning editor at Tes. He tweets @jon_severs * I have used 'font' in the modern sense in this article, but I am aware that, technically, it should be typeface

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Does Comic Sans really help dyslexic learners?

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Comic Sans still dominates classrooms with teachers believing it is better for dyslexic students, for reading and for modelling handwriting. Jon Severs finds that those benefits are dubious and that so much else we think we know about fonts and readability - even reading itself - is highly problematic

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The Effect of Typography on User Experience and Conversions

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The Effect of Typography on User Experience and Conversions

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Typography is the detail and the presentation of a story. It represents the voice of an atmosphere, or historical setting of some kind. It can do a lot of things. ( Cyrus Highsmith)

We only have a handful of tools to communicating online, really. Words, images, colors, and composition are the usual suspects, but they're stealing most of the credit for what goes into making effective websites and landing pages.

Cyrus Highsmith, author of Inside Paragraphs, says typefaces represent the voice of an atmosphere, or historical setting, and that's very true, but I want to add to that.

Typography is body language.

It's what makes the first impression. Good typography enhances the character of the site and adds a tone of voice, which subliminally reinforces what the words say to influence how those words are perceived. And yes, there is research to back this up.

Trust me:

How little do users read?

Before we get into the effect of typography on behavior and perception, let's look at why this is important in the first place.

Back in 2008, researcher Harald Weinreich and Jakob Nielsen published a study that measured 45,237 page views from 25 different users, and found that, of the people being analyzed, most people would scroll about halfway down the page for longer content and only spent enough time on the page to read less than 20% of the text.

These findings were so consistent that they calculated a formula which described the amount of text users would read for articles in the 200 to 1,250 word count.

As you see in the graph, as the word count increases, the percentage of people reading not only decreases, but becomes more erratic around the halfway mark.

In the full data set, the average page view contained 593 words. So, on average, users will have time to read 28% of the words if they devote all of their time to reading. More realistically, users will read about 20% of the text on the average page.

In another report, Josh Schwartz from Chartbeat studied how users interact with articles on Slate.com. The results were surprisingly similar.

People can't stay focused past the 50% mark. According to the data, the more you write, the more people stop reading.

So wait, does that mean you should create shorter content? Nope.

In an old, but still insightful analysis of all of the most linked content on Moz.com, cofounder of Sparktoro Casey Henry found that the content with the most links also seemed to have a higher word count.

A more recent analysis from Ahrefs indicates a strong correlation between the content length and ranking positions.

There's no way of knowing for sure, but it would appear that those last 20% of visitors may also be the ones who are more willing to give links to those longer pieces of content.

Now, of course, this isn't going to be uniform across all verticals.

But if your site uses a blog to provide deeply actionable information, like Unbounce for SaaS, long form content is absolutely worth considering.

I'll also go out on a limb here and suggest this linking behavior may also be reflective of why, for high touchpoint products with a lot to consider, longer pages tend to perform better. (I could be wrong though- you should always be testing.)

Which brings me to my next point.

If your written content is going to be long-form, you better damn well be sure it's readable and pleasing to the eyes.

The effects of typography on readability and comprehension

Before we get into the most readable typeface debate, I want you to first understand that there are three things more important than what specific typeface you choose.

Various research shows:

1. Small font sizes and low-contrast are the number one complaint for web users as it relates to reading online. (Nielsen)

2. Due to the effects of aging, at 40, only half the light gets through to your retina as it did at age 20. When you're 60, it's only about 20%. (See: presbyopia.)

3. All readers, but especially low-vision readers, experienced better reading speeds when line-spacing was set to 2.5. (Global Journal of Health Science)

Now this is where it starts to get tricky.

In D Bnonn Tennant's excellent article, " 16 Pixels For Body Copy, Anything Else Is A Costly Mistake," he walks us through some very compelling evidence as to why 16 pixels should be the standard for body copy in web design.

His central argument is that when you take in account the distance from the screen, 16-pixel font appears to be the same size as printed text, which is normally held much closer to your face.

D Bonn's argument that larger font sizes being easier to read correspond with findings from studies from Payame Noor University and a joint eye-tracking study by IBM/Google which show that as the size of type increases, readers also exhibit slightly faster reading speeds. However, both studies also concluded that the results were not statistically significant.

Interestingly enough, even though reading speed or comprehension haven't been deemed significant, another study has shown that larger font sizes do have the ability to elicit stronger emotional connections.

That's not surprising considering that the number one complaint in the Nielsen usability study was small font sizes, and nearly 40% of Americans are nearsighted. Increasing the size of your body copy, especially if your customers are around 40 or online natives, just makes it all easier to see, and could go a long way in making your visitor's experience more enjoyable.

John Paul Mains shared the result of one client who saw improvements in conversions after changing the font size from 10 pixels to 13 pixels to be more readable. I wonder what would happen if he pushed it even further?

Rank Executives also reported higher time on site and lower bounce rates after adjusting their typography.

Serifs vs. sans-serifs (and do we have to stick with tradition?)

There has been no conclusive evidence to support either style of font as better for the screen, which is perhaps why the design community is split.

For example, in the Google/IBM study, they found that serif font Georgia was read 7.9% faster than sans serif Helvetica, but that it was not a statistically significant margin. They also found that serif or not, the style of type had virtually no impact on comprehension.

However, in the Psychophysics of Reading studies, participants perceived themselves as having better performance using fonts with serif, even though they scored higher in reading speed and comprehension when reading san serif fonts. Interesting.

Could this self perception (in combination with higher screen resolutions making serifs more viable) be why 50 major websites seemed to have changed their perspective on serifs in a five-year span?

Don't let the similarity in graphs confuse you. The Blue in this graph is represents sites using serif fonts. Nearly the same percentage as sites using sans in 2009.

In this study by Jan Constantin on Smashing Magazine, he closely analyzes the typographic patterns from 50 top websites ranging from The Boston Globe and Financial Times to A List Apart and UX Booth.

What he found was pretty incredible.

For instance, even though serif fonts have taken over the majority share for body copy, there is now a near even split between serif and sans serif headlines.

Even more surprising, even though Georgia and Arial are still the widely used typefaces, an overwhelming majority of font pairings are outside the traditional choices.

Compare that to only a few years earlier-it was mostly "traditional" typefaces that ran the web.

He hypothesizes that this shift towards "others" is due to the growth of font delivery services such as Typekit or Google Fonts which allow for more font choices to be rendered in the browser.

More font choices mean more personality, expressiveness, and creativity, which brings me back to the original point of the article, your typeface is the body language. It's what helps create that emotional connection which can be so critical to the sales process.

If anything, the middle ground for this argument has evolved to one that says you should focus on learning to better pair both serif and sans serif fonts together to achieve maximum readability, as well as to develop a strong sense of "character" for your words.

To that end, I highly recommend you read Douglas Bonneville's Best Practices of Combining Typefaces, and Simon Pascal Klein's more technical, Achieving Good Legibility and Readability On The Web.

If you want to get kick-started, here's a list of 20 different font pairings that are known to work well together for computer screens.

Also, as you're pairing your fonts, make sure you're really looking to find something that's readable first. I'd recommend you check out font designer Jessica Hische's Il1 test, which asks you to put the capital "I" and a lowercase "l" next to the number "1" to see if you can determine the difference.

Can typography impact our judgement?

Yes.

In a study on The New York Times website, titled " Are you an optimist or a pessimist?," Errol Morris wanted to see how people would respond when asked about their feelings of security in a catastrophic event. Over 45,000 participants responded.

Readers were asked if they agreed with the statement and to what degree.

The real agenda behind the quiz was to determine if test subjects would find the statement more believable depending on the the choice of typeface.

The fonts used were Georgia, Helvetica, Trebuchet, Comic Sans, Baskerville, and Computer Modern.

What were the results?

Baskerville- designed in 1754, to create the perfect balance of readability and high contrast-had a 1.5% increase in people agreeing with the "we live in an era of unprecedented safety" statement.

It's small, but it's about a 1% to 2% difference - 1.5% to be exact, which may seem small but to me is rather large. You are collecting these data in an uncontrolled environment [...] to see any difference is impressive. Many online marketers would kill for a 2% advantage either in more clicks or more clicks leading to sales.

In another study by MIT psychologist, Kevin Larson wanted to see if something as seemingly trivial as type choice, layout, and line spacing could have an impact on the reader's emotional state.

So 20 volunteers-half men, half women-split into two groups and asked each group to evaluate a version of The New Yorker.

The researchers found that the viewers who read the poorly designed page were negatively impacted, expressed feeling bad, and would even physically frown.

While that may seem arbitrary, the muscles associated with frowning have been linked to the amygdala -the area of your brain responsible for governing emotions, forming new memories, and associating them with emotional events.

In other words, forming memorable associations isn't just a matter of telling a compelling story or having an optimized landing page. It also has to do with the character of the font you're using.

Mikael Cho of Ooomf also demonstrates a really good point when he shows you what a typeface Impact (one normally associated with newspaper headlines) does to the Bank of America website.

Normal type:

Changed to Impact:

Conclusion

The reality of the situation is, asking about "the best typeface" is going to be about as fruitful as asking which color converts the best.

It's all subjective, depends on your target market, the story you're telling & the emotions you're trying to evoke. Looking at the the big 50 research from Smashing shows us "other" fonts are being used more and more, because they're a better reflection of the brand's characteristics and personality.

The question you have to ask is if the typeface you're using accurately reflects you?

It's a difficult question to answer, but could make all the difference in the world to your customers.

Recommended Resources

Have another great typography resource? Why not share it in the comments?

H/T to George Matthew for some of the research in this article.

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The Effect of Typography on User Experience and Conversions

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Typography is the detail and the presentation of a story. It represents the voice of an atmosphere, or historical setting of some kind. It can do a lot of things. ( Cyrus Highsmith) We only have a handful of tools to communicating online, really.

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Metacognition and self-regulated learning, EEF

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Metacognition and self-regulated learning, EEF

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This animation aims to cut through the complexity that surrounds metacognition by providing a clear example of what it looks like in practice. It could be used to start colleague conversations, build staff knowledge when designing and delivering Effective Professional Development on metacognition.

https://youtu.be/sAik_RQY_Dg

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evidence suggests the use of ‘metacognitive strategies’ – which get pupils to think about their own learning - can be worth the equivalent of an additional +7 months’ progress when used well. however

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while the potential impact of these approaches is very high

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less is known about how to apply them effectively in the classroom.  this guidance report reviews the best available research to offer teachers and senior leaders practical advice on how to develop their pupils’ metacognitive skills and knowledge. the report has recommendations in seven areas and ‘myth busts’ common misconceptions teachers have about metacognition.  for example

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some teachers think they need to teach metacognitive approaches in ‘learning to learn’ or ‘thinking skills’ sessions. but the report warns that metacognitive strategies should be taught in conjunction with specific subject content as pupils find it hard to transfer these generic tips to specific tasks.

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Apply metacognitive strategies in the classroom.

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Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology

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Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology

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Throughout secondary school, the literacy demands of the curriculum increase and become more knowledge-rich. Vocabulary size is a strong predictor of academic attainment, so schools are recognising the importance of conscious, planned vocabulary teaching to enrich students' store of words.

This resource summarises key research into vocabulary size and reviews the positive reciprocal relationship between word knowledge and reading comprehension. It explains what essential word knowledge is needed and demonstrates effective methods you can use to build your students' vocabulary through reading and direct instruction in all subjects.

The resource includes:

An introduction to concepts of word knowledge and the five key principles for vocabulary instruction, together with examples of activities to support direct vocabulary teaching.

A top-ten collection of research reports and resources that provide contextual knowledge and insight.

Academic word list (high-frequency words that are key for understanding academic writing).

Links to the national curriculum

This resource links to the overarching literacy requirements for all subjects of the national curriculum for England as follows:

6.4 Vocabulary development

Pupils' acquisition and command of vocabulary are key to their learning and progress across the whole curriculum. Teachers should therefore develop vocabulary actively, building systematically on pupils' current knowledge.

They should increase pupils' store of words in general while making links between known and new vocabulary and discuss the shades of meaning in similar words. Pupils can then expand the vocabulary choices that are available to them when they write.

In order for pupils to improve their comprehension, it's also vital that they understand the meanings of words they meet in their reading across all subjects.

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Vocabulary building | National Literacy Trust

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Throughout secondary school, the literacy demands of the curriculum increase and become more knowledge-rich. Vocabulary size is a strong predictor of academic attainment, so schools are recognising the importance of conscious, planned vocabulary teaching to enrich students' store of words. This resource summarises key research into vocabulary size and reviews the positive reciprocal relationship between word knowledge and reading comprehension.

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The Confident Teacher is a blog by teacher and author, Alex Quigley (@HuntingEnglish), that shares ideas and evidence about education, teaching and learning. Alex Quigley

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Why the way we talk to children really matters

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There could be a simple way to help young children’s brains improve for the better, with long-lasting benefits.

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Helping struggling students to build a growth mindset

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Helping struggling students to build a growth mindset

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

Veteran researchers present five strategies-like maintaining success files and allowing choice-to help struggling students develop a positive attitude needed for success.

© Shutterstock.com/VLADGRIN

As researchers and teacher educators, we have found that a gift many effective educators give struggling students is a practical and optimistic mindset coupled with strategies that help them learn successfully. Over the last two decades, we have supported teachers in teaching students about their brilliant brains and in showing students strategies to support positive outlooks about their learning capabilities.

Our research aligns well with Carol Dweck's work on growth mindset, or acting on the belief that abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. In a previous post, we discussed the importance of growth mindset for teachers.

Now we turn to the benefits of helping students who find school difficult maintain a positive mindset as they persist in the sometimes hard work required for learning. When failures mount, it's easy to give up. A positive mindset focuses on the gains that are possible when students persevere through learning challenges. Here are five strategies to help struggling students develop a growth mindset.

Model practical optimism and point out examples of this approach in action; for example, say, "We knew this would be a tough project, but we stuck with it and worked hard. Just look at what we've accomplished!"

Share examples of how you have overcome learning obstacles. It's helpful for struggling students to realize that everyone occasionally faces learning challenges.

Share stories that illustrate the benefits of practical optimism.

Maintain a positive learning atmosphere by posing questions such as "What was the best thing that happened today?"

Encouraging Optimism About Learning

This outlook helps struggling students become more motivated, alert, and ready to learn, so that neurotransmitters that enable learning can be released. Many students who have learning challenges become pessimistic about school and lose hope that they can make academic progress. These teaching strategies help reinforce how useful it can be to develop a state of practical optimism:

In previous posts, we've discussed cultivating practical optimism in the classroom and in schools generally.

Teaching Students to Learn More Effectively

When struggling students learn how to "drive their brains" through the use of cognitive strategies, they're more likely to be able to learn and think at higher levels. Teachers often tell us they need strategies for helping students learn how to increase their attention. Our post " Strategies for Getting and Keeping the Brain's Attention" offers tried-and-true strategies to support teachers with this common classroom issue. And Edutopia's " Resources on Learning and the Brain " features other easy-to-use strategies for assisting students to learn more effectively.

1. Give every student a folder to use as a success file.

2. Ask students to write the word success on their file and/or draw a picture that represents success for them.

3. Every day, when possible, ask students to add to their folders examples of successful learning, such as tasks completed, examples of learning gains, and assignments that support their personal definitions of success.

4. At the start of each school day or class, remind students to look through their success file. The more students can reconnect to their previous achievements, the more positive their mindsets can become and the more successful they'll be in the long run.

Maintaining Success Files

A success file is a continually updated collection that provides ready evidence to help students internalize and remember their learning successes. Here is one way to use this strategy:

Using Growth Assessments

Growth assessments is the term we use for formative assessments that help guide student learning and monitor progress. Students with learning challenges benefit when teachers check in often and provide additional instruction and feedback when necessary. Growth assessments help students identify their strengths and areas of weakness that need further practice and reinforcement, and may include class discussions, interviews with individual students, consultations on drafts of work, and observations of how students are applying what they've learned. Students may use self-assessments such as journal entries and personal checklists so they can be prompted to monitor their progress. Keeping track of their growth, including learning challenges they have overcome, helps to foster a growth mindset.

Letting Students Choose

When students can choose topics of personal interest to study or make the subject of a learning project, they are more likely to maintain interest and motivation. Giving students choices also underscores that they are in charge of their learning.

One of the greatest thrills for teachers is to see the light bulb switch on for struggling students as they learn something new and internalize the belief that through effort and the use of sound strategies they can keep growing their skills and knowledge.

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Helping Struggling Students Build a Growth Mindset

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Veteran researchers present five strategies-like maintaining success files and allowing choice-to help struggling students develop a positive attitude needed for success.

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NLT Research Evidence on Reading for Pleasure

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NLT Research Evidence on Reading for Pleasure

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Read our review of the existing literature that explores reading for pleasure, its importance and its impact on literacy attainment and other outcomes. Although the Rose Review placed phonics firmly within a language-rich framework that fosters positive attitudes towards reading and a love of books, this context was lost in the subsequent press coverage.

It therefore seemed important to collect evidence that furthers our understanding of the value of reading for pleasure and to provide information that will enable parents, teachers and policymakers to promote reading motivation and wider reading. As part of the discussion, this paper also delves into different types of motivation and the impact they have on literacy behaviour and learning.

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Reading For Pleasure: A research overview | National Literacy Trust

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Read our review of the existing literature that explores reading for pleasure, its importance and its impact on literacy attainment and other outcomes. Although the Rose Review placed phonics firmly within a language-rich framework that fosters positive attitudes towards reading and a love of books, this context was lost in the subsequent press coverage.

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How to strengthen numeracy across the curriculum

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How to strengthen numeracy across the curriculum

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Research into skipping Breakfast at GCSE grades

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Research into skipping Breakfast at GCSE grades

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Students who rarely ate breakfast on school days achieved lower GCSE grades than those who ate breakfast frequently, according to a new study in Yorkshire.

Researchers, from the University of Leeds, have for the first time demonstrated a link between eating breakfast and GCSE performance for secondary school students in the UK.

Adding together all of a student's exam results, they found that students who said they rarely ate breakfast achieved nearly two grades lower than those who rarely missed their morning meal.

The research is published today in the journal Frontiers in Public Health.

Lead researcher Dr Katie Adolphus, from the University of Leeds' School of Psychology, said: "Our study suggests that secondary school students are at a disadvantage if they are not getting a morning meal to fuel their brains for the start of the school day.

"The UK has a growing problem of food poverty, with an estimated half a million children arriving at school each day too hungry to learn. Previously we have shown that eating breakfast has a positive impact on children's cognition.

"This research suggests that poor nutrition is associated with worse results at school."

The Government in England run a national, means-tested free school lunch programme accessible to all students, but there is no equivalent for breakfast. Charities Magic Breakfast and Family Action deliver a breakfast programme funded by the Department for Education, which provides free breakfasts for more than 1,800 schools located in the most socio-economically deprived parts of England.

Separately, Magic Breakfast supports breakfast provision in a further 480 UK schools. However, this leaves many of the 24,000 state-funded schools in England without free breakfast provision for children not getting breakfast at home.

Some schools compensate by offering breakfast clubs they have to fund themselves, or funded by companies such as Kellogg's.

The Leeds researchers say their findings support the calls to expand the current limited free school breakfast programme to include every state school in England. A policy proposal from Magic Breakfast to introduce school breakfast legislation is currently being considered by politicians, which has been supported by Leeds academics.

Alex Cunningham, CEO of Magic Breakfast, said: "This study is a valuable insight, reinforcing the importance of breakfast in boosting pupils' academic attainment and removing barriers to learning. Education is crucial to a child's future life success and escaping poverty, therefore ensuring every child has access to a healthy start to the day must be a priority.

"We are grateful to the University of Leeds for highlighting this positive impact and welcome their findings, highlighting once again the importance of our work with schools." GCSE performance

The researchers surveyed 294 students from schools and colleges in West Yorkshire in 2011, and found that 29% rarely or never ate breakfast on school days, whilst 18% ate breakfast occasionally, and 53% frequently. Their figures are similar to the latest national data for England in 2019, which found that more than 16% of secondary school children miss breakfast.

GCSE grades were converted to point scores using the Department for Education's 2012 system, where A* = 58, A = 52, B = 46, and so on. Adding up students' scores across all subjects gave students an aggregated score.

Those who rarely ate breakfast scored on average 10.25 points lower than those who frequently ate breakfast, a difference of nearly two grades, after accounting for other important factors including socio-economic status, ethnicity, age, sex and BMI.

Looking at performance for each individual GCSE, they found that students who rarely ate breakfast scored on average 1.20 points lower than those who frequently ate breakfast, after accounting for other factors. Each grade equates to six points, so the difference accounted for a drop of a fifth of a grade for every GCSE an individual achieved.

Nicola Dolton, Programme Manager for the National School Breakfast Programme, from Family Action, said: "The National School Breakfast Programme is delighted to see the publication of this thorough and compelling research, highlighting the impact that breakfast consumption has on a child's GCSE attainment.

"This report provides impressive evidence that eating a healthy breakfast improves a child's educational attainment, which supports our own findings of improvements in a child's concentration in class, readiness to learn, behaviour and punctuality."

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The research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and The Schools Partnership Trust Academies.

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Skipping breakfast linked to lower GCSE grades

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Students who rarely ate breakfast on school days achieved lower GCSE grades than those who ate breakfast frequently, according to a new study in Yorkshire. Researchers, from the University of Leeds, have for the first time demonstrated a link between eating breakfast and GCSE performance for secondary school students in the UK.

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What is the Research into Developing Writing

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What is the Research into Developing Writing

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DfE Report 2012

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Dunlosky, John. (2013)

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Doug Lemov, ( Jossey-Bass Publishing 2020)

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teaching in the online classroom - surviving andthriving in the new normal

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education / teaching methods & materials / science & technology

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online teaching; online education; distance learning; virtual classroom; virtual teaching; virtual education; covid-19 school; coronavirus school; uncommon schools; online classroom management; elearning; remote teaching; remote education; online education

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education / teaching methods & materials / science & technology

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education / teaching methods & materials / general

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Teaching in the Online Classroom - Surviving andThriving in the New Normal

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Buy Teaching in the Online Classroom - Surviving andThriving in the New Normal 1 by Lemov, Doug (ISBN: 9781119762935) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

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Alex Quigley (Routledge Publishing, 2020)

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In this engaging book, Alex Quigley explores the knowledge and skills expert reading teachers need to teach reading and to nurture pupils' desire to read. If you are developing the school reading curriculum, this accessible and timely text, which is packed with practical strategies, will be a valuable asset. In opening up the complexities of reading in an appealing and conversational manner, and paying particular attention to metacognition, Alex offers the profession evidence-informed tools to re-consider reading and six steps to close the reading gap. A book worth buying.

Teresa Cremin, Professor of Education, Open University, UK

The science of reading was never a part of my teacher training and I'd have loved a book like this. Alex Quigley's Closing the Reading Gap is everything I hoped it would be; a wonderfully enlightening follow-up to his brilliant vocabulary book. For those seeking to understand how reading works, alongside some of the associated debates, Alex gives us the in-depth research-informed analysis we're after.　He also delivers the accessibility and range of practical strategies busy teachers need to support children to read more fluently and to learn more through reading. Chapters 3 and 4 capture the key concepts we need to understand the complex processes of decoding and comprehension; it's packed with wisdom and insights.　Chapter 7, outlining an array of practical strategies for schools and teachers, is a magnificent reference for everyone working in education.　I can see this book having a very significant impact.

Tom Sherrington, author and education consultant

When over a quarter of 11-year-old pupils do not reach the expected standard in reading, Closing the Reading Gap is a welcome and much needed addition to our understanding of the process and difficulty of reading. This wide compassing book takes us through the history of reading and identifies some of the barriers for many of our pupils and offers many suggestions which professionals can support them in this vital aspect of provision.

It is laden with important insights such as 'we are better off with concentrating on the relatively slow, deliberate process of reading for meaning and to understand the subtle difference between reading speedily and reading with fluency.' And when we ask ourselves the questions posed by Alex, we are likely to get better at this important aspect of our practice: what are the 'Goldilocks books' for year 2... year 5 and year 9; how will we mediate their complexity, whilst keeping an eye on the detail of our pupils' reading development; how often do we assume a text that has been read has been understood?

And what resonated powerfully for me is the idea that it is important that pupils read extended texts if they are to grow more sensitive to text structures. If they are predominantly reading power point slides with condensed phrases, sentences and images, they will not gain experience in tracking more extended text structures. Paradoxically, by making the curriculum more accessible in the short-term, we can make it harder to access curriculum reading in the long- term.

An important read for all teachers, across all phases and subjects

Mary Myatt, education adviser and writer, author of The Curriculum: Gallimaufry to Coherence

This book should be a core text for all teachers, whether trainees or experienced professionals, whatever their subject or key stage specialism. Reading success is essential for young people to access any academic curriculum and this book draws together research and effective practice across all subjects and age groups. But not only does it identify and evaluate the symptoms of reading challenges, it provides practical advice and support to 'close the reading gap.' Exam success is underpinned by effective reading tuition, and this book will help every teacher gain a greater understanding of how to teach reading constructively so that academic achievement is attainable for every pupil.

Alison Wilcox, author of the Descriptosaurus series

I enthusiastically recommend Closing the Reading Gap with five shiny Schools Week stars. I know it'll genuinely change significant aspects of my classroom practice for the better when school finally resumes, as it is already influencing my online teaching.

Douglas Wise, Schools Week

This is a very readable book, supported by easy-to-read print in well-spaced sentences - good considerations for all readers and individuals developing their reading skills.

I find the range of information in this book of just 201 pages, including extensive references at the end of each of its eight chapters, encouraging. Each chapter captures many important points for everyone involved in teaching and developing students' reading, to acknowledge, learn, and put into daily practice.

Dr Jenny Moody, Dyslexia Review

Overall, this is a really useful introductory text. For those who are new to teaching or literacy support this book contains most of the knowledge it might take several years of practice to obtain. It is a rich resource both in terms of its exhaustive list of strategies and its broad introduction to the key ideas you will need to familiarize yourself with. These are written in a clear and engaging fashion, and it is apparent throughout that Quigley cares deeply for his students and their school experience.

K Ingham Roy, Child Language and Teaching Therapy

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Our pupils' success will be defined by their ability to read fluently and skilfully. But despite universal acceptance of reading's vital importance, the reading gap in our classroom remains, and it is linked to an array of factors, such as parental wealth, education and book ownership, as well as classroom practice.

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N.B. Link currently not working, New link TBA

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This section collects together the most important ESOL research on the Excellence Gateway, in particular summaries from the LSIS Practitioner Research Programme 2012-13. It also includes other relevant studies and reports. The external links page has more links to relevant research.

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Blended learning: the new normal

and emerging technologies. Charles Dziuban et al. 2018

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Show authors

International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education 15, Article number: 3 (2018) Cite this article

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Abstract

This study addressed several outcomes, implications, and possible future directions for blended learning (BL) in higher education in a world where information communication technologies (ICTs) increasingly communicate with each other. In considering effectiveness, the authors contend that BL coalesces around access, success, and students' perception of their learning environments. Success and withdrawal rates for face-to-face and online courses are compared to those for BL as they interact with minority status. Investigation of student perception about course excellence revealed the existence of robust if-then decision rules for determining how students evaluate their educational experiences. Those rules were independent of course modality, perceived content relevance, and expected grade. The authors conclude that although blended learning preceded modern instructional technologies, its evolution will be inextricably bound to contemporary information communication technologies that are approximating some aspects of human thought processes.

Introduction

Blended learning and research issues

Blended learning (BL), or the integration of face-to-face and online instruction (Graham 2013), is widely adopted across higher education with some scholars referring to it as the "new traditional model" (Ross and Gage 2006, p. 167) or the "new normal" in course delivery (Norberg et al. 2011, p. 207). However, tracking the accurate extent of its growth has been challenging because of definitional ambiguity (Oliver and Trigwell 2005), combined with institutions' inability to track an innovative practice, that in many instances has emerged organically. One early nationwide study sponsored by the Sloan Consortium (now the Online Learning Consortium) found that 65.2% of participating institutions of higher education (IHEs) offered blended (also termed hybrid) courses (Allen and Seaman 2003). A 2008 study, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education to explore distance education in the U.S., defined BL as "a combination of online and in-class instruction with reduced in-class seat time for students" (Lewis and Parsad 2008, p. 1, emphasis added). Using this definition, the study found that 35% of higher education institutions offered blended courses, and that 12% of the 12.2 million documented distance education enrollments were in blended courses.

The 2017 New Media Consortium Horizon Report found that blended learning designs were one of the short term forces driving technology adoption in higher education in the next 1-2 years (Adams Becker et al. 2017). Also, blended learning is one of the key issues in teaching and learning in the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative's 2017 annual survey of higher education (EDUCAUSE 2017). As institutions begin to examine BL instruction, there is a growing research interest in exploring the implications for both faculty and students. This modality is creating a community of practice built on a singular and pervasive research question, "How is blended learning impacting the teaching and learning environment?" That question continues to gain traction as investigators study the complexities of how BL interacts with cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of student behavior, and examine its transformation potential for the academy. Those issues are so compelling that several volumes have been dedicated to assembling the research on how blended learning can be better understood (Dziuban et al. 2016; Picciano et al. 2014; Picciano and Dziuban 2007; Bonk and Graham 2007; Kitchenham 2011; Jean-François 2013; Garrison and Vaughan 2013) and at least one organization, the Online Learning Consortium, sponsored an annual conference solely dedicated to blended learning at all levels of education and training (2004-2015). These initiatives address blended learning in a wide variety of situations. For instance, the contexts range over K-12 education, industrial and military training, conceptual frameworks, transformational potential, authentic assessment, and new research models. Further, many of these resources address students' access, success, withdrawal, and perception of the degree to which blended learning provides an effective learning environment.

Currently the United States faces a widening educational gap between our underserved student population and those communities with greater financial and technological resources (Williams 2016). Equal access to education is a critical need, one that is particularly important for those in our underserved communities. Can blended learning help increase access thereby alleviating some of the issues faced by our lower income students while resulting in improved educational equality? Although most indicators suggest "yes" (Dziuban et al. 2004), it seems that, at the moment, the answer is still "to be determined." Quality education presents a challenge, evidenced by many definitions of what constitutes its fundamental components (Pirsig 1974; Arum et al. 2016). Although progress has been made by initiatives, such as, Quality Matters ( 2016), the OLC OSCQR Course Design Review Scorecard developed by Open SUNY (Open SUNY n.d.), the Quality Scorecard for Blended Learning Programs (Online Learning Consortium n.d.), and SERVQUAL (Alhabeeb 2015), the issue is by no means resolved. Generally, we still make quality education a perceptual phenomenon where we ascribe that attribute to a course, educational program, or idea, but struggle with precisely why we reached that decision. Searle ( 2015), summarizes the problem concisely arguing that quality does not exist independently, but is entirely observer dependent. Pirsig ( 1974) in his iconic volume on the nature of quality frames the context this way,

"There is such thing as Quality, but that as soon as you try to define it, something goes haywire. You can't do it" (p. 91).

Therefore, attempting to formulate a semantic definition of quality education with syntax-based metrics results in what O'Neil (O'Neil 2017) terms surrogate models that are rough approximations and oversimplified. Further, the derived metrics tend to morph into goals or benchmarks, losing their original measurement properties (Goodhart 1975).

Information communication technologies in society and education

Blended learning forces us to consider the characteristics of digital technology, in general, and information communication technologies (ICTs), more specifically. Floridi ( 2014) suggests an answer proffered by Alan Turing: that digital ICTs can process information on their own, in some sense just as humans and other biological life. ICTs can also communicate information to each other, without human intervention, but as linked processes designed by humans. We have evolved to the point where humans are not always "in the loop" of technology, but should be "on the loop" (Floridi 2014, p. 30), designing and adapting the process. We perceive our world more and more in informational terms, and not primarily as physical entities (Floridi 2008). Increasingly, the educational world is dominated by information and our economies rest primarily on that asset. So our world is also blended, and it is blended so much that we hardly see the individual components of the blend any longer. Floridi ( 2014) argues that the world has become an "infosphere" (like biosphere) where we live as "inforgs." What is real for us is shifting from the physical and unchangeable to those things with which we can interact.

Floridi also helps us to identify the next blend in education, involving ICTs, or specialized artificial intelligence (Floridi 2014, 25; Norberg 2017, 65). Learning analytics, adaptive learning, calibrated peer review, and automated essay scoring (Balfour 2013) are advanced processes that, provided they are good interfaces, can work well with the teacher- allowing him or her to concentrate on human attributes such as being caring, creative, and engaging in problem-solving. This can, of course, as with all technical advancements, be used to save resources and augment the role of the teacher. For instance, if artificial intelligence can be used to work along with teachers, allowing them more time for personal feedback and mentoring with students, then, we will have made a transformational breakthrough. The Edinburg University manifesto for teaching online says bravely, "Automation need not impoverish education - we welcome our robot colleagues" (Bayne et al. 2016). If used wisely, they will teach us more about ourselves, and about what is truly human in education. This emerging blend will also affect curricular and policy questions, such as the what? and what for? The new normal for education will be in perpetual flux. Floridi's ( 2014) philosophy offers us tools to understand and be in control and not just sit by and watch what happens. In many respects, he has addressed the new normal for blended learning.

Literature of blended learning

A number of investigators have assembled a comprehensive agenda of transformative and innovative research issues for blended learning that have the potential to enhance effectiveness (Garrison and Kanuka 2004; Picciano 2009). Generally, research has found that BL results in improvement in student success and satisfaction, (Dziuban and Moskal 2011; Dziuban et al. 2011; Means et al. 2013) as well as an improvement in students' sense of community (Rovai and Jordan 2004) when compared with face-to-face courses. Those who have been most successful at blended learning initiatives stress the importance of institutional support for course redesign and planning (Moskal et al. 2013; Dringus and Seagull 2015; Picciano 2009; Tynan et al. 2015). The evolving research questions found in the literature are long and demanding, with varied definitions of what constitutes "blended learning," facilitating the need for continued and in-depth research on instructional models and support needed to maximize achievement and success (Dringus and Seagull 2015; Bloemer and Swan 2015).

Educational access

The lack of access to educational technologies and innovations (sometimes termed the digital divide) continues to be a challenge with novel educational technologies (Fairlie 2004; Jones et al. 2009). One of the promises of online technologies is that they can increase access to nontraditional and underserved students by bringing a host of educational resources and experiences to those who may have limited access to on-campus-only higher education. A 2010 U.S. report shows that students with low socioeconomic status are less likely to obtain higher levels of postsecondary education (Aud et al. 2010). However, the increasing availability of distance education has provided educational opportunities to millions (Lewis and Parsad 2008; Allen et al. 2016). Additionally, an emphasis on open educational resources (OER) in recent years has resulted in significant cost reductions without diminishing student performance outcomes (Robinson et al. 2014; Fischer et al. 2015; Hilton et al. 2016).

Unfortunately, the benefits of access may not be experienced evenly across demographic groups. A 2015 study found that Hispanic and Black STEM majors were significantly less likely to take online courses even when controlling for academic preparation, socioeconomic status (SES), citizenship, and English as a second language (ESL) status (Wladis et al. 2015). Also, questions have been raised about whether the additional access afforded by online technologies has actually resulted in improved outcomes for underserved populations. A distance education report in California found that all ethnic minorities (except Asian/Pacific Islanders) completed distance education courses at a lower rate than the ethnic majority (California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office 2013). Shea and Bidjerano ( 2014, 2016) found that African American community college students who took distance education courses completed degrees at significantly lower rates than those who did not take distance education courses. On the other hand, a study of success factors in K-12 online learning found that for ethnic minorities, only 1 out of 15 courses had significant gaps in student test scores (Liu and Cavanaugh 2011). More research needs to be conducted, examining access and success rates for different populations, when it comes to learning in different modalities, including fully online and blended learning environments.

Framing a treatment effect

Over the last decade, there have been at least five meta-analyses that have addressed the impact of blended learning environments and its relationship to learning effectiveness (Zhao et al. 2005; Sitzmann et al. 2006; Bernard et al. 2009; Means et al. 2010, 2013; Bernard et al. 2014). Each of these studies has found small to moderate positive effect sizes in favor of blended learning when compared to fully online or traditional face-to-face environments. However, there are several considerations inherent in these studies that impact our understanding the generalizability of outcomes.

Dziuban and colleagues (Dziuban et al. 2015) analyzed the meta-analyses conducted by Means and her colleagues (Means et al. 2013; Means et al. 2010), concluding that their methods were impressive as evidenced by exhaustive study inclusion criteria and the use of scale-free effect size indices. The conclusion, in both papers, was that there was a modest difference in multiple outcome measures for courses featuring online modalities-in particular, blended courses. However, with blended learning especially, there are some concerns with these kinds of studies. First, the effect sizes are based on the linear hypothesis testing model with the underlying assumption that the treatment and the error terms are uncorrelated, indicating that there is nothing else going on in the blending that might confound the results. Although the blended learning articles (Means et al. 2010) were carefully vetted, the assumption of independence is tenuous at best so that these meta-analysis studies must be interpreted with extreme caution.

There is an additional concern with blended learning as well. Blends are not equivalent because of the manner on which they are configured. For instance, a careful reading of the sources used in the Means, et al. papers will identify, at minimum, the following blending techniques: laboratory assessments, online instruction, e-mail, class web sites, computer laboratories, mapping and scaffolding tools, computer clusters, interactive presentations and e-mail, handwriting capture, evidence-based practice, electronic portfolios, learning management systems, and virtual apparatuses. These are not equivalent ways in which to configure courses, and such nonequivalence constitutes the confounding we describe. We argue here that, in actuality, blended learning is a general construct in the form of a boundary object (Star and Griesemer 1989) rather than a treatment effect in the statistical sense. That is, an idea or concept that can support a community of practice, but is weakly defined fostering disagreement in the general group. Conversely, it is stronger in individual constituencies. For instance, content disciplines (i.e. education, rhetoric, optics, mathematics, and philosophy) formulate a more precise definition because of commonly embraced teaching and learning principles. Quite simply, the situation is more complicated than that, as Leonard Smith ( 2007) says after Tolstoy,

"All linear models resemble each other, each non nonlinear system is unique in its own way" (p. 33).

This by no means invalidates these studies, but effect size associated with blended learning should be interpreted with caution where the impact is evaluated within a particular learning context.

Study objectives

This study addressed student access by examining success and withdrawal rates in the blended learning courses by comparing them to face-to-face and online modalities over an extended time period at the University of Central Florida. Further, the investigators sought to assess the differences in those success and withdrawal rates with the minority status of students. Secondly, the investigators examined the student end-of-course ratings of blended learning and other modalities by attempting to develop robust if-then decision rules about what characteristics of classes and instructors lead students to assign an "excellent" value to their educational experience. Because of the high stakes nature of these student ratings toward faculty promotion, awards, and tenure, they act as a surrogate measure for instructional quality. Next, the investigators determined the conditional probabilities for students conforming to the identified rule cross-referenced by expected grade, the degree to which they desired to take the course, and course modality.

Methods

Student grades by course modality were recoded into a binary variable with C or higher assigned a value of 1, and remaining values a 0. This was a declassification process that sacrificed some specificity but compensated for confirmation bias associated with disparate departmental policies regarding grade assignment. At the measurement level this was an "on track to graduation index" for students. Withdrawal was similarly coded by the presence or absence of its occurrence. In each case, the percentage of students succeeding or withdrawing from blended, online or face-to-face courses was calculated by minority and non-minority status for the fall 2014 through fall 2015 semesters.

Next, a classification and regression tree (CART) analysis (Brieman et al. 1984) was performed on the student end-of-course evaluation protocol ( Appendix 1). The dependent measure was a binary variable indicating whether or not a student assigned an overall rating of excellent to his or her course experience. The independent measures in the study were: the remaining eight rating items on the protocol, college membership, and course level (lower undergraduate, upper undergraduate, and graduate). Decision trees are efficient procedures for achieving effective solutions in studies such as this because with missing values imputation may be avoided with procedures such as floating methods and the surrogate formation (Brieman et al. 1984, Olshen et al. 1995). For example, a logistic regression method cannot efficiently handle all variables under consideration. There are 10 independent variables involved here; one variable has three levels, another has nine, and eight have five levels each. This means the logistic regression model must incorporate more than 50 dummy variables and an excessively large number of two-way interactions. However, the decision-tree method can perform this analysis very efficiently, permitting the investigator to consider higher order interactions. Even more importantly, decision trees represent appropriate methods in this situation because many of the variables are ordinally scaled. Although numerical values can be assigned to each category, those values are not unique. However, decision trees incorporate the ordinal component of the variables to obtain a solution. The rules derived from decision trees have an if-then structure that is readily understandable. The accuracy of these rules can be assessed with percentages of correct classification or odds-ratios that are easily understood. The procedure produces tree-like rule structures that predict outcomes.

The model-building procedure for predicting overall instructor rating

For this study, the investigators used the CART method (Brieman et al. 1984) executed with SPSS 23 (IBM Corp 2015). Because of its strong variance-sharing tendencies with the other variables, the dependent measure for the analysis was the rating on the item Overall Rating of the Instructor, with the previously mentioned indicator variables (college, course level, and the remaining 8 questions) on the instrument. Tree methods are recursive, and bisect data into subgroups called nodes or leaves. CART analysis bases itself on: data splitting, pruning, and homogeneous assessment.

Splitting the data into two (binary) subsets comprises the first stage of the process. CART continues to split the data until the frequencies in each subset are either very small or all observations in a subset belong to one category (e.g., all observations in a subset have the same rating). Usually the growing stage results in too many terminate nodes for the model to be useful. CART solves this problem using pruning methods that reduce the dimensionality of the system.

The final stage of the analysis involves assessing homogeneousness in growing and pruning the tree. One way to accomplish this is to compute the misclassification rates. For example, a rule that produces a .95 probability that an instructor will receive an excellent rating has an associated error of 5.0%.

Implications for using decision trees

Although decision-tree techniques are effective for analyzing datasets such as this, the reader should be aware of certain limitations. For example, since trees use ranks to analyze both ordinal and interval variables, information can be lost. However, the most serious weakness of decision tree analysis is that the results can be unstable because small initial variations can lead to substantially different solutions.

For this study model, these problems were addressed with the k-fold cross-validation process. Initially the dataset was partitioned randomly into 10 subsets with an approximately equal number of records in each subset. Each cohort is used as a test partition, and the remaining subsets are combined to complete the function. This produces 10 models that are all trained on different subsets of the original dataset and where each has been used as the test partition one time only.

Although computationally dense, CART was selected as the analysis model for a number of reasons- primarily because it provides easily interpretable rules that readers will be able evaluate in their particular contexts. Unlike many other multivariate procedures that are even more sensitive to initial estimates and require a good deal of statistical sophistication for interpretation, CART has an intuitive resonance with researcher consumers. The overriding objective of our choice of analysis methods was to facilitate readers' concentration on our outcomes rather than having to rely on our interpretation of the results.

Results

Institution-level evaluation: Success and withdrawal

The University of Central Florida (UCF) began a longitudinal impact study of their online and blended courses at the start of the distributed learning initiative in 1996. The collection of similar data across multiple semesters and academic years has allowed UCF to monitor trends, assess any issues that may arise, and provide continual support for both faculty and students across varying demographics. Table 1 illustrates the overall success rates in blended, online and face-to-face courses, while also reporting their variability across minority and non-minority demographics.

While success (A, B, or C grade) is not a direct reflection of learning outcomes, this overview does provide an institutional level indication of progress and possible issues of concern. BL has a slight advantage when looking at overall success and withdrawal rates. This varies by discipline and course, but generally UCF's blended modality has evolved to be the best of both worlds, providing an opportunity for optimizing face-to-face instruction through the effective use of online components. These gains hold true across minority status. Reducing on-ground time also addresses issues that impact both students and faculty such as parking and time to reach class. In addition, UCF requires faculty to go through faculty development tailored to teaching in either blended or online modalities. This 8-week faculty development course is designed to model blended learning, encouraging faculty to redesign their course and not merely consider blended learning as a means to move face-to-face instructional modules online (Cobb et al. 2012; Lowe 2013).

Withdrawal (Table 2) from classes impedes students' success and retention and can result in delayed time to degree, incurred excess credit hour fees, or lost scholarships and financial aid. Although grades are only a surrogate measure for learning, they are a strong predictor of college completion. Therefore, the impact of any new innovation on students' grades should be a component of any evaluation. Once again, the blended modality is competitive and in some cases results in lower overall withdrawal rates than either fully online or face-to-face courses.

The students' perceptions of their learning environments

Other potentially high-stakes indicators can be measured to determine the impact of an innovation such as blended learning on the academy. For instance, student satisfaction and attitudes can be measured through data collection protocols, including common student ratings, or student perception of instruction instruments. Given that those ratings often impact faculty evaluation, any negative reflection can derail the successful implementation and scaling of an innovation by disenfranchised instructors. In fact, early online and blended courses created a request by the UCF faculty senate to investigate their impact on faculty ratings as compared to face-to-face sections. The UCF Student Perception of Instruction form is released automatically online through the campus web portal near the end of each semester. Students receive a splash page with a link to each course's form. Faculty receive a scripted email that they can send to students indicating the time period that the ratings form will be available. The forms close at the beginning of finals week. Faculty receive a summary of their results following the semester end.

The instrument used for this study was developed over a ten year period by the faculty senate of the University of Central Florida, recognizing the evolution of multiple course modalities including blended learning. The process involved input from several constituencies on campus (students, faculty, administrators, instructional designers, and others), in attempt to provide useful formative and summative instructional information to the university community. The final instrument was approved by resolution of the senate and, currently, is used across the university. Students' rating of their classes and instructors comes with considerable controversy and disagreement with researchers aligning themselves on both sides of the issue. Recently, there have been a number of studies criticizing the process (Uttl et al. 2016; Boring et al. 2016; & Stark and Freishtat 2014). In spite of this discussion, a viable alternative has yet to emerge in higher education. So in the foreseeable future, the process is likely to continue. Therefore, with an implied faculty senate mandate this study was initiated by this team of researchers.

Prior to any analysis of the item responses collected in this campus-wide student sample, the psychometric quality (domain sampling) of the information yielded by the instrument was assessed. Initially, the reliability (internal consistency) was derived using coefficient alpha (Cronbach 1951). In addition, Guttman ( 1953) developed a theorem about item properties that leads to evidence about the quality of one's data, demonstrating that as the domain sampling properties of items improve, the inverse of the correlation matrix among items will approach a diagonal. Subsequently, Kaiser and Rice ( 1974) developed the measure of sampling adequacy (MSA) that is a function of the Guttman Theorem. The index has an upper bound of one with Kaiser offering some decision rules for interpreting the value of MSA. If the value of the index is in the .80 to .99 range, the investigator has evidence of an excellent domain sample. Values in the .70s signal an acceptable result, and those in the .60s indicate data that are unacceptable. Customarily, the MSA has been used for data assessment prior to the application of any dimensionality assessments. Computation of the MSA value gave the investigators a benchmark for the construct validity of the items in this study. This procedure has been recommended by Dziuban and Shirkey ( 1974) prior to any latent dimension analysis and was used with the data obtained for this study. The MSA for the current instrument was .98 suggesting excellent domain sampling properties with an associated alpha reliability coefficient of .97 suggesting superior internal consistency. The psychometric properties of the instrument were excellent with both measures.

The online student ratings form presents an electronic data set each semester. These can be merged across time to create a larger data set of completed ratings for every course across each semester. In addition, captured data includes course identification variables including prefix, number, section and semester, department, college, faculty, and class size. The overall rating of effectiveness is used most heavily by departments and faculty in comparing across courses and modalities (Table 3).

Table 3 A decision rule for the probability of faculty member receiving an overall rating of excellent (N = 58,156)

The finally derived tree (decision rules) included only three variables-survey items that asked students to rate the instructor's effectiveness at:

1. 1.
Helping students achieve course objectives,

2. 2.
Creating an environment that helps students learn, and

3. 3.
Communicating ideas and information.

None of the demographic variables associated with the courses contributed to the final model. The final rule specifies that if a student assigns an excellent rating to those three items, irrespective of their status on any other condition, the probability is .99 that an instructor will receive an overall rating of excellent. The converse is true as well. A poor rating on all three of those items will lead to a 99% chance of an instructor receiving an overall rating of poor.

Tables 4, 5 and 6 present a demonstration of the robustness of the CART rule for variables on which it was not developed: expected course grade, desire to take the course and modality.

In each case, irrespective of the marginal probabilities, those students conforming to the rule have a virtually 100% chance of seeing the course as excellent. For instance, 27% of all students expecting to fail assigned an excellent rating to their courses, but when they conformed to the rule the percentage rose to 97%. The same finding is true when students were asked about their desire to take the course with those who strongly disagreed assigning excellent ratings to their courses 26% of the time. However, for those conforming to the rule, that category rose to 92%. When course modality is considered in the marginal sense, blended learning is rated as the preferred choice. However, from Table 6 we can observe that the rule equates student assessment of their learning experiences. If they conform to the rule, they will see excellence.

Conclusion

This study addressed increasingly important issues of student success, withdrawal and perception of the learning environment across multiple course modalities. Arguably these components form the crux of how we will make more effective decisions about how blended learning configures itself in the new normal. The results reported here indicate that blending maintains or increases access for most student cohorts and produces improved success rates for minority and non-minority students alike. In addition, when students express their beliefs about the effectiveness of their learning environments, blended learning enjoys the number one rank. However, upon more thorough analysis of key elements students view as important in their learning, external and demographic variables have minimal impact on those decisions. For example college (i.e. discipline) membership, course level or modality, expected grade or desire to take a particular course have little to do with their course ratings. The characteristics they view as important relate to clear establishment and progress toward course objectives, creating an effective learning environment and the instructors' effective communication. If in their view those three elements of a course are satisfied they are virtually guaranteed to evaluate their educational experience as excellent irrespective of most other considerations. While end of course rating protocols are summative the three components have clear formative characteristics in that each one is directly related to effective pedagogy and is responsive to faculty development through units such as the faculty center for teaching and learning. We view these results as encouraging because they offer potential for improving the teaching and learning process in an educational environment that increases the pressure to become more responsive to contemporary student lifestyles.

Discussion

Clearly, in this study we are dealing with complex adaptive systems that feature the emergent property. That is, their primary agents and their interactions comprise an environment that is more than the linear combination of their individual elements. Blending learning, by interacting with almost every aspect of higher education, provides opportunities and challenges that we are not able to fully anticipate.

This pedagogy alters many assumptions about the most effective way to support the educational environment. For instance, blending, like its counterpart active learning, is a personal and individual phenomenon experienced by students. Therefore, it should not be surprising that much of what we have called blended learning is, in reality, blended teaching that reflects pedagogical arrangements. Actually, the best we can do for assessing impact is to use surrogate measures such as success, grades, results of assessment protocols, and student testimony about their learning experiences. Whether or not such devices are valid indicators remains to be determined. We may be well served, however, by changing our mode of inquiry to blended teaching.

Additionally, as Norberg ( 2017) points out, blended learning is not new. The modality dates back, at least, to the medieval period when the technology of textbooks was introduced into the classroom where, traditionally, the professor read to the students from the only existing manuscript. Certainly, like modern technologies, books were disruptive because they altered the teaching and learning paradigm. Blended learning might be considered what Johnson describes as a slow hunch (2010). That is, an idea that evolved over a long period of time, achieving what Kaufmann ( 2000) describes as the adjacent possible - a realistic next step occurring in many iterations.

The search for a definition for blended learning has been productive, challenging, and, at times, daunting. The definitional continuum is constrained by Oliver and Trigwell ( 2005) castigation of the concept for its imprecise vagueness to Sharpe et al.'s ( 2006) notion that its definitional latitude enhances contextual relevance. Both extremes alter boundaries such as time, place, presence, learning hierarchies, and space. The disagreement leads us to conclude that Lakoff's ( 2012) idealized cognitive models i.e. arbitrarily derived concepts (of which blended learning might be one) are necessary if we are to function effectively. However, the strong possibility exists that blended learning, like quality, is observer dependent and may not exist outside of our perceptions of the concept. This, of course, circles back to the problem of assuming that blending is a treatment effect for point hypothesis testing and meta-analysis.

Ultimately, in this article, we have tried to consider theoretical concepts and empirical findings about blended learning and their relationship to the new normal as it evolves. Unfortunately, like unresolved chaotic solutions, we cannot be sure that there is an attractor or that it will be the new normal. That being said, it seems clear that blended learning is the harbinger of substantial change in higher education and will become equally impactful in K-12 schooling and industrial training. Blended learning, because of its flexibility, allows us to maximize many positive education functions. If Floridi ( 2014) is correct and we are about to live in an environment where we are on the communication loop rather than in it, our educational future is about to change. However, if our results are correct and not over fit to the University of Central Florida and our theoretical speculations have some validity, the future of blended learning should encourage us about the coming changes.

References

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the contributions of several investigators and course developers from the Center for Distributed Learning at the University of Central Florida, the McKay School of Education at Brigham Young University, and Scholars at Umea University, Sweden. These professionals contributed theoretical and practical ideas to this research project and carefully reviewed earlier versions of this manuscript. The Authors gratefully acknowledge their support and assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

1. University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA

Charles Dziuban, Patsy D. Moskal & Nicole Sicilia

2. Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA

Charles R. Graham

3. Campus Skellefteå, Skellefteå, Sweden

Anders Norberg

Contributions

The Authors of this article are listed in alphabetical order indicating equal contribution to this article. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Patsy D. Moskal.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Student Perception of Instruction

Instructions: Please answer each question based on your current class experience. You can provide additional information where indicated.

All responses are anonymous. Responses to these questions are important to help improve the course and how it is taught. Results may be used in personnel decisions. The results will be shared with the instructor after the semester is over.

Please rate the instructor's effectiveness in the following areas:

1. 10.
What did you like best about the course and/or how the instructor taught it?

2. 11.
What suggestions do you have for improving the course and/or how the instructor taught it?

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Dziuban, C., Graham, C.R., Moskal, P.D. et al. Blended learning: the new normal and emerging technologies. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 15, 3 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0087-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0087-5

Keywords

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Blended learning: the new normal and emerging technologies - International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education

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This study addressed several outcomes, implications, and possible future directions for blended learning (BL) in higher education in a world where information communication technologies (ICTs) increasingly communicate with each other. In considering effectiveness, the authors contend that BL coalesces around access, success, and students' perception of their learning environments.

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Seven ways to give better feedback to learners

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Seven ways to give better feedback to learners

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Feedback can be a difficult business. When it is used in the right way, it can be one of the most effective strategies to improve learning, according to The Sutton Trust. But research also suggests that, if handled badly, it can do more harm than good.

We all want our feedback to be encouraging and constructive, yet it can be misinterpreted as judgement and criticism. So how you save yourself - and your students - from potentially damaging comments?

When a student has repeatedly struggled, it is tempting - and natural - to want to heap lots of praise on them when they achieve some level of success, no matter how small it is. But this can actually do more harm than good. For starters, insincere praise is easy to detect and can be massively off-putting. What's more, too much praise can convey a sense of low expectation and, as a result, can be demotivating.

Teenagers care a lot about what their peers think of them. Constructive feedback given in front of others, even if it is well-intended, can be read as a public attack on them and their ability. This can lead to students developing a fear of failure and putting up a front.

One way to overcome this is what author Doug Lemov calls private individual correction. This limits the attention drawn to the feedback while getting the message across clearly. This is similar to the technique he calls the whisper correction - the feedback technically takes place in public, but the pitch and tone of voice is designed to be heard only by the individual receiving it.

It is far better to focus your feedback on a student's individual development and improvement rather than comparing them to their classmates (or anyone else, for that matter). A recent study found that being positively compared to others can lead to narcissistic behaviour. This sort of comparison can also reduce motivation and result in lower confidence, emotional control, academic performance and increased anxiety.

When we say something is "good", we often assume that people will know exactly what about it was good. This is not always the case - especially when you're talking to teenagers, who, as a result of their brain restructuring, can find it harder to understand other people's perspectives and thought processes. The more detailed and specific your feedback is, the better, to remove any ambiguity. Rather than "good work", say "The way you did X was really good."

Praising effort instead of intelligence increases intrinsic motivation and provides a template for students to follow next time. Researchers have found that the type of praise children receive drives the type of feedback they seek out themselves. In this study, 86% of children who had been praised for their natural ability asked for information about how their peers did on the same task. Only 23% of children who had been praised for effort asked for this type of feedback, with the vast majority of them asking for feedback about how they could do better.

The problem with closed questions - "Were you nervous before the exam?" - is that if the answer is no, the conversation can grind to a halt. You may find out that the student wasn't nervous, but you won't find out what they were actually feeling (sad, angry, not bothered, tired and so on). Open questions - "How were you feeling in the morning of the exam?" - encourage pupils to tell their stories and develop ownership of the situation.

But you should aim for a combination of open and closed questions in your feedback, along with statements. Closed statements are useful for conveying key information and keeping the conversation focused.

This is one of the key points from the What Makes Great Teaching report. Any feedback that doesn't lead to a change in behaviour change is redundant - there must be a point to it. What do you want them to do differently? What are they going to do after the conversation to improve? The more detailed and specific the action points, the better.
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# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Seven ways to give better feedback to your students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Feedback can be a difficult business. When it is used in the right way, it can be one of the most effective strategies to improve learning, according to The Sutton Trust. But research also suggests that, if handled badly, it can do more harm than good.

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Claire Collins Consultancy web page link.

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‘It could be that immediate feedback negates the need for memorisation".

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‘It could be that immediate feedback negates the need for memorisation".

# data[].attributes.body
David Didau

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I'm not an especially good driver, but I'm a truly terrible navigator. This used to mean that I would get lost. A lot. When I first moved to Bristol in 2001 I bought an A-Z of the city and when driving somewhere new I would have to stop the car periodically and try to align the map to the streets around me. Needless to say, I found this pretty stressful. Luckily, I'm a lot better at recognising landmarks than I am at reading maps. Slowly, through a process of trial and error, I started to learn how to find my way around. I've got to the point where I know the city fairly well.

Then, a few years ago I bought a SatNav. It was a boon. For the first time in my life I could set out on a journey with a fair degree of confidence that I would be able to make it to a new destination without getting horribly lost. I felt so happy following my arrow-shaped avatar along the purple path unfolding before me.

As you know, SatNavs are not perfect. Sometimes they suggest bizarre routes and sometimes they seem to freeze just when you need them most. I hate those moments of uncertainty; that helplessness as I flounder without the feedback I have become so accustomed to. The relief when the arrow pops back is palpable. Even when I make a mistake I can stay calm; the SatNav simply reroutes or points me back the way I came. I can safely say that my experience of driving has been revolutionised. SatNavs are just about perfect at giving feedback.

But I don't learn any new routes. Why is that?

John Hattie says the following:

Effective feedback must answer three major questions asked by a teacher and/or by a student: Where am I going? (What are the goals?), How am I going? (What progress is being made toward the goal?), and Where to next? (What activities need to be undertaken to make better progress?) These questions correspond to notions of feed up, feed back, and feed forward. How effectively answers to these questions serve to reduce the gap is partly dependent on the level at which the feedback operates.

Well, my SatNav answers these questions very effectively; the gap has been reduced, but I still don't learn. The problem is I get too much feedback. I know where I am, where I'm going and what I need to do next all the time. I never have to struggle. And because I never struggle, I never learn. My contention is that this is a situation enacted all too often in schools. In our well-intentioned efforts to let pupils know exactly what they should be doing next we might be short-circuiting learning.

Simply providing more feedback is not the answer, because it is necessary to consider the nature of the feedback, the timing, and how the student 'receives' this feedback (or, better, actively seeks the feedback.)

Empirical evidence suggests that delaying, reducing, and summarizing feedback can be better for long-term learning than providing immediate, trial-by-trial feedback... Numerous studies-some of them dating back decades-have shown that frequent and immediate feedback can, contrary to intuition, degrade learning.

UPDATE

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The problem with SatNavs, or how feedback can impede learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I'm not an especially good driver, but I'm a truly terrible navigator. This used to mean that I would get lost. A lot. When I first moved to Bristol in 2001 I bought an A-Z of the city and when driving somewhere new I would have to stop the car periodically and try to align the map to the streets around me.

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Retention and Success in Maths and English

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Retention and Success in Maths and English

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Research into developing reading with boys

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Research into developing reading with boys

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The_Influence_of_Font_Type_on_Information_Recall

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The Reading Speed of Elementary School Students on the All Text Written with Capital and Lowercase Letters

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Neural processing of lower- and upper-case text in second language learners of English: an fMRI study (2018)