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Videos supporting the WalkThrus Professional Development Packs

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The Centre for Research in Autism and Education

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Homepage - The Centre for Research in Autism and Education

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Research to enhance the lives of autistic people

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‎School Behaviour Secrets with Simon Currigan and Emma Shackleton on Apple Podcasts

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‎School Behaviour Secrets with Simon Currigan and Emma Shackleton on Apple Podcasts

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Transition from year 6 to 7 is always a challenging time for students, but ...

Schools can play a crucial role helping to end the culture of sexual harassment ...

Several trends are emerging from the concerns that school leaders have about ...

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Transition from year 6 to 7 is always a challenging time for students, but ... Schools can play a crucial role helping to end the culture of sexual harassment ... Several trends are emerging from the concerns that school leaders have about ...

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Opinion | A new autism diagnostic aid leaves me conflicted as a scientist and a mom

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Breakthroughs in the science of autism are welcome after decades of stumbling in the dark, but perhaps a little not knowing is the best thing for children and parents.

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Moving from ‘differentiation’ to ‘adaptive teaching’

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What does adaptive teaching mean for Education South West?

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From introducing complex vocabulary to applying cognitive science, books can help teachers improve their practice. Photograph: Alamy

Plato's Republic, Rousseau's Émile and Dewey's Democracy and Education - there's a strong case to be made, as Dennis Hayes has, that these are the only books on education that teachers need to read. But if I was about to enter the classroom as a teacher for the first time or was looking to improve my practice, I would probably want to read something with more practical advice on what I should be doing and, more importantly, on what I shouldn't.
Professor McGonagall or Dewey Finn: which movie teacher are you?
Much of what happens in a classroom is highly variable and hard to define, but over the last 10 years a wealth of books has sought to draw together evidence from other fields and provide a series of "best bets" on what might have the greatest impact on student learning. Here are just a few of them.

Understanding is remembering in disguise

In this eminently readable book, Willingham takes findings from cognitive science and applies them to the classroom in a straightforward and practical way. A central claim in this book is that while we are naturally curious, we are not naturally good at thinking and can only truly think about things we know. It also contains one of the best lines ever to feature in a book on education: "Memory is the residue of thought."

Learning requires motivation, but motivation does not necessarily lead to learning

For Nuthall, three worlds exist in the classroom. First, the public world that is largely managed by the teacher and features easily-visible lesson activities and routines. Second, there is the "semi-private world of ongoing peer relationships" in which students foster and maintain social roles in the classroom. Last, there is the private world of the student's own mind where learning actually takes. This book peels back the layers of those worlds and reveals many surprising findings.

In a true democracy all citizens share responsibility for their community

As a general model of what should happen in schools, this book has it all. Drawing on the classical triumvirate of grammar (knowledge), dialectic (questioning and debate) and rhetoric (expression), Robinson offers a model of education he wishes to see for his daughter and that seeks to draw on the past to anticipate an uncertain future.

The first fundamental principle of effective classroom feedback is that feedback should be more work for the recipient than the donor

Formative assessment is probably the most influential idea in schools today, and possibly the most misunderstood. In this book, the architect of formative assessment sets out the core principles of effective assessment but crucially applies them to the classroom with highly practical examples based on years of research in the field.

If you only teach pupils using the knowledge they bring to the classroom, then you will reproduce educational inequalities

In this brief but explosive book, Christodoulou challenges several orthodoxies in education such as prioritising skills over knowledge, the claim that teacher-led instruction is passive, and why you can't just look it up on Google. Whether or not you agree with everything in this book, every teacher should at least be acquainted with its arguments.

Knowing what to do matters more than knowing what your level is

First published in 2009, Hattie's original book of alchemy, Visible Learning, attempted to illuminate the dark arts of pedagogy through the meta-analysis of hundreds of studies. In this book, Hattie teams up with cognitive psychologist Gregory Yates to provide another highly practical overview of how lessons from cognitive science can be useful in a range of different contexts. An indispensable reference guide for busy teachers.
Bringing Words to Life by Isabel L Beck, Margaret G McKeown and Linda Kucan

It is not the case that one either knows or does not know a word

Simply the best book on teaching vocabulary. The authors offer a three-tier model: tier one words are those that rarely require instruction such as "dog" or "run", tier two consists of words that have "high utility for mature language users" such as "contradict" or "precede", and tier three words are domain specific such as "pantheon" or "epidermis". Tier two words are of vital importance to children's development and this book provides sage advice on how to expand that vital range, along with a range of different approaches to broaden children's vocabulary.
Make It Stick by Peter C Brown, Henry L Roediger and Mark A McDaniel

Learning is deeper and more durable when it's effortful. Learning that's easy is like writing in sand, here today and gone tomorrow

One of the more concrete findings from cognitive science is that many of the things that engender effective learning are highly counterintuitive. For example, many students will re-read and highlight material leading up to a test, something which the authors of this book show is little more than colouring in. Far more effective are practices such as interleaving, spaced learning and retrieval practice, which are expertly outlined in this easily accessible book.

It is our prior knowledge and experience that determines how we see the world

Do students really have different learning styles? Do they actually learn better if they discover things for themselves? Do we only use 10% of our brains? Do we need to know facts in an age of Google? If you've ever asked questions like these, then this book is for you. The authors draw on a huge body of evidence to address many common classroom myths that we could all do without.
Seven tips for supporting high performers at school

Thinking skills cannot readily be separated from one subject matter and applied to other subject matters

This important book argues that while students have been taught how to read, they have not been taught what to read and that cultural literacy matters far more than vague notions of 21st century skills. In short, what's needed is a more serious look at the curriculum and a greater focus on what we are teaching instead of how we teach it.
Teacher Network

In the last decade, a wealth of books has brought together ideas to help teachers have the greatest impact on student learning. Here are just a few

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Plato's Republic, Rousseau's Émile and Dewey's Democracy and Education - there's a strong case to be made, as Dennis Hayes has, that these are the only books on education that teachers need to read.

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What should great scaffolding look like?

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Every teacher will use scaffolding in the classroom, but often we rely on the same approaches again and again, says Rachel Ball as she explains her new method

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Heads up with Sam Strickland Heads Up is a series of professional learning 'events' to support and deepen thinking for school leaders. The events were originally face to face and have evolved to include virtual sessions. During 2022/23, there will be three free Heads Up events: one per term.

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It's a fact that Christmas can be difficult for autistic people. This is nothing to do with not wanting to celebrate, or not wanting to get presents, or not liking (stimmy!) Christmas lights. It's because an autistic person's idea of what constitutes fun may be different to yours if you aren't autistic. And that's difficult when your idea of fun is seen as 'tradition' and what 'must' happen at Christmas. I'm going to be asking you to open your mind to the possibility that Christmas can be different, and that's perfectly OK.

I love Christmas. But I will be honest with you, the Christmas experience I have now is very different to the Christmas experience I had 10 or 20 or even 40 years ago. And that's fine, because it's the Christmas experience we have figured out works best for us as a neurodivergent family. We are lucky that we have a lovely and understanding extended family too, who don't put pressure on us to conform to a stereotypical idea of what Christmas should look like.

When thinking about Christmas for your neurodivergent family, there's no SHOULD involved. And your ideal day/week might very well look quite different to that of another neurodivergent family. And that's OK.

Why can Christmas be difficult for autistic people?

Christmas in Western society is considered to be a very special time, a national holiday with huge expectations round it, and definitely happy families spending time together. But the image of Christmas we have today, of bulging sacks and stockings and a huge roast dinner on the table, has only relatively recently become the default, and lots of countries have quite different traditions too. This social expectation can feel quite false and performative to neurodivergent people. Why is this the way it 'should' be? Who said so?

Christmas brings change, and for autistic people, uncertainty = anxiety. This is especially true of autistic children and young people who aren't involved in the planning at home or at school. While there may be Christmas traditions that your children learn, life in general is all a huge change from December onwards - different activities in schools (including pressurising and demanding activities such as school concerts or nativity plays), Christmas music and completely different aisles of goods in shops, and people making demands about gift decisions.

Christmas presents themselves bring uncertainty. What is under that wrapping? Will you like it? Will you be expected to perform the social function of pretending you like it when you honestly don't care about it at all? Magnify this for a whole sack or stocking of presents. Not all children will feel like this, but if your child wants to decide exactly what they want for Christmas, don't insist on surprises. The surprises are for your benefit, not theirs. Don't make, or allow someone else to make your child unwrap presents with a whole room of eyes on them - that's a very uncomfortable experience. And some children (or adults come to that) do better with presents not wrapped at all or with a small hole in the wrapping so they can get an idea of what it is.

Christmas dinner is another big change, and there is often huge pressure to sit at the table for longer than usual (if it's usual in your house) with extra people and different food to normal. Parents might also feel pressured to make it a special dinner, and for it to be perfect. There's an expectation that Christmas dinner edibles can be chosen from a very limited checklist of roast dinner and puddings. But autistic people might hate Christmas dinner, or the pressure of it might be just too much on top of everything else that's different on Christmas Day. Add crackers and hats and other sensory nightmares, and Christmas dinner might not be the special occasion for your child that you want it to be - it stands out for all the wrong reasons. Do everyone a favour - be open to the idea of pizza for Christmas Day if that's what your child wants. You don't have to eat it, but nobody is harmed by them eating it, without comment or judgement.

Which brings me to the elephant in the room - extended family. This is going to be different for everyone. We all have our family traditions, but at Christmas they often involve sitting down at a table with people you might not eat with very often. Those people may not be as understanding as you about your family's neurodiverse needs. They may have expectations about behaviour and traditions which don't fit so well with you anymore and which may cause your child to have a miserable day. If this is the case, try to educate and explain beforehand, but don't be afraid to put your own little family first.

How can you help?

Talk it over with your child. Try to find out whether they love or loathe Christmas, and why.

If you can discover triggers, you can change things so they don't occur. These could be anything from opening presents or having dinner with distant relatives, sitting at the dinner table hearing people eat or long hours expected to socialise with extended family because it's a 'special' day. They may wish fervently that it was a 'normal' day! But they may not, so personalisation is key here.

Try not to go overboard with surprises. As with everything else, prepare your child for what's going to be happening.

Don't overstay a welcome and ask your guests not to do so either. Better to have a fun few hours rather than a miserable many hours.

Build in chill time either side of the big day. It's going to be exhausting.

Don't make a fuss if your child or family member wants to spend time on their own in their room. This may be necessary to avoid overwhelm.

Don't put the weight of your - or anyone else's - expectations about Christmas on your autistic family member's shoulders. This should be fun - whatever someone's idea of fun is. And have a lovely Christmas - however you want it.

Cathy Wassell is CEO of Autistic Girls Network, author, Masters student and proud parent of a fully neurodivergent family.

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An Autistic Friendly Christmas - Autistic Girls Network

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It's a fact that Christmas can be difficult for autistic people. This is nothing to do with not wanting to celebrate, or not wanting to get presents, or not liking (stimmy!) Christmas lights. It's because an autistic person's idea of what constitutes fun may be different to yours if you aren't autistic.

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A weekly podcast to inspire and motivate teachers in the exciting first few years of their careers. Every week an expert guest will answer a central question to support new teachers to be the best version of themselves in the classroom.

A weekly podcast to inspire and motivate teachers in the exciting first few years of their careers. Every week an expert guest will answer a central question to support new teachers to be the best version of themselves in the classroom.

Fantastic! Clear, pragmatic, actionable advice from knowledgeable interesting guests

I am currently a PGCE student in science, undergoing a career change from 25 years in cognitive neuroscience, so I am interested in applying the theoretical knowledge, that I've previously deployed in a different context, now to teaching. So, I've been looking for a podcast that has clear guidance for new teachers. The teachers I've learned from most so far are those that embody the pedagogical principles that they're teaching: not only do they teach the content, but they demonstrate these very principles by the way they teach how to teach. In this podcast, I've seen a similar approach, whereby the interviewer periodically clarifies and summarises the points elaborated more at length by the guest. These are great pedagogical principles in action, and they greatly ease access to the material, and thereby demonstrate how effective these techniques can be in the classroom. I'm really grateful to you for these episodes, and hope there are many more to come, since I've already listened to all of them now, twice! Great job, and thank you!

Would 100% recommend.

I've listened to all the episodes and they've become somewhat of gospel to my NQT self.

Thank you Jamie (and guests) for the podcast. Very very VERY useful advice!

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beyond survival: the new teacher podcast

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‎Beyond Survival: The New Teacher Podcast on Apple Podcasts

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A weekly podcast to inspire and motivate teachers in the exciting first few years of their careers. Every week an expert guest will answer a central question to support new teachers to be the best version of themselves in the classroom.

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Welcome to Tips for Teachers - the site that helps you supercharge your teaching one idea at a time.

There are over 100 tips below, each available in audio and video.

But the fun does not stop there. You can also:

1. Order my Tips for Teachers book

2. Access on-demand or face-to-face Tips for Teachers CPD

3. Sign up for the free Tips for Teachers newsletter

4. Become a Patreon to get lots of lovely goodies

I really hope you find this site useful

Tips for Teachers - Top 5s

These collections of tips are all taken from my Tips for Teachers book

Habits and routines

1. Build habits, not one-off things - Harry Fletcher-Wood - audio - video

2. Willpower is overrated - Peps McCrea - video

3. Consistency before challenge - Peps McCrea - video

4. Be aware of the Valley of Latent Potential - Craig Barton - video

5. Don't just describe a routine, justify it - Craig Barton - video

6. Don't just introduce a routine, retrieve it - Craig Barton - video

7. Teach students what to do when they are stuck - Tom Bennett - audio - video

8. Beware the distraction addiction - Jamie Thom - audio - video

9. Interruptions leave a wake - Peps McCrea - video

Behaviour and relationships

1. Validate introverts - Jamie Thom - audio - video

2. Three reflections on behaviour in schools - Ollie Lovell and Craig Barton - video

3. Teach behaviour lesson one - Femi Adeniran - audio - video

4. Use the school behaviour policy - Tom Bennett - audio - video

5. Use non-verbal gestures for better behaviour management - Mark Roberts - audio - video

6. Students need to know you are in charge of the classroom - Tom Bennett - audio - video

7. Be clear and follow through - Charlie Burkitt - audio - video

8. Think creatively when attempting to improve engagement/performance of boys - Jon Mumford - audio - video

9. Enjoy the kids' company - Charlie Burkitt - audio - video

10. To develop resilience you need both high challenge and high support - Bradley Busch - audio - video

11. Teach students how to behave in a supply or cover lesson - Tom Bennett - audio - video

12. Teach students how to have the right equipment - Tom Bennett - audio - video

13. Make detention work fit the crime - Dylan Wiliam - audio - video

14. Ban mobile phones - Bradley Busch - audio - video

15. Some behaviours are more important than others - Kieran Mackle - audio - video

The means of participation

Checking for understanding

1. Be aware of student bias - Sarah Donarski - audio - video

2. Three reasons students don't know the answer - Ollie Lovell and Craig Barton - video

3. Check for understanding - Ollie Lovell - audio - video

4. Always build from what they know - Sarah Cottingham - audio - video

5. Always check for understanding - Clare Sealy - audio - video

6. No hints before a check for understanding - Ollie Lovell + Craig Barton - video

7. Planning the checks for understanding - Craig Latimir - video

8. Ask a question at the end of every lesson that every student should be able to get right - Daisy Christodoulou - audio - video

9. Planning the end of a lesson - Craig Latimir - video

10. Consider lengthening wait times to maximise retrieval - Bradley Busch - audio - video

11. How to ensure questioning involves all pupils - Jade Pearce - audio - video

12. The Tick Trick - Ollie Lovell and Craig Barton - video

13. Ask students to make a pre-topic mind map - Alex Quigley - audio - video

14. Use talk cubes to encourage students to contribute - Emma Turner - audio - video

15. Start with whoever got 8 out of 10 - Tom Sherrington - audio - video

16. Use Post-it notes to find out what they don't understand - Mark Roberts - audio - video

17. Play "Just a minute!" - Alex Quigley - audio - video

18. Provide explicit scaffolds for verbal responses - Tom Sherrington - audio - video

19. Pick the student least likely to know - Sammy Kempner - audio - video

20. Foster cross-class accountability - Tom Sherrington - audio - video

21. Trick your students to test if they really understand - Sammy Kempner - audio - video

22. Depressurise learning - Chris Such - audio - video

Responsive teaching

1. Don't forget the "respond" part of responsive teaching - Jo Morgan - audio - video

2. Planning responsive teaching - Craig Latimir - video

3. Modify your lessons as you go - Jake Gordon - audio - video

4. Responsive teaching: what to do when some students understand, and some don't - Craig Barton - video

5. Don't let "Don't know" be the end of the conversation - Dylan Wiliam - audio - video

6. End every conversation with the student saying something smart - Michael Pershan - audio - video

7. Rephrase to amaze - Mark Roberts - audio - video

8. Diagnostic Questions - the perfect exit ticket? - Craig Barton - video

9. How to design good multiple-choice questions - Kate Jones - audio - video

10. Share photos of students' work - Jake Gordon - audio - video

Planning lessons

1. The crucial role of curriculum - Ollie Lovell + Craig Barton - video

2. Lesson planning mistakes - Craig Latimir - video

3. Lesson planning principles - Craig Latimir - video

4. The first thing to think about - Craig Latimir - video

5. Make question planning part of lesson planning - Dylan Wiliam - audio - video

6. Focus on explanations, not resources - Femi Adeniran - audio - video

7. Plan sequences not lessons - Jemma Sherwood - audio - video

8. Backwards plan. ALWAYS backwards plan! - Ollie Lovell - audio - video

9. Be super clear about what you want children to learn - Clare Sealy - audio - video

10. Do less, but better - Harry Fletcher-Wood - audio - video

11. We should all be focussing on doing fewer things and greater depth - Mary Myatt - audio - video

12. Review every lesson plan in terms of what the student is thinking about - Daisy Christodoulou - audio - video

13. Plan for error - Emma Turner - audio - video

14. Take a low effort, high impact approach to task and question design - Kate Jones - audio - video

15. Teach what you mean to teach - Jemma Sherwood - audio - video

16. Focus on the concepts and the Big Ideas in our curriculum - Mary Myatt - audio - video

17. Learning doesn't start in Year 7 - Craig Latimir - audio - video

Examples and modelling

1. Beware the curse of knowledge - Sarah Cottingham - audio - video

2. Set out the big picture - Tom Sherrington - audio - video

3. We know more and remember more when we've heard it in a story - Mary Myatt - audio - video

4. Planning the exposition - Craig Latimir - video

5. Planning the modelling - Craig Latimir - video

6. Mind your modes - Peps McCrea - video

7. Question, don't tell - Sammy Kempner - audio - video

8. Use explicit instruction for novice learners - Jade Pearce - audio - video

9. Model techniques live - Jo Morgan - audio - video

10. Try teaching from anywhere in the room - Jake Gordon - audio - video

11. Begin your explanations as a series of questions that everyone can answer - Michael Pershan - audio - video

12. Use, where possible, dialogic teaching - Sarah Donarski - audio - video

13. Encourage students to say "stop!" if they are confused during an explanation - Emma Turner - audio - video

14. Avoid the Split-Attention Effect during worked examples - Craig Barton - video

15. What you say matters - Jemma Sherwood - audio - video

16. What you don't say matters - Jemma Sherwood - audio - video

17. Don't ask students to listen and read simultaneously - Craig Barton - video

18. Explicitly teach the skills an expert in your domain uses - Craig Latimir - audio - video

19. Use visual aids, including props and online tools to bring explanations alive - Jo Morgan - audio - video

20. Reduce clutter from everything students see and hear - Jake Gordon - audio - video

21. Beware of seductive details - Craig Barton - video

22. Use examples, not definitions, when teaching & assessing - Daisy Christodoulou - audio - video

23. Get used to asking "what if" after explaining something - Michael Pershan - audio - video

24. Provoke curiosity in our students - Mary Myatt - audio - video

25. Use related examples and non-examples to explain a concept - Craig Barton - video

26. Further thoughts on the Myth of Copying Things Down - Ollie Lovell and Craig Barton - video

27. Hone your public speaking - Jamie Thom - audio - video

28. Feign enthusiasm when necessary - Chris Such - audio - video

Student practice

1. Planning the practice phase - Craig Latimir - video

2. Teach in small chunks and fool kids into doing lots of work initially - Femi Adeniran - audio - video

3. Make sure students know whether they are right or wrong, and don't wait until it's too late - Jo Morgan - audio - video

4. Provide answers so pupils can check their work in real-time - Femi Adeniran - audio - video

5. Set occasional open-response tasks - Tom Sherrington - audio - video

6. Two frameworks for learner-generated examples - Craig Barton - video

7. Use SSDD Problems to improve students' practice - Craig Barton - video

8. How to help students avoid "silly" mistakes - Craig Barton - video

Memory and retrieval

Data and assessment

1. To make good use of data, compare to other subjects - Adam Boxer - audio - video

2. Know how to effectively assess - Sarah Donarski - audio - video

3. Stop talking about grades - Mark Roberts - audio - video

Homework

1. To make homework more effective, integrate it with classwork - Adam Boxer - audio - video

2. My favourite homework activity - Craig Barton - video

3. Rebrand homework as practice - David Goodwin - audio - video

Marking and feedback

Improving as a teacher

Observations and coaching

1. How to observe a lesson - Adam Boxer - audio - video

2. How to give a colleague feedback - Adam Boxer - audio - video

3. Diagnosis in coaching - Ollie Lovell and Craig Barton - video

4. Develop competing hypotheses when observing teaching and learning - Ollie Lovell and Craig Barton - video

Leadership and culture

Health and well-being

1. Maintain perspective - Harry Fletcher-Wood - audio - video

2. Remember the tortoise and the hare - Jamie Thom - audio - video

3. Tackle the negativity radio - Jamie Thom - audio - video

4. How to get better sleep - Ollie Lovell and Craig Barton - video

5. The secret to a happy life - Craig Latimir - audio - video

6. End the day on a positive - Ollie Lovell and Craig Barton - video

Maths, Maths, Maths!

1. Use the same questions, with different numbers - Sammy Kempner - audio - video

2. Use calculators with students from the earliest opportunity - Jo Morgan - audio - video

3. The power of a slideshow for teaching mathematics - Ollie Lovell and Craig Barton - video

4. Doing maths is not the same as teaching maths - Jemma Sherwood - audio - video

5. Practice, practice, practice...not until you can get it right but until you cannot get it wrong - Julia Smith - audio - video

6. It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it...and that's what gets results - Julia Smith - audio - video

7. Fluency in the four operations is a cornerstone of developing mathematical understanding - Julia Smith - audio - video

8. How to deal with students who say they hate maths or are no good at maths - Julia Smith - audio - video

Reading, literacy and oracy

Micro-tips

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All the Tips for Teachers from the videos and podcasts in one place. Click on a tip to hear the podcast / watch the video!

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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Tom Sherrington and Emma Turner, internationally-recognized education authors, have a lot on their minds. From effective teaching practices to professional development that makes an impact, they know the techniques that work, those that don’t, and the gaps that exist in education systems, within and…

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Effective scaffolding

Scaffolding was put up on the side of my house just before the start of the pandemic, staying there for months while much of the country locked down (requiring daily reminders to my son not to climb up it). The scaffolding ended up being in place far longer than it should have been.

Likewise, in my Year 11 teaching last term, I found myself over-supporting a pupil with Developmental Language Disorder.

I provided an additional scaffold for extended writing tasks, without thinking enough about how to remove the support as and when it was no longer needed. While I was taking a completed writing frame to his desk, and assisting him like this throughout the year, I should have considered the steps towards independence, appropriate to his learning needs and to the progress he was making.

This might have meant giving him a partially completed writing frame, or asking him good questions so that he could complete it himself. Such an approach can increase the challenge for him and gives him the clear message that his need for additional support had reduced over time.

The point of scaffolding - whether on a house or in a classroom - is that it provides the support required, which is then removed when no longer needed. For teachers, how and when we remove our classroom scaffolds is a vital part of effective practice for pupils.

What does the EEF define as ​'scaffolding'?

The EEF defines scaffolding as ​'a metaphor for temporary support that is removed when it is no longer required', providing ​'enough support so that pupils can successfully complete tasks that they could not yet do independently'.

Rather than requiring teachers to be creating different worksheets for pupils with different needs, scaffolding can be a term used to describe:

- A visual scaffold, such as a task planner.
- A verbal scaffold, such as a teacher correcting a misconception at a pupil's desk.
- A written scaffold, such as a writing frame.

This scaffolding tool from the EEF can help teachers to consider what effective scaffolding looks like and what it might mean for them in their classroom. It can support teachers to consider when and how scaffolds might be implemented for everyone, becoming a fundamental part of high-quality teaching, rather than an add-on.

Teacher workload

With a shift to adaptive teaching within the Early Career Framework, notions of teachers planning three different lessons, each with their own resources, for pupils with different needs have rightly been challenged. This unnecessary burden on teacher workload can be harmful to teachers' wellbeing and - at worst - can cap expectations of pupils.

Using appropriate scaffolds can work well as a key facet of ​'adaptive teaching'. Scaffolds can often be created live, or become embedded within planning rather than feeling like an ​'add-on'.

In terms of the impact on teacher workload, it is more manageable to think of scaffolding as a verbal reteach, or a visual provided at the whole-class level, rather than always requiring additional planning and resourcing.

Scaffolding is more than just a worksheet. It is already part of most teachers' practice - or can be relatively easily added. In harnessing the full power of this strategy, we can consider the range of scaffolds available and ask ourselves questions around how we reduce them. With these tweaks, we can bring our adaptive teaching practice closer to the evidence around what works for all pupils, including those with SEND.

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effective scaffolding  scaffolding was put up on the side of my house just before the start of the pandemic

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staying there for months while much of the country locked down (requiring daily reminders to my son not to climb up it). the scaffolding ended up being in place far longer than it should have been.  likewise

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i found myself over-supporting a pupil with developmental language disorder. i provided an additional scaffold for extended writing tasks

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without thinking enough about how to remove the support as and when it was no longer needed. while i was taking a completed writing frame to his desk

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and assisting him like this throughout the year

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i should have considered the steps towards independence

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appropriate to his learning needs and to the progress he was making.  this might have meant giving him a partially completed writing frame

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or asking him good questions so that he could complete it himself. such an approach can increase the challenge for him and gives him the clear message that his need for additional support had reduced over time.  the point of scaffolding – whether on a house or in a classroom – is that it provides the support required

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which is then removed when no longer needed. for teachers

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how and when we remove our classroom scaffolds is a vital part of effective practice for pupils.  what does the eef define as ‘scaffolding’?  the eef defines scaffolding as ‘a metaphor for temporary support that is removed when it is no longer required’

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providing ‘enough support so that pupils can successfully complete tasks that they could not yet do independently’.  rather than requiring teachers to be creating different worksheets for pupils with different needs

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scaffolding can be a term used to describe:  - a visual scaffold

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such as a task planner. - a verbal scaffold

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such as a teacher correcting a misconception at a pupil’s desk. - a written scaffold

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such as a writing frame.  this scaffolding tool from the eef can help teachers to consider what effective scaffolding looks like and what it might mean for them in their classroom. it can support teachers to consider when and how scaffolds might be implemented for everyone

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becoming a fundamental part of high-quality teaching

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rather than an add-on.  teacher workload  with a shift to adaptive teaching within the early career framework

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notions of teachers planning three different lessons

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for pupils with different needs have rightly been challenged. this unnecessary burden on teacher workload can be harmful to teachers’ wellbeing and – at worst – can cap expectations of pupils.  using appropriate scaffolds can work well as a key facet of ‘adaptive teaching’. scaffolds can often be created live

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or become embedded within planning rather than feeling like an ‘add-on’.  in terms of the impact on teacher workload

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it is more manageable to think of scaffolding as a verbal reteach

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or a visual provided at the whole-class level

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rather than always requiring additional planning and resourcing.  scaffolding is more than just a worksheet. it is already part of most teachers’ practice – or can be relatively easily added. in harnessing the full power of this strategy

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we can consider the range of scaffolds available and ask ourselves questions around how we reduce them. with these tweaks

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we can bring our adaptive teaching practice closer to the evidence around what works for all pupils

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including those with send.    the 'five-a-day' principle - scaffolding

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EEF blog: Scaffolding - more than just a worksheet

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What is scaffolding, what it is not, and how can teachers use scaffolds to boost pupil progress

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Show caption
Admissions for issues such as hyperactivity, aggression, or self-injury may be prevented by minimising children's exposure to air pollution, the report says. Photograph: Malcolm Park/Alamy

Autistic children face an increased risk of hospitalisation if exposed to air pollution for relatively brief periods, with boys more at risk than girls, new research suggests.

Admissions for issues such as hyperactivity, aggression or self-injury may be prevented by minimising their exposure, and cutting air pollution levels could lower the risks, the researchers behind the study concluded. The findings were published in the journal BMJ Open.

"Short-term exposure [to air pollution] was associated with a higher risk of hospital admissions for autism spectrum disorder," the researchers wrote. "The associations were demonstrated to be more prominent among boys than among girls in sex-stratified analyses."

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with a range of symptoms and severity. It is often accompanied by neuroinflammation and systemic inflammation meaning drugs, supplements and diet can improve the core symptoms, according to the report in the BMJ Open.

It is believed that exposure to air pollution in the short-term, over several days or weeks for instance, can induce systemic inflammation and neuroinflammation, potentially increasing the risk of hospital admission in autistic people.

But previous studies have focused on the association between long-term exposure to air pollution over years during pregnancy and the early postnatal period, and ASD development among children.

The researchers sought to find out if short-term exposure may also pose a risk of aggravating ASD symptoms among school-age children. A child's developing nervous system is more susceptible to environmental exposures than an adult's, the report said.

Globally, one in 100 children are autistic, according to the World Health Organization.

Researchers from the Institute of public health and medical care at Seoul National university hospital drew on official government data on daily hospital admissions for autism among children aged five to 14 between 2011 and 2015.

They also collected data on national daily levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone (O3) in each of the 16 regions in the Republic of Korea.

Analysis of the data revealed that short-term exposure to PM2.5, NO2 and O3 was associated with a heightened risk of hospital admission for autism, and that boys were at greater risk than girls.

The researchers acknowledged limitations to the study and called for further research in the area.

"This study suggests that short-term exposure to air pollution affects ASD symptom aggravation, which is more prominent among boys than among girls," the researchers concluded. "Air pollution mixtures were also found to be associated with ASD symptom aggravation, mostly driven by PM2.5 and NO2.

"These results emphasise that reduction of air pollution exposure needs to be considered for successful ASD symptom management, which is important with regard to quality of life and economic costs.

"Because this is the first study on this subject, further studies, especially studies directly investigating ASD symptoms in more detail, are warranted to confirm the results and draw policy implications."
Health

Research shows hospital admissions are linked to even short-term exposure, with boys more at risk than girls

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Air pollution increases hospital admission risk for autistic children, study suggests

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Autistic children face an increased risk of hospitalisation if exposed to air pollution for relatively brief periods, with boys more at risk than girls, new research suggests. Admissions for issues such as hyperactivity, aggression or self-injury may be prevented by minimising their exposure, and cutting air pollution levels could lower the risks, the researchers behind the study concluded.

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4 times as many boys are diagnosed autistic as girls. This is not an accurate picture.

Frequently, for many reasons, girls are diagnosed later (on average up to 6 years later), missed or misdiagnosed, causing long term mental health problems with too many girls feeling too anxious to attend school as a result.

Currently the assessment tools used to screen for autism are male-centric. We want to see tools in place that reflect multiple presentations and needs so that no child's need goes unrecognised or unsupported. We are currently pilot-validating the Internal Presentation of Autism Checklist that sits within our white paper Autism, Girls and Keeping it All Inside , so expect that to change soon. Our survey had 1123 responses in a week, so there are many people who feel strongly about having screening tools which feel representative. Our vision is for a system that enables autistic girls to thrive, to feel understood and to achieve the best educational outcomes.

Our aim is to raise awareness of autism in girls and others who present in an internal way with health, social care and educational professionals and to bring change. Not only to the way that autistic girls are assessed and subsequently supported but to the narrative, with updated and positive terminology used to describe autistic traits.

Our private Facebook group supports both autistic girls and women and their extended families, but there are many more who need our help. We are now a registered charity, fundraising to enable us to both fund projects which offer face to face support and campaign for real change.

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We are a small registered charity working to support, educate, and bring change. Here you will find lots of resources.

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What can we do about sexual harassment in schools? | Optimus Education Blog

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What can we do about sexual harassment in schools? | Optimus Education Blog

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Liz Worthen shares her key takeaways from the Delivering Statutory RSE conference and signposts useful resources.

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Teacher Feedback to Improve Pupil Learning

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I promise, I was out of my desk to pick up someone's pencil that fell off their desk. There I was, walking the fine line of detention in Mrs. Andrews' 12th grade Government/Economics class. You see, Mrs. Andrews was very strict, but very fair. She had one rule everyone had to follow or suffer the consequences: When the tardy bell rang, you must be in your seat. No excuse or reason was ever good enough to avoid the detention that followed. Good deed or not, when the tardy bell rang that day and I was out of my seat...I knew...I was about to receive my first (and only) detention in my high school career. I don't remember exactly, but I'd like to think I took the punishment with head held high. After all, I was out of my seat to help another; paying it forward with an act of good will to create a more compassionate world. More honestly, though, I probably crafted some feeble-minded argument that most definitely fell on deaf ears.

At the time, as an adolescent months away from graduation, I surely didn't understand this non-negotiable. There's absolutely no reason good enough to be out of my desk when tardy bell rings? What was Mrs. Andrews thinking? Why did she not like us? Teachers are always making up rules just to make up rules. What's the deal with that? I guess they have nothing better to do.

Boy, did those statements come back to bite me. Karma.

Now, I've never actually spoken to Mrs. Andrews to confirm her reasoning behind the rule. I assume it's because she wanted to maximize time in the class...bell to bell is the teacher jargon, I believe. Also, I presume there's a bit of a life lesson hidden in this non-negotiable. There are non-negotiables in life, and while I believe the classroom shouldn't exactly mimic real life, it should foster the creation of healthy habits. A majority of the time the habits I'm hoping to cultivate are study/practice habits, through the use of learning strategies. I do also see it as part of the unwritten curriculum to assist in preparing my students with other habits (usually referenced as soft-skills) that help them succeed in either the university or career setting. For myself, Mrs. Andrews' tardy bell rule helped me to create priorities in the classroom and understand, to a certain extent, that rules are rules. There are limits; limits that have to be accounted for or there is a consequence. I believe that is quite healthy for anyone to understand.

How should the non-negotiable be administered in the classroom?

1. I believe the rule to be followed should teach a skill/habit that is applicable in real life. Again, Mrs. Andrews' rule enforced promptness to class and the creation of priorities once in the class.

2. Both the rule and its consequence should be easily decipherable. By that, I mean, that its application and consequence should be black and white...no gray area.

3. Neither the rule nor the consequence be extreme. I'm not saying we create a situation where the student's academic future is in jeopardy or suspension is dispensed. I know with my students, if you attempt to take away some of their free time, that is punishment enough.

4. Lastly, and most obviously, the rule must always be followed. No excuse and no reason can be good enough to violate the rule.

Now, I know there are those who disagree with this idea...and that's ok. To each his/her own. I think it's equally important students experience teachers with differing levels of rules/expectations and differing personalities...you know, like when we are in the real world.

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Defending the Non-Negotiable in the Classroom - The Effortful Educator

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I promise, I was out of my desk to pick up someone's pencil that fell off their desk. There I was, walking the fine line of detention in Mrs. Andrews' 12th grade Government/Economics class. You see, Mrs. Andrews was very strict, but very fair. She had one rule everyone had to follow or suffer the...

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Classroom accommodations for sensory processing challenges

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These sensory strategies for the classroom can help kids with sensory processing challenges. From alternate seating to visual schedules, explore sensory tools for the classroom that help with learning.

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This social story explains the social expectations involved in using a public restroom, including use of a stall and use of a urinal.

This single page is designed to be enlarged on a copier and made into a booklet.

These skills take practice and time to master, and patient instruction, so keep a change of clothes handy.

Please use this tool with sensitivity and privacy.

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This social story explains the social expectations involved in using a public restroom, including use of a stall and use of a urinal. This single page is designed to be enlarged on a copier and made into a booklet. These skills take practice and time to master, and patient instruction, so keep a change of clothes handy.

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Welcome to the Two Mr Ps in a Pod(Cast) website! A podcast which shares all the funny and hilarious stories from the classroom. Mr P (ICT_MrP) and his younger brother Mr P, both working in the classroom, share your funny stories about life in school.

We want to hear your confessions, stories and experiences whether you are a teacher, teaching assistant, student or caretaker.

​Everyone has been to school so everyone has a special memory or story about their experience and we want to hear it!

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Welcome to the Two Mr Ps in a Pod(Cast) website! A podcast which shares all the funny and hilarious stories from the classroom. Mr P (ICT_MrP) and his younger brother Mr P, both working in the classroom, share your funny stories about life in school.

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Well-being CPD - Online Presentations 2020

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Dual Coding CPD - 2020 Online Presentations

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Retrieval Practice CPD - Online Presentations 2020

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2020 hasn't been great, it's not over but without sounding pessimistic it doesn't look like things are back to the "old normal" yet! However, there are silver linings and this year has been a fantastic year for online professional learning for educators. As I am based in the Middle East, but originally from the UK and teach at a British school, I often feel like I am missing out on so many great events taking place. This year I have been able to watch, listen, learn, and share. I have collated these excellent online presentations and you can access them below by clicking on the different links for the different categories. I will continue to add to this and develop this digital CPD library. I hope you enjoy it and find it useful!
Curriculum presentations Retrieval Practice presentations Dual Coding presentations Remote learning presentations Literacy presentations Leadership presentations Well-being presentations CPD presentations
I will add further categories and if there are any online presentations you would like to add do let me know!

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2020 hasn't been great, it's not over but without sounding pessimistic it doesn't look like things are back to the "old normal" yet! However, there are silver linings and this year has been a fantastic year for online professional learning for educators.

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2020 hasn't been great, it's not over but without sounding pessimistic it doesn't look like things are back to the "old normal" yet! However, there are silver linings and this year has been a fantastic year for online professional learning for educators. As I am based in the Middle East, but originally from the UK and teach at a British school, I often feel like I am missing out on so many great events taking place. This year I have been able to watch, listen, learn, and share. I have collated these excellent online presentations and you can access them below by clicking on the different links for the different categories. I will continue to add to this and develop this digital CPD library. I hope you enjoy it and find it useful!

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2020 hasn't been great, it's not over but without sounding pessimistic it doesn't look like things are back to the "old normal" yet! However, there are silver linings and this year has been a fantastic year for online professional learning for educators.

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"They used food deprivation in my program and they made us pair up and do it to each other. I feel incredible guilt over this.

Every morning I'd cut up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into as many pieces as possible. Each piece was like a little bigger than an M&M.

Then I'd be told to force this non-verbal Autistic boy to do behaviors for each piece of the sandwich. He'd cry, hit his head in frustration, and say "hungry" which was one of like four words he could use.

I have no words to describe how bad I feel about being forced to do this as a child. If he didn't "behave" he'd get no food and he'd go hungry.

He and the rest of us were expected to perform like trained circus animals for basic rights, like the ability to go to the bathroom."

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Blog | Therapist Neurodiversity Collective

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"They used food deprivation in my program and they made us pair up and do it to each other. I feel incredible guilt over this. Every morning I'd cut up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into as many pieces as possible. Each piece was like a little bigger than an M&M.

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We're launching in 2019 a new email series designed to support teachers in changing classroom practice to improve your pupils' metacognitive skills - in short, their ability to plan, monitor and evaluate their own academic progress so they become better at learning and studying.

The content is drawn from the EEF's guidance report, ' M etacognition and Self-Regulated Learning', published last year.

Sign up here!

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Free email course: Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning

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We're launching in 2019 a new email series designed to support teachers in changing classroom practice to improve your pupils' metacognitive skills - in short, their ability to plan, monitor and evaluate their own academic progress so they become better at learning and studying.

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We're launching in 2019 a new email series designed to support teachers in changing classroom practice to improve your pupils' metacognitive skills - in short, their ability to plan, monitor and evaluate their own academic progress so they become better at learning and studying.

The content is drawn from the EEF's guidance report, ' M etacognition and Self-Regulated Learning', published last year.

Sign up here!

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Free email course: Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning

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We're launching in 2019 a new email series designed to support teachers in changing classroom practice to improve your pupils' metacognitive skills - in short, their ability to plan, monitor and evaluate their own academic progress so they become better at learning and studying.

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New EEF podcast focuses on metacognition

We've teamed up with Evidence Based Education to bring you a new podcast, Trialled and Tested. The first episode is on metacognition and self-regulated learning.

For quick and easy access to future episodes, search for 'Trialled and Tested' in iTunes, Spotify or Google Store and make sure you subscribe there.

In this first episode, EBE's Jamie Scott talks to Alex Quigley (EEF Senior Associate) and Megan Dixon (Director of Aspirer Research School) to ask what is metacognition and self-regulation and how can approaches be implemented in the classroom?

In addition we hear from Caroline Creaby and Roger Higgins from Sandringham and Norwich Research Schools.

Alex Quigley: Start to 26:55

Megan Dixon: 26:55 to 37:52

Caroline Creaby and Roger Higgins: 37:52 to end

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android

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New EEF podcast focuses on metacognition | News

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We've teamed up with Evidence Based Education to bring you a new podcast, Trialled and Tested. The first episode is on metacognition and self-regulated learning. For quick and easy access to future episodes, search for 'Trialled and Tested' in iTunes, Spotify or Google Store and make sure you subscribe there.

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EEF Blog: Making Sense of Metacognition
Alex Quigley, English teacher and Director of Huntington Research School, explores how schools can use the latest EEF guidance report, Metacognition and self-regulated learning'...
In a couple of weeks, year 6 pupils will be sitting down to SATs examinations and in secondary schools, A Level and GCSE exams will start in earnest. Teachers everywhere are concentrating upon supporting our pupils to do their very best in challenging circumstances.

Every teacher knows that the seeds of examination success are sown far in advance of the frenzied exam run-in. Like flowers in bloom, all the hard work is done preparing the ground months, even years, in advance. And yet, we have to grapple with helping pupils learn in the long-term, whilst helping them to make good decisions now - the final weeks before exams - and under the pressure of the exam hall.

Of course, we have to teach the vital knowledge and understanding of our subject domains, but as we do so, we should also train our pupils to better plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning, so that when face situations like sitting down and staring at a blank exam paper, they can apply their learning with success. What proves a timely help for teachers is the well-known, but less well understood concept of: 'metacognition and self-regulation'.

The 'metacognition and self-regulation' strand of the Sutton Trust-EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit has been accessed over 120,000 times. Clearly, there is a hunger to know more about metacognition than the well-used, but obviously limited, definition of it as 'thinking about thinking'.

The EEF's new 'Metacognition and self-regulated learning: guidance report' aims to make the research evidence on metacognition accessible and understood, as well as offering solutions to age-old problems like helping our pupils to prepare for exams, along with tackling an array of learning challenges, in the classroom and beyond.

Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning

Seven recommendations for teaching self-regulated learning & metacognition

Download PDF get_app
So what is metacognition anyway?
If we take the aforementioned examination season scenario, the guidance offers lots of accessible research evidence to better guide our practice. It shows how metacognition can helpfully be distilled down to three key steps in all learning:

"It is about planning how to undertake a task, then cognitively undertaking that activity, while monitoring the strategy to check progress, then evaluating the overall success."

Take a look at this hypothetical example taken from the guidance report of John undertaking a maths question to answer:

If it was as simple as 1-2-3 then every teacher would have it sussed, but there is more to learn and understand if we are to have a properly shared understanding of metacognition in staffrooms and classrooms around the country.

For my students, returning to the weeks ahead, I want them to plan their revision schedule, get organised with resources and prioritise what they revise and when.

I want them to monitor their success, revisiting topics, checking their understanding, 'spacing' and 'interleaving' their study, and asking me if they get stuck.

I want them to evaluate whether the knowledge is sticking and deciding if their revision techniques are effective in doing the job.

Though I may orchestrate and guide many facets of their revision, real success will be my students self-regulating and taking control of their own learning. As an end goal, at secondary school, I am aiming to support successful independent learning.

Of course, metacognition and self-regulation goes far beyond just examination preparation. The guidance coheres a fuller understanding of the research evidence, covering recommendations about explicit teaching of planning, monitoring and evaluation; teachers modelling their own thinking; setting an appropriate level of challenge; developing metacognitive talk in the classroom, and much more.
Why making sense of metacognition matters
What is so striking about the guidance report findings is that although we know that our pupils will develop strategies to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning naturally, we need to be more explicit in how we teach to develop such crucial metacognitive knowledge and understanding. First, teachers must understand what me mean by metacognition.

The benefits are clear. For disadvantaged learners in particular, this summary of international evidence suggests that 'metacognition and self-regulation' as a high impact and low cost approach to improving attainment.

Though I have always known about metacognition (previously a vague understanding in truth), this new guidance helps create a useful platform to understand not just metacognition and self-regulation, but how our pupils best learn.

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EEF Blog: Making Sense of Metacognition | News

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Alex Quigley, English teacher and Director of Huntington Research School, explores how schools can use the latest EEF guidance report, Metacognition and self-regulated learning'... In a couple of weeks, year 6 pupils will be sitting down to SATs examinations and in secondary schools, A Level and GCSE exams will start in earnest.

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Animated Thinking, I Feel Different: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p08z30ky via @bbciplayer

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*** We have a new Online Safety guide, our one-stop resource for parents and carers which brings together a wealth of information, links and advice that we hope you will find very useful - please click here view it: Online Safety. If you need any further assistance with anything covered in our new guide, please email support@newbridgegroup.org and we will do our best to help ***

SHARP is a selection of web pages all about e-Safety. e-Safety means staying safe when using the internet and other technology. Click on the menu buttons to the right of this page to go to different pages to find information, support and guidance about e-Safety. Hollinwood Academy wants you to be able to use different technology in school but to make sure everyone is safe and respected there are rules for all pupils and students to follow.

At home, there are lots of resources parents and carers may find useful including:

a wealth of information from the UK Safer Internet Centre including a guide on how to set up parental controls on your home internet here

lots of good advice from the NSPCC on how to keep children safe online here including their #ShareAware campaign highlighting the dangers of sharing information and images

the NSPCC have also reviewed a range of social networks, apps and games and produced a guide to the ones children use most here

a digital parenting guide produced by Vodaphone here

a guide to the different live streaming apps here

useful e-Safety advice when buying technology for young people from Childnet here

a US based website which reviews video games, films and books and gives parents guidance on their suitability for particular age groups here

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We have a new Online Safety guide, our one-stop resource for parents and carers which brings together a wealth of information, links and advice that we hope you will find very useful - please click here view it: Online Safety.

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© 2020 National Education Group Ltd. - Registered in the UK - Registration No. 10738856 - Terms of Service Agreement - Privacy Policy Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

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Special Needs Jungle provides parent-centred information, news, resources and informed opinion about SEN, disability, children’s health and SEN politics

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The Shake Up Learning Blog by Kasey Bell offers educational technology and digital learning resources, tips and tricks, tutorials, Google cheat sheets and more to educators across the globe.

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George Lucas Educational Foundation

The benefits of movement in the classroom aren't limited to younger students. Pairing new words and concepts with gestures or dance moves locks in understanding-and active brain breaks prime students to learn even more.

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A free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education.

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Behaviour Solutions for Kids is a great way to help children with Autism, ADHD, ODD, and all other neurodiversity. By understanding behaviour and putting in place strategies to help children regulate their emotions, you can help them cope with meltdowns and shutdowns. Proactive and reactive strategies can be used to help children learn how to self-regulate and choose their battles. With the right tools and strategies, you can help children with behaviour issues find solutions that work for them. It's never too late to start helping children with behaviour issues, and the rewards are worth it.

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Bringing you week after week of Austism Spectrum (ASD) information, author interviews, webinar replays and tips and strategies.

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For all the latest gossip, interviews and thoughts on education.

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The latest education blog articles. Teacher Toolkit provides teachers with access to resources that are meaningful for any classroom across the world.

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Briar Lipson is a research fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. Prior to this, Briar worked in think tanks, became a teacher and assistant principal and was involved in the Free School movement in England. In this episode, Briar talks to Greg Ashman about he newly released book, New Zealand's Education Delusion, and her thesis that child-centered teaching approaches have led to the decline in performance that New Zealand has suffered on international assessment such as PISA. Along the way, Briar and Greg discuss teacher training, the New Zealand curriculum and John Hattie's comments on her book. Briar's book is available for free on this link.

Doug Lemov has been a teacher, a school principal, a researcher, a writer and played many other roles in education in the U.S. He is perhaps best known internationally for his practical teaching guide, Teach Like a Champion (TLAC). In this episode, Doug talks to Greg Ashman about the genesis of TLAC, making content relevant to students, reading instruction and the importance of reading, Charter Schools, the tumultuous state of U.S. education debate and his efforts to help teachers maximise the potential of the remote learning that has been forced on them by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

E. D. Hirsch Jr. began his career as a literary theorist. As a result of this work, he became aware of the importance of background knowledge for reading comprehension. However, when he looked to the education system, he found knowledge was undervalued. Since then, he has worked to highlight the importance of knowledge though his numerous books, including the best-selling Cultural Literacy, and the Core Knowledge Foundation that he set-up to further these aims by developing the Core Knowledge Sequence, now used in many schools in the US and beyond. In this episode, Don talks to Greg Ashman about knowledge, education, the importance of a 'speech community' and commonality more generally, as well as his new book, How to Educate a Citizen.

Professor Dan Willingham is a psychologist at the University of Virginia. Dan started out as a cognitive psychology and neuroscience researcher, but an encounter with E. D. Hirsch Jr. led him to take an interest in the application of cognitive psychology to education. In this episode, Dan talks to Greg Ashman about his interest in education, his book, Why Don't Students Like School?, a new edition of which is in the pipeline, reading instruction and critical thinking.

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Briar Lipson is a research fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. Prior to this, Briar worked in think tanks, became a teacher and assistant principal and was involved in the Free School movement in England.

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Welcome! ChatterPack is a voluntary-run, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) hub. We work hard to support families, schools, and other professionals through our free monthly SEND newsletter, our free resources, and through sharing accurate, practical, respectful, advice and information

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Ofsted's Deputy Director for Further Education and Skills, Paul Joyce, talks about what our new education inspection framework (EIF) means for further education and skills providers. As most of you will be aware, we introduced our new EIF on ...

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Paul Joyce, Deputy Director, Further Education and Skills

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Sean Harford, National Director, Education

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Gill Jones, Deputy Director, Early Childhood

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Ofsted blog: schools, early years, further education and skills

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Ofsted's Deputy Director for Further Education and Skills, Paul Joyce, talks about what our new education inspection framework (EIF) means for further education and skills providers. As most of you will be aware, we introduced our new EIF on ...

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What makes checklists transformational? Checklist: First lesson with a new class Against checklists: the complexity, professionalism and creativity of teaching Checklists for students: efficiency, autonomy and excellence in the classroom Cut workload and reduce stress: checklists

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How can we plan learning and pitch it appropriately? We must strike a balance between sufficient and excessive challenge; we need some way to decide which objectives and activities to use.

Cognitive load theory offers a powerful way to view learning, select activities and plan objectives. This post describes the theory and suggests how it could be applied to planning lessons. The terms used are subject to heated debate, so if anything is unclear, or you have suggestions as to how this could be improved, please don't hesitate to let me know.

What is cognitive load theory?

Cognitive load theory theory focuses on learning as the creation of schemas: organised structures of knowledge in long-term memory. Ideas reach long-term memory having been held in working memory: what we are conscious of at a given moment. Working memory can only cope with a limited cognitive load: we can retain a handful of isolated facts (a few numbers, for example), or process two or three ideas (Sweller, van Merriënboer and Paas, 1998; Cowan, 1999). Therefore, the load placed upon working memory - what students are thinking about - is crucial for learning.

An early study divided students into two groups; they approached the same trigonometry problems with different goals:

Group A were given a specific goal (find the length of a particular line)

Group B were not given a specific goal (find the length of any lines you can)

They were solving identical problems, but students in Group A endured greater cognitive load, because they had to keep in mind what they were trying to find, what they had already found and what they needed to find next. Students in Group B remembered more about the problems - they learned more; whereas for students in Group A:

The cognitive-processing capacity needed to handle this information may be of such a magnitude as to leave little for schema acquisition, even if the problem is solved (Sweller, 1988: p.261)."

Students can concentrate on solving problems, they can concentrate on tasks which contribute to their long-term memory, but if the task is challenging for them, they are unlikely to manage both. Working memory limitations restrict how much of an experience reaches long-term memory: designing teaching "which flouts or merely ignores working memory limitations inevitably is deficient (Sweller, van Merriënboer and Paas, 1998, p.253)."

Three forms of cognitive load were proposed by Sweller, van Merriënboer and Paas (1998); they offer a helpful frame for planning:

Intrinsic cognitive load

Intrinsic cognitive load is the challenge of learning complicated ideas. Individual facts can be learned in isolation, so have low intrinsic cognitive load:

Students can learn the meaning of 'Je' without knowing the word 'aime' in French.

They can learn that Fe is iron without having to remember that Cu is Copper.

Some learning has high intrinsic cognitive load however:

Students must consider the relationship between each word in a sentence to ensure it is grammatically correct.

Explaining a chemical reaction requires understanding the interaction between different elements.

Whether learning has high intrinsic cognitive load reflects a student's existing knowledge, not an absolute standard: a competent French speaker may face low intrinsic cognitive load when considering the words in a simple sentence, but need to think more carefully when using the subjunctive tense.
It is possible to break down content with high intrinsic cognitive load (van Merriënboer and Sweller, 2005), but our priority is selecting the intrinsic cognitive load on which the lesson will focus carefully.
Extraneous cognitive load

Extraneous cognitive load is the distraction caused by tasks which occupy working memory but do not contribute to the formation of long-term memories. This includes:

Splitting attention: asking students to refer to two sources of information simultaneously: we can avoid this by ensuring information, such as labels, is where it will be needed.

Redundancy: information which adds nothing detracts from learning: we can avoid this by removing irrelevant and distracting labels and text.

Expertise reversal: support which helps novices, like model answers, can hinder experts; we can monitor students' success closely and reduce support as students become more skilled.

We can also also use the modality effect: describing an image verbally, for example, talking through a diagram, effectively increases students' working memory.
Germane cognitive load
Germane cognitive load is additional cognitive load which contributes to the formation of long-term memories. It can be created by tasks which depress student performance initially but help retention, including spacing learning over time (Pashler et al., 2007) and varying practice (for example, varying the types of mathematical questions students are answering in a lesson (Soderstrom and Bjork, 2015)). (For a fuller discussion, see this post).

The limits of cognitive load theory

There are limits to what cognitive load theory offers. The research findings have been tested in a handful of topics, subjects and lessons. While they seem robust, and work to extend them is ongoing, there are limited examples which have been tested in classrooms, so we need to apply the ideas carefully. Varying practice will work in a grammar lesson, but in a lesson on literature it may prove unhelpfully confusing: instead, we may simply add a retrieval question to our exit tickets to space learning (Pashler et al., 2007). Approaches which support learning, like varying practice, can prove disorienting and hence unpopular with students (Brown, Roediger and McDaniel, 2014, p.54): we may wish to explain the rationale for our choices to students and perhaps even occasionally choose less efficient ways of teaching to maintain student enthusiasm. Cognitive load theory offers useful ideas, not perfect answers: using it requires tailoring the principles to our students and lessons: cognitive load theory.
We can plan for cognitive load by:

Choosing intrinsic cognitive load carefully

Cutting extraneous cognitive load: remove unproductive distractions

Increasing germane cognitive load judiciously: adding variation

And recognising the limits of the existing research, as well as its promise.
What should I read next?

The importance of knowledge: some initial thoughts on constructing schemas

More on distinguishing between learning and performance (and what this means for formative assessment).

A checklist for lesson planning: bit dated but maybe still useful.

References
Brown, P., Roediger, H. and McDaniel, M. (2014). Make it stick. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Cowan, N. (1999). An embedded-processes model of working memory. In Miyake, A. and Shah, P. eds. Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press, pp. 62-101.
Pashler, H., Bain, P., Bottge, B., Graesser, A., Koedinger, K., McDaniel, M., and Metcalfe, J. (2007) Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning (NCER 2007-2004). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Research, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Soderstrom, N., Bjork, R. (2015) Learning Versus Performance: An Integrative Review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2) 176-199. Sweller, J (1988) Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12, 257-285. Sweller, J., van Merriënboer J. J., Paas F. G. (1998). Cognitive architecture and instructional design. Educational Psychology Review, 10, 251-296. van Merriënboer, J. and Sweller, J. (2005). Cognitive Load Theory and Complex Learning: Recent Developments and Future Directions. Educational Psychology Review, 17(2), pp.147-177.

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Planning lessons using cognitive load theory

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How can we plan learning and pitch it appropriately? We must strike a balance between sufficient and excessive challenge; we need some way to decide which objectives and activities to use. Cognitive load theory offers a powerful way to view learning, select activities and plan objectives.

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In the last few weeks, I've been reminded time and time again about the very human, emotional side of being a student, of being a teacher and of leading in a school. The spirit of people in our system is incredible. Here are some snapshots. An Oldham student with additional learning needs, working independently on ... Continue reading

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In the last few weeks, I've been reminded time and time again about the very human, emotional side of being a student, of being a teacher and of leading in a school. The spirit of people in our system is incredible. Here are some snapshots.

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This post is based on a talk I gave at ResearchEd in Rugby. The paper in question is Barak Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction published in American Educator in 2012, downloadable in full as a pdf here:

I first came across if after seeing Oliver Caviglioli's superb graphic summary for How2 - available here:

My admiration for Rosenshine is largely informed by my experience working with teachers in various schools and colleges where I've been trying to engage people with research in order to support them to improve their practice. For me, it is the best, most clear and comprehensive guide to evidence-informed teaching there is.

Here are some of the reasons:

It resonates for teachers of all subjects and contexts - because it focuses on aspects of teaching that are pretty much universal: questioning, practice, building knowledge. There are good examples from English and Maths lessons but other teachers could easily extrapolate to their own subject specific issues.

It makes direct links from research to practice - each of the 10 sections are written in two parts: Research Findings and then In The ClassRoom. The paper is fully referenced for future follow-up.

It does an excellent job in helping teachers to link practice to cognitive psychology, supporting the formation of a sound theory of action - that mental model teachers need providing a link between their actions and the learning process. There are multiple explanatory references to ideas about memory and cognitive load theory. For each practical strategy, there is an underpinning model based in evidence.

It has teacher-centred authenticity- it feels like Rosenshine knows what really goes on. The research is often based on linking classroom observations to student outcomes, and the examples given show a strong understanding of the real things teachers do.

The simple language comparing 'teachers who were more effective or more successful' with 'teachers who were less successful' is persuasive. It's not as crude as saying 'good vs bad' - the language lays a path to improvement from less successful to more successful. Who wouldn't want to be in the group of 'more effective teachers'?! The tone of the article feels helpful rather than judgemental - which is pretty hard to achieve.

There are four very clear strands that run through the 10 sections - reviewing material, questioning, explaining and modelling, practice. Each of one these can be a focus areas for improvement so there are multiple ways to engage with the ideas and to find a focus for deliberate practice.

Interestingly, within the document, Barak Rosenshine offers a further list of 17 principles that overlap and flesh out the 10 sections. It's a good simple summary of the whole document. However, as I stress continually, summaries are meant as a prompt - you really need to read the whole thing; it's packed with insights and it warrants multiple close readings.

I find that, in exploring the document with teachers, it helps to break it down into the four strands (NB these are strands that I am suggesting, not Rosenshine.)

Reviewing material:

Daily review is important in helping to resurface prior learning from the last lesson -let's not be surprised that students don't immediately remember everything. They won't! It's a powerful technique for building fluency and confidence and it's especially important if we're about to introduce new learning - to active relevant prior learning in working memory.

Weekly and monthly review is about longer-term retrieval practice - to continue the process of building long-term memory to support future learning.

Questioning

These two sections are brilliant. The main message I always stress is summarised in the mantra: ask more questions to more students in more depth. Rosenshine gives lots of great examples of the types of questions teachers can ask. He also reinforces the importance of process questions - we need ask how students worked things out, not just get answers. He is also really good on stressing that asking questions is about getting feedback to us as teachers about how well we've taught the material and about the need to check understanding to ensure misconceptions are flushed out and tackled.

Sequencing Concepts and modelling

The three stages give a superb guide to how to sequence knowledge.

Small steps - with practice at each stage. We need to break down our concepts and procedures (like multi-stage maths problems or writing) into small steps that each be practised.

Models - including the importance of the worked-example effect to reduce cognitive load. We need to give many worked examples; too often teacher give too few.

Scaffolding is needed to develop expertise - a form of mastery coaching, where cognitive supports are given - such as how to structure extended writing - but they are gradually withdrawn. The sequencing is key. Stabilisers on a bike are really powerful aids to the learning and confidence building- but eventually they need to come off.

Stages of Practice

I haven't read a better explanation of the difference between guided and independent practice. They are both vital.

Teachers needs to be up close to students' initial attempts making sure that they are building confidence and making too many errors. This is a common weakness with 'less effective teachers'. Guided practice requires close supervision and feedback.

High success rate - in questioning and practice - is important. Rosenshine suggests the optimum is 80%. ie - high! Not 95-100% (too easy). He even suggests 70% is too low... (although, in my only quibble with the paper, I would be cautious about getting to worried about the precision here.)

Independent, monitored practice. Successful teachers make time for students to the things they've been taught by themselves... when they're ready. "Students need extensive, successful, independent practice in order for skills and knowledge to become automatic"

Rosenshine concludes the paper by discussing their research process, combining a range sources of evidence. He suggests:

and finally....

My final messages about engaging with this paper are:

1. Don't turn it into a checklist. It's a guide for professional learning - not a ticklist for accountability freaks! Don't kill it!!! Please!!!

2. Take time to explore the implications at a subject-specific level. The ideas of practice, modelling, questioning... each have meaning only in the context of curriculum content. The principles need to be articulated in context, in situ...

Thanks to Barak for giving us this gift - and to Oliver for bringing it to my attention!

This blog by Mark Enser is a superb example of putting Rosenshine's principles into practice - in this case, his subject is Geography. https://heathfieldteachshare.wordpress.com/2018/04/23/putting-theory-into-practice/

Update: Oliver Caviglioli has now produced a new poster using this blog as a basis - reorganising the 10 principles into four themes.
https://headguruteacher.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/124f8-rosenshineprinciplesred.pdf
This is really interesting - the original material that later featured in American Educator is here: https://www.iaoed.org/downloads/EdPractices_21.pdf
Update
Here is a video of me giving my ResearchEd Talk in Haninge, Sweden, recorded for Swedish TV
And here's the man himself....

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Exploring Barak Rosenshine's seminal Principles of Instruction: Why it is THE must-read for all teachers.

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This post is based on a talk I gave at ResearchEd in Rugby. The paper in question is Barak Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction published in American Educator in 2012, downloadable in full as a pdf here: I first came across if after seeing Oliver Caviglioli's superb graphic summary for How2 - available here: My admiration...

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I've written about retrieval practice several times in other posts but here I just want to make it easy to lay out various alternative methods for the process of reviewing your students' knowledge and understanding. Before doing that, I would suggest that there are some key principles:

1. Involve everyone: Good techniques involve all students checking their knowledge, not just a few and not just one at a time as you might do when questioning.

2. Make checking accurate and easy: it should be possible for all students to find out what they got right and wrong, what they know well and where they have gaps. Every technique involves students testing their knowledge and then checking their work for accuracy and completeness. (This is not the same as giving students extended mark schemes to mark longer assessments which, for me goes beyond a simple retrieval practice activity)

3. Specify the knowledge: Where appropriate, it's better if students know the set of knowledge any retrieval will be based on, so they can study, prepare and self-check. It must be possible for students to check their own answers which has implications for the way the knowledge requirements are laid out.

4. Keep it generative: students need to explore their memory to check what they know and understand; this means removing cue-cards, prompts, scaffolds and cheat-sheets; it means closing the books and thinking for themselves.

5. Make it time efficient: The idea of each technique is that they can be used repeatedly in an efficient manner without dominating whole lessons.

6. Make it workload efficient: None of these methods involve the teacher checking the students' answers, creating unsustainable workload. A teacher might choose to check the occasional test but that's no use for routine practice.

1. Quick Fire Quiz
Everyone know this one but it can still be done well or badly: Teacher reads out the question or presents them via slides or an audio tape (eg in MFL). The questions can be spontaneously generated or prepared. Questions can be simple factual recall, mental maths or multiple choice;

All students write down their answers. Teacher reveals the answers, one by one or all at once. Students check which they got right. Swapping answers to check is an option but it can be a faff and takes away from the message that students need to be evaluating the depth of their own learning. If you've prepared this in advance, it is much more time efficient if students can see the answers all at once to check rather than wait for each to be read out.

It's important that the teacher discusses common wrong answers - which is one of the main functions. If you can do lots of confidence-building questions quickly (rather than deliberately hard ones) - you can get a great buzz of enjoyment. Knowing things is fun!
2. Paper Quiz
Everyone gets a copy of the questions and writes down answers at their own pace within a time limit. This is much less teacher-directed. It frees the teacher up to circulate and spot common errors as they emerge. It allows for a wider range of question types and makes it easier to engage in with worded questions that can be hard to read from a slide.

The checking process is much better done with pre-prepared answers rather than reading out answers one by one. Why? Because it is quicker, allows for more detail in the answers, it allows students to focus on things they got wrong and helps to build their capacity for self-assessment.
3. Silent Self-Quiz
Try this. Which ones do you know? (Answer provided)

How well can you learn these labels? (Test and then check)

In a test like this, students can generate answers and then check if they were right, silently and privately. They can repeat this multiple times. Any number of resources can be used - blanked diagrams, cue cards with answers on the back, maths questions with answers kept separately. This process keeps the outcome of the assessment with the student - the most important place! They learn what they know and don't know. You can then discuss common errors and problems. It saves a lot of time with asking questions and marking them - all of that is done mentally by the students.
4. Paired Quiz.
Here, we start using Dylan Wiliam's excellent strategy: Activating students as resources for one another. In order to maximise the extent of retrieval practice that goes on, it is fantastic to get students to quiz each other in pairs. One student has the material - questions, answers, cue cards, knowledge organiser, text - and asks the other student questions. "Test me" - it's a well-used technique and can be harnessed in lessons. Give a time limit and then get them to swap around. You get a room full of students checking their knowledge. I've seen this done in superbly well in languages where the teacher circulated to check for accent issues and common errors listening in to the multiple paired quizzing dialogues.
5. Self-Explanation
Beyond simple recall, ask students to explain something to themselves. You simply give students a few silent moments to complete a mental task. They have to generate a version of what they understand that they can either then self-check or write down or use to respond to further question. However the process of mental rehearsal is important.. making this explicit helps to train those who don't do it spontaneously.

What is the story of Henry VIII's Six Wives? Run through it... then check.
6. Demonstration and Performance
Of course LOTS of knowledge isn't simply quiz-able declarative knowledge. You can ask students to show what they know: a procedure; a technique; a routine. Have you learned it? Show me... Of course as a student shows what they can do to a teacher, they are showing themselves what they can do. This is important. Again, the intensity and frequency can be amplified by getting students to show each other in pairs rather than one-by-one with the teacher, as long as they have the tools to evaluate success. This is common in practical areas and performance areas - sport, music, art - but it also has a role in science, maths, English where the modelling process could be framed as 'teaching'. eg teaching the class how to answer a maths problem.
7. Paired or individual elaborative-interrogation
A form of quizzing that can be done in pairs or as a silent private process, is elaborative interrogation. This is where students explore their schema by answering How and Why questions.

Why does this happen? How does it work? Why does it work? Why did she say that? Why do you use that structure? Why is that the most important reason? How do you know?

If you train students to use some of these question stems and give them resources that help them to verify the answers, this makes for a deep retrieval practice exercise
8: Tell the story; rehearse the explanation
Lots of knowledge forms a narrative structure - a series of events, a process, cause and effect. So, the retrieval practice can be formed as 'telling the story' to someone else who can play the role of verifier. Any explanation can then be improved and rehearsed. You can get better at telling a story in more detail.

Here are some examples. Tell the story of a water molecule as if follows the water cycle: (with or without key words provided)

Why does the sun rise in the East?.... How good was your friend's answer? Now you have a go...

Of course this material can be used for self-explanation in the first instance.
9: Summarising
This is a useful recall process although it is less precise in terms of checking - because every summary can be different. A retrieval process can be something like:

Last week we looked at renewable energy. Summarise the main advantages and disadvantages of a wind farm: Go! .

Then show your definitive response for checking:
10. Map and Compare
This method is where you want to check students' capacity to make links. Ask them to make a memory map of the key aspects of a topic... eg: Reactions of Metals OR Themes in Hamlet OR Generating Electricity. These things can be much tighter sections of knowledge too: Types of radiation; the key events and figures in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Students then make mind-maps in a quick, memory -dump style before checking against a good resource - their knowledge organiser, exercise book or a teacher-completed version: What did you get right? What did you miss out completely?

Trial by Ordeal? What can you remember? Go.....

Further reading: Check out these documents. The summaries by @olicav are superb but also read the original papers they relate to.

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Image Credit: https://emptechgroup.com/the-internet-of-things/ I've written about retrieval practice several times in other posts but here I just want to make it easy to lay out various alternative methods for the process of reviewing your students' knowledge and understanding. Before doing that, I would suggest that there are some key principles: Involve everyone: Good techniques involve...

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Cognitive Load Theory is increasingly influencing people's thinking and hopefully will also influence their approach to teaching. At its heart, it is a theory about instructional (teaching) design. I find it useful for the classroom; it chimes with me as an ex-Science Teacher.

Sweller et al (2019) updated paper, Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design: 20 Years Later is an interesting read. I wouldn't describe it as light reading though others might; it depends how expert you are in the field.

The basic proposition of Cognitive Load Theory is: if our teaching aligns with how our pupils' cognitive architecture is designed then learning will be enhanced. It is based on the idea that we have a working memory that can hold a limited amount of information for a limited time and an unlimited long term memory. The retention and connection of information in the long term memory transforms our ability to function as this overcomes the limits of our working memory. The challenge is how to acquire increasing amounts of useful information in our long term memory and access it readily when needed.

For people familiar with the original work the three different types of cognitive load - intrinsic (related to the complexity of the material being studied and expertise of the learner); extraneous (how the information is presented) and germane (the working memory committed to the learning) - has been amended with the intrinsic and germane working load now considered to be "closely intertwined" rather than two separate summative elements.
Human Cognitive Architecture
Sweller et al (2019) have developed aspects of their theory using advances in knowledge in Evolutionary Psychology. Biologically primary knowledge is knowledge that we have evolved to acquire over countless generations: learning how to listen and speak, recognising faces, solving unfamiliar problems and making plans for future events. Our cognitive systems have evolved to allow us to acquire these skills automatically and with limited effort.

Biologically secondary knowledge is knowledge we need because our culture has determined it is important. Our cognitive systems have not evolved separate structures or systems to enable us to acquire this information. We learn this secondary knowledge by piggy backing on to the cognitive structures and systems used to acquire biological primary knowledge. Our most effective teaching methods require alignment of knowledge acquisition with the five basic biological principles.

Download PDF - Human Cognitive Architecture
Next post - Cognitive Load Theory Updated; 20 Years On - Implications for Teachers & Teaching Reference:
Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. and Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design: 20 Years Later. Educational Psychology Review. ( Sweller2019_Article_CognitiveArchitectureAndInstru)

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Cognitive Load Theory Updated; 20 Years On - Our Cognitive Architecture

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Cognitive Load Theory is increasingly influencing people's thinking and hopefully will also influence their approach to teaching. At its heart, it is a theory about instructional (teaching) design. I find it useful for the classroom; it chimes with me as an ex-Science Teacher. Sweller et al (2019) updated paper, Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design: 20...

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This is the second part of a post; the first part is: Cognitive Load Theory Updated; 20 Years On - Our Cognitive Architecture (with a downloadable resource by Oliver Caviglioli - see below).

Twenty years ago a number of principles and strategies were developed, as part of Cognitive Load Theory, aimed at reducing the extraneous cognitive load when teaching. It's important to note that these are based on the premise that the information is new to the pupils (they are novices) and the information is complex (it has high element interactivity). Where this is less true then the theory is less applicable; the limits of working memory are unlikely to be reached.

Two key ideas to understand when looking at the implications of Cognitive Load Theory on teaching are:

Expertise Reversal Effect - As pupils become more expert, what starts off as multiple interacting elements of knowledge begin to be organised and linked together in a relational way as ideas and these in turn into larger concepts. The effects described in the table below benefit novices; as expertise (conceptual understanding increases) the effects disappear or are even reversed.

Guidance Fading Effect - Over the course of an extended programme of learning pupils' expertise within a particular domain should increase. As it does, information and activities that are effective for novices, at the beginning of a course of study, become a distraction and place an unnecessary extraneous cognitive load on more expert learners.

Cognitive Load Theory 2.0 - Implications for Instruction & Course Design - PDF (Downloadable)

In the graphic above I have suggested a sequence for the various effects (going from left to right) as pupils gain expertise (knowledge). It is however important to remember that the effects all appertain to novice learners or those at the beginning of a longer programme of study.

In terms of tasks: giving pupils fully worked examples (the Worked Example Effect) to show how a solution could be reached; followed by the use of partial solutions (the Completion Problem Effect) in which pupils have to complete the missing elements and tasks that do not have a specified end point (goal) with one that is goal free (the Goal Free Effect) is a reasonable sequence linked to their growing expertise.

The Isolated Elements Effect, common sense to experienced teachers, proposes breaking down a complex piece of learning into smaller sequential information/tasks that can be taught separately. The Variability Effect increases the intrinsic cognitive load potential, so as long as the total cognitive load stays within limits, the variable problems presented allows pupils to identify similar relevant features (general principles) that can be applied.

There is also a place for collaborative working due to the aptly named Collective Working Memory Effect; collaboration increases the overall working memory and information available in long term memory to the group, to solve a problem. My word of caution here would be that too often groups of pupils are asked to work on tasks that are too simple; they would be better off completing them individually. Make sure the task given a group is sufficiently challenging and complex; it links well to problem solving approaches.

There are a series of effects that I'd tend to group under metacognition or self-regulation: The Self-Explanation Effect utilises worked example (see above) with pupils provided with self-explanation prompts which require them to explain their approach. This could alternatively be approached using The Imagination Effect requires pupils to imagine or mentally rehearse a concept or process, for example, the steps to solving a problem. The latter is more suitable to pupils as they gain expertise; at a novice stage the imagination exercise is likely to overload working memory.

The Self-Management Effect is built on the assumption that pupils taught to apply Cognitive Load Theory principles themselves - for example, to redesign or design materials which are poorly produced - can manage their own cognitive load. Teachers can explicitly teach the principles and model good practice. For example, ways of presenting materials that would help reduce the overall cognitive load are: replace multiple sources of information split over space (eg. different pages of a book) or time with one integrated resource ( Split-Attention Effect) and replace multiple sources of the same information with one ( Redundancy Effect). The Modality Effect suggests the replacement of two visual sources of information (unimodal) with one visual and one auditory (multimodal).
"The modality effect is based on the assumption that working memory can be subdivided into partially independent processors, one dealing with verbal materials based on an auditory working memory and one dealing with diagrammatic/pictorial information based on a visual working memory. Consequently, effective working memory capacity can be increased by using both visual and auditory working memory rather than either processor alone." Reference:
Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. and Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design: 20 Years Later. Educational Psychology Review. ( Sweller2019_Article_CognitiveArchitectureAndInstru)

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Cognitive Load Theory Updated; 20 Years On - Implications for Teachers and Teaching

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This is the second part of a post; the first part is: Cognitive Load Theory Updated; 20 Years On - Our Cognitive Architecture (with a downloadable resource by Oliver Caviglioli - see below). Twenty years ago a number of principles and strategies were developed, as part of Cognitive Load Theory, aimed at reducing the extraneous cognitive...

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Our research commentary prompted quite a bit of discussion on cognitive load theory (CLT) and how we've used it. We thought it would be useful to address some of the issues raised.

CLT as part of the learning sciences

CLT forms one part of the evidence we looked at from the learning sciences. Other learning science aspects we used included dual coding and spaced practice.

This evidence from the learning sciences in turn is only one part of the broader evidence base we looked at, which included research from school and teacher effectiveness, research on leadership and research on school effects on physical and mental health. We have not based either our evidence review or the inspection framework on CLT.

However, CLT does form a valuable part of the evidence base on effective practices in education. It is a well-established theory, with over 30 years of research behind it, making it one of the best supported theoretical frameworks in education. That research has been conducted with adult learners, but also with children beginning to learn to read, in upper primary school years and at secondary school.

As with all theories, it has come in for legitimate criticism. This has been around issues such as:

Criticism does not invalidate the theory, which as mentioned above is supported by a large body of research. It does, however, show that we would be misguided if we relied solely on CLT as the basis for our evidence. We have therefore steered clear of doing this.

What CLT says and implications for classroom practice

CLT is about the architecture of memory and the brain and, in particular, the capacity of the short-term memory to process information.

Long-term memory consists of a range of schemata. These are complex structures that link knowledge, create meaning and allow skills to be performed. They are built up over time.

Learning is about developing those schemata through acquiring knowledge and making connections with different schemata. However, before information enters long-term memory, it needs to be processed by the short-term or working memory. This has limited capacity. It is not able to retain knowledge or develop schemata if it is overloaded i.e. if we are given too many things to think about at once.

However, CLT is not about minimising cognitive load. It is about not exceeding the cognitive load that people can deal with. Deep learning requires cognitive load (learning is hard!), but it must be relevant to the task and help rather than hinder learning.

CLT has been interpreted by some as leading to a narrow conception of classroom practice. However, what CLT actually suggests is that teachers should consider what cognitive load they are asking from learners and whether that is appropriate at that particular stage of learning a topic. It is important for teachers to understand the distinction between novice and expert here.

When teaching, we need to take account of expertise reversal effects (these are the interactions between levels of learners' prior knowledge and the effectiveness of different teaching techniques). Experts possess more detailed and complex schemata than novice learners and therefore it is easier for them to perform complex tasks in their working memory. Novices need more help to gradually build their schemata on a topic and to link it to others. Expertise here is not primarily about age but about the knowledge the learner already has about a particular topic.

This approach suggests teaching activities that do not need too much working memory capacity until learners acquire the knowledge that allows them to spend less time processing content. In many cases, when we are teaching novices, it will make sense to teach in small chunks and ensure that pupils obtain mastery in these before moving onto the next topic. Many teachers have found CLT helpful to their daily practice.

No specific teaching method

CLT does not dictate a specific teaching method. It does not imply that, for example, teachers should use direct instruction all the time (though of course this is often a useful approach supported by a lot of evidence that does not derive from CLT). Some studies suggest, for example, that collaborative group work can lighten cognitive load in complex tasks. Of course, other evidence suggests that collaborative group work, though potentially highly effective, is hard to do well, which is another reason to draw on multiple sources of evidence!

When it takes effect in September, the education inspection framework will be the most evidence-based, research-informed and tested framework in Ofsted's 26 year history. Cognitive science is important, but just one part of the wide range of evidence we have drawn upon.

Follow Daniel Muijs on Twitter.

We want to hear from you - respond to our education inspection framework consultation online.

You can keep up-to-date with Ofsted news by signing up for email alerts. You can also follow Ofsted on Twitter.

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Developing the education inspection framework: how we used cognitive load theory

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Ofsted's Head of Research, Daniel Muijs, explains how we've used cognitive load theory in the development of our new education inspection framework.

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Introducing long-term memory and working memory: o Key features and limitations o How do they interact during learning to build (and then use) the knowledge base. o Guidelines to aligning teaching and learning strategies with the learning stages.

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Zest for Learning... into the rainforest of teaching

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VISUAL STORY ABOUT STAYING SAFE FROM CORONAVIRUS_Very Special Tales

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What are tests and questioning good for?

Jonathan Firth

The 'testing effect', widely referred to now as 'retrieval practice', is a well-known psychological phenomenon whereby people remember things better if they are tested on them. The benefits don't stem simply from getting feedback on right or wrong answers - although that can help too. It appears that the process of retrieving information from memory actually helps it to be consolidated. In other words, a test can make the memory more secure and less likely to be forgotten. But what does the research actually tell us about retrieval practice, and what are the implications for what teachers do in the classroom?

Key research

A 2006 study by Roediger and Karpicke has become a classic in this area and is highly illuminating to teachers. The study compared how students performed after different combinations of studying and/or being tested on material. They found that studying followed by a test in which students wrote down everything they could remember led to better recall in a final assessment than being given an additional study opportunity, even though no feedback was given. A point to note is that the advantage was only shown after a two-day or one-week delay - if recall was assessed after just a few minutes, the study-only conditions were better. This is important as it suggests that testing helped retention in long-term memory.

A huge amount of research has been done on this area since the Roediger and Karpicke paper, much of it using educationally relevant materials. Benefits that were first established in psychology labs have been shown to apply to real-world learning situations such as a middle school science classroom (e.g. McDaniel et al., 2011).

It is easy to measure the effect of retrieval practice with simple facts or word lists, and the extent to which the benefit extends to complex materials has been questioned (e.g. van Gog and Sweller, 2015; see also Karpicke and Aue, 2015). However, the effect has been shown many times with the learning of texts, and Butler (2010) found that questions on a passage also improved learners' ability to transfer ideas to other contexts, suggesting that retrieval can help to support a broader understanding.

Overall, the current research seems to suggest that most teachers and learners in most learning situations would benefit from increasing the level of retrieval used, i.e. the amount that learners have to actively recall things from memory, and that this should be preferred to re-reading or re-teaching as a learning strategy.

Implications for teachers

What, then, are the implications of this for the learning process? Setting a class test is just one way of prompting students to retrieve information from memory; other methods could include:

Direct verbal questioning

Self-questioning

Writing notes from memory

Using flash cards

Writing essays

Group discussion.

The key factor in all cases is that information is actively retrieved rather than passively heard or re-read - a principle that can be applied to any subject discipline. A straightforward method for a teacher who uses PowerPoint would be to insert slides with short questions, either at the end or throughout (see Weinstein et al., 2016, for a discussion of the relative efficacy of interspersing question slides as opposed to testing at the end) - but there are many more examples and ways in which retrieval practice can be integrated in the classroom, as in the examples that follow.

Creating effective retrieval practice activities for younger students

Megan Smith

A plethora of research has been conducted on the benefits of practising retrieval to improve meaningful learning, with students of all ages. But do the same retrieval practice activities that work with older students work with primary age students?

Recent research has found that some of the basic retrieval strategies that are particularly good at producing learning in older students (e.g. at university) don't work well with younger students For example, Karpicke, Blunt, Smith and Karpicke (2014) conducted an experiment with fourth-grade students (aged 9-11) in their classrooms. Karpicke and his colleagues took fourth-grade science textbooks from the schools and modified the materials to make them easier to read. Students first read the modified text, then were given a blank sheet of lined paper and instructed to write down as much as they could remember from the text. Despite being given plenty of time, the fourth-graders still had trouble remembering what they just read. The students were only able to write down 9 per cent of the information on average; typically, university students are able to write down at least 50 per cent of the material. On a learning assessment four days later, the students did not perform any better after the recall activity compared with just reading the modified text. In other words, adding the extra recall task did not improve learning.

The finding that recall did not improve learning, in this case, is not actually surprising. If college students try to practise recall to prepare for an assessment, but they recall only an extremely small proportion of what they read, then they are not likely to benefit from the activity either. They need to work their way up to being able to successfully recall at least a portion of the information. Then, after recall, to maximise benefits, researchers recommend going back and checking class materials to fill in missing information. Recall, review, repeat. This is all well and good, but what can we, as teachers, do to help facilitate successful retrieval? This is particularly important for younger students who likely need more guidance and structure.

Which retrieval-based learning activities work with primary age students?

It seems that in order for retrieval practice to work well with students of any age, we need to ensure that students are successful in the recall activity. Scaffolding is a great way to help increase retrieval success. Scaffolding could be implemented with any student, but it may be particularly important with students who may struggle to recall on their own from the start.

In another experiment, Karpicke and colleagues (2014) tested ways of scaffolding retrieval with the fourth-graders in their classrooms. To help guide the students to recall information, students were given partially completed concept maps - diagrams that help to represent relationships among ideas about a given topic. Students were first allowed to fill out the concept maps with the text in front of them. Then the researchers took away the texts, and had the students complete these partially completed concept maps by recalling the information from memory. Using this scaffolded retrieval activity, the fourth-grade students were much more successful on a learning assessment later.

Having found that scaffolding with concept maps helps students successfully retrieve information, the researchers completed one more experiment to compare the guided retrieval activity to a study-only control condition (Karpicke et al., 2014). Students completed a question map (similar to a mind map but with a question or prompt for each strand) with the text in front of them, and then completed another question map without the text. This was compared with a control group during which the students just read through the text twice.

On the learning assessment later, students remembered much more of the information when they used the map to practice retrieval compared with just reading. So, while practising recall with a blank sheet of paper did not improve assessment outcomes over simply reading, practising recall with helpful scaffolds in place did.

Retrieval practice works well for students of many ages and abilities but, for some students, writing out everything they know on a blank sheet of paper may be a daunting task that does not lead to much successful retrieval. To increase success, teachers can implement scaffolded retrieval tasks, like the mapping activities presented here. With scaffolding, the students can successfully produce the information and work their way up to recalling the information on their own.

Retrieval practice as a study skill for students

Blake Harvard

One of the largest gaps in my students' learning that I encounter regularly is a lack of study skills. I see it as part of my unwritten curriculum to equip my students with these skills/strategies: in my opinion they are incredibly important to the development of a self-sustaining student as they hopefully, transition into a lifelong learner. Of the learning strategies I implement with my students, I believe retrieval practice is perhaps the best. By best, I mean I see an increase in grades (as in, for example, Hartwig and Dunlosky, 2012); it is the easiest to teach to my students; and is most likely to be used by my students.

After instruction (sometimes this is at the end of class, but may be up to a day or two later), I put my students in front of questions or situations that force them to think and create answers using the material they have studied. Since I am preparing my students for advanced placement (AP) tests, most of the time this involves AP-style multiple-choice questions. I tell my students to honestly attempt to answer the questions using only their brain, with no notes.

Once they have finished answering, I sometimes instruct the students to share answers with partners to stimulate a conversation about the material. Next, I tell them the answers to the questions. Finally, I ask them to look back at their answers. That reflection is important. I remind them that developing the ability to understand this material, apply it and grow is entirely up to them - they can do this on their own time, using online quizzing and questioning tools or by simply aiming to recall and write down material studied, but they should not simply re-read or highlight their notes.

Since introducing retrieval practice this year, both within class activities and by encouraging students to use it themselves, I have seen the class average increase significantly compared with the previous five years. Yes, there are many confounding variables that could contribute to the higher scores, but I sincerely believe that much of the increase can be attributed to my focus on retrieval practice during lessons. At the end of the day, however, I've got students understanding an important strategy that can be applied in all of their classes and believing they can improve their learning ability through effective study habits. That's a big win in my book.

Retrieval roulette: Implementing retrieval practice in the secondary science classroom

Adam Boxer

Knowing the potential that retrieval practice has for supporting student learning, I was keen to implement a simple, powerful routine for encouraging regular retrieval with my science classes. For each topic, I create a set of 'flash cards' of key ideas in question and answer form. The cards are lean and focused to only have the material necessary and nothing extraneous. I print off a set with all the questions and answers and give it to students at the beginning of a unit, and tell them that all my verbal questions will be based on them. They are expected to begin learning them off by heart and referring to them in their verbal and written answers.

Every three lessons, the class receives a mini-quiz using the contents of the flash cards. I use a simple Excel programme that I call 'retrieval roulette' to randomly select questions from the full set contained in the spreadsheet, and display the questions on the board. The quiz has five questions from any point in the course so far and then five questions from the current topic. I give students ten minutes to answer in the back of their books (meaning I can look at their responses later if I want to) and they then peer-assess. I then ask them to raise their hands if they got question one right, then question two and so on. Based on their responses, I pick a question that many of them got wrong, and do some boardwork to clear up any misunderstanding.

This approach seems to me to have many strengths. As well as encouraging retrieval practice, the combination of current and previous topics means that areas of study are spaced and interleaved. It is a straightforward process, which students understand well, and as all the questions and answers are available to the students, a high success rate is possible. In time, I intend to make the process available to parents, too, so that they can support their students to revise effectively.

References

Butler, AC (2010) Repeated testing produces superior transfer of learning relative to repeated studying. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 36(5): 1118-1133.

Hartwig MK and Dunlosky J (2012) Study strategies of college students: Are self-testing and scheduling related to achievement? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 19(1): 126-134.

Karpicke JD, Blunt JR, Smith MA and Karpicke SS (2014) Retrieval-based learning: the need for guided retrieval in elementary school children. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition 3: 198-206.

Karpicke JD and Aue WR (2015) The testing effect is alive and well with complex materials. Educational Psychology Review 27(2): 317-326.

McDaniel MA., Agarwal PK, Huelser BJ, McDermott KB and Roediger HL (2011) Test-enhanced learning in a middle school science classroom: the effects of quiz frequency and placement. Journal of Educational Psychology 103: 399-414.

Roediger HL and Karpicke JD (2006) Test-enhanced learning taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science 17: 249-255.

van Gog T and Sweller J (2015) Not new, but nearly forgotten: The testing effect decreases or even disappears as the complexity of learning materials increases. Educational Psychology Review 27(2): 247-264.

Weinstein Y, Nunes LD and Karpicke JD (2016) On the placement of practice questions during study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 22(1): 72.

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Assessment as learning: The role of retrieval practice in the classroom | impact.chartered.college

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What are tests and questioning good for? Jonathan Firth The 'testing effect', widely referred to now as 'retrieval practice', is a well-known psychological phenomenon whereby people remember things better if they are tested on them. The benefits don't stem simply from getting feedback on right or

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Listen to my interview with Pooja Agarwal ( transcript):

Sponsored by Raymond Geddes and Kids Discover

We've talked about retrieval practice two other times on this site: First in 2015, when we read the book Make it Stick. Then in 2016, I interviewed cognitive psychologists Megan Smith and Yana Weinstein about the Six Powerful Learning Strategies You Must Share with Students.

In both cases, I noticed that although we were discussing collections of techniques, retrieval practice was at the core of both groups. Because it's such a powerful technique, I would think that by now it would have really taken off, that I'd hear teachers talking about it and see the term crop up in lots of education spaces, but I don't see that happening.

So I wanted to give it one more push by carving out a designated spot for it here. My goal is to help retrieval practice become a regular part of classroom practice and part of our common vocabulary as teachers. To help with this cause, I interviewed Pooja Agarwal, Ph.D., cognitive scientist and founder of RetrievalPractice.org.

What is Retrieval Practice?

Retrieval practice is the act of trying to recall information without having it in front of you. Suppose you're studying the systems of the human body-skeletal, muscular, circulatory, and so on. You could do retrieval practice by attempting to name those systems without looking at the list. Once you've listed all you can remember, you'd open up your book or notes and check to see if you got them right.

You might be thinking, This is nothing new. The whole concept of flashcards is built on retrieval practice, and flashcards have been around forever, right?

What's new is the research: In recent years, cognitive psychologists have been comparing retrieval practice with other methods of studying-strategies like review lectures, study guides, and re-reading texts. And what they're finding is that nothing cements long-term learning as powerfully as retrieval practice.

The Research

Agarwal and her colleagues studied the effects of retrieval practice with students in a middle school social studies course (McDaniel, Agarwal, Huelser, McDermott, & Roediger, 2011). Over the course of a year and a half, while the teacher continued teaching as normal, students were regularly quizzed on the material with no-stakes quizzes, meaning they wouldn't count against their grades. These quizzes only covered about one-third of what was being taught. The teacher left the room for every quiz, so she had no knowledge of what was included in the quizzes.

On end-of-unit exams, students scored a full grade level higher on the material from the quizzes than on any of the other material. The other concepts had been taught and reviewed by the teacher as they normally would; the only difference was that some things also appeared on the no-stakes quizzes, and those were the concepts students retained more fully when tested on the exam.

The very act of being quizzed actually helped students learn better.

Here's what this means for teachers: When we teach something once, then want to do something else to help students learn it better, instead of just reviewing the content, we're much better off giving something like a quiz instead. In other words, if we do more asking students to pull concepts out of their brains, rather than continually trying to put concepts in, students will actually learn those concepts better.

To read about other studies on retrieval practice, click here. For now, let's look at some ways you can incorporate retrieval practice into your instruction.

Ways to Use Retrieval Practice in the Classroom

Think-Pair-Share
This quick, low-maintenance strategy can be used at any time to have students recall information, then share it with a partner. You can use think-pair-shares with single-answer questions, or make them more open-ended, like "Think of one thing you learned yesterday about cells." Be sure to have students think on their own before turning to a partner. "It's important for students to retrieve individually as much as possible," Agarwal advises. "If you jump right into pairs, then we all know as educators that some students are retrieving and some may not be." One way to make sure all students retrieve is to have them jot responses down on paper before sharing them with a partner.

Low-Stakes Quizzes
These can be given on paper, in a Google Form, with an individual response system like clickers, Plickers, or Poll Everywhere; or by using a game like Kahoot or Quizziz. It's important to note that these quizzes are a learning strategy: Ideally, students wouldn't get scores on them at all, but if you must give some points, make them an almost negligible part of students' overall class grade.

Brain Dumps
Have students get out a sheet of paper and, within a certain length of time, write down everything they know about a topic of study. This can be done at the beginning of a unit (similar to how you'd use a K-W-L Chart), partway through as a way to reinforce learning, or near the end of a unit. Once students have completed theirs, they can exchange them in a think-pair-share or use them to compile a whole-class brain dump. Then they can return to their texts to see what they missed or what needs correction.

Flashcards
These can be a powerful retrieval tool in class or at home, but students need to be taught to use them correctly:

Once a card has been mastered, keep it in the deck a while.
Research has shown that students tend to "drop" cards out of their decks too soon after they have mastered them (Karpicke, 2009). Ideally, a fact should be successfully retrieved three times before a student moves on from it.

Actually retrieve.
Karpicke's research also found that when students see a familiar prompt on a flashcard, they have a tendency to tell themselves they know it, then flip it over to see the answer, rather than taking a few extra seconds to actually recall the answer-and ideally, say it out loud-before flipping the card over. The difference in timing is subtle, but important: Students will not get the same benefits from flashcards unless they actually retrieve the answer before seeing it.

Shuffle the deck.
Keeping the cards in the same order makes them predictable. Once a deck has been gone through a few times, it should be shuffled to make it more challenging.

For more tips, take a look at College Info Geek's excellent post on effectively using flashcards.

Tips and Cautions

Retrieval practice is not the same thing as assessment.
Although some retrieval activities might allow you to formatively assess student understanding, remember that retrieval practice is a learning activity. Again, if you must assign points for practices, make sure they will have a very low impact on student grades.

Space your practice.
Retrieval practice is even more effective if it's done in short bursts over time, rather than in a single long session. This spacing causes students to forget some of the material, and the struggle involved in trying to recall it strengthens their long-term learning.

Include feedback.
If students retrieve the wrong information, the practice won't be much good unless they find out the right information, so be sure to give them feedback as they go. This can be as simple as providing the correct answer or letting students check their texts after they have attempted to retrieve. "Part of that isn't just so students know if they got their answer correct or incorrect," Agarwal says, "but it adjusts students' metacognition," helping them get "better at estimating or judging what they know and what they don't know."

Match your practice to your assessment.
If your summative assessment for a chunk of content will be basic recall of facts, then the retrieval practice can be that simple. But it you're going to include some higher-order questions as well, then be sure to ask those same types of questions in retrieval practice.

Does it Fit with Inquiry Learning?

If your classroom is built around more hands-on, inquiry-driven approaches to learning that don't prioritize retaining specific content-structures like Genius Hour and project-based learning -you might wonder whether retrieval practice is relevant to your teaching.

Consider this: Within any of those frameworks, students still have to learn and retain discrete information. Take, for example, a student who has decided to learn Arabic as his focus for Genius Hour, or students who are studying soil pH as part of a gardening project. Both students will need to study and remember concrete information in order to make progress, so even if your instruction isn't set up in a traditional way, understanding how retrieval practice works can help you help your students learn better.

A Little Goes a Long Way

Agarwal's final piece of advice is to start small. "If a student just writes down two things or one thing they learned, and then you move on, that's okay," she says. "You'll still get benefits of retrieval without spending five minutes in a classroom discussion."

It can be a bell-ringer. An exit slip. A sponge activity. Something you do while students stand in line for lunch. Don't overthink it. Agarwal advises teachers to ask themselves this: "What is one way we can flip from reviewing information to students retrieving information? What can we do tomorrow?"

What will you do tomorrow? ♦

Learn More

Dr. Agarwal and her colleagues have put together this comprehensive guide to using retrieval practice. Visit RetrievalPractice.org/download to get a free copy for yourself. And be sure to follow Retrieval Practice on Twitter at @RetrieveLearn.
References:
Karpicke, J. D. (2009). Metacognitive control and strategy selection: deciding to practice retrieval during learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 138(4), 469.

McDaniel, M. A., Agarwal, P. K., Huelser, B. J., McDermott, K. B., & Roediger III, H. L. (2011). Test-enhanced learning in a middle school science classroom: The effects of quiz frequency and placement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(2), 399.

There's a lot more where this came from.
Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to our members-only library of free downloads, including 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half the e-booklet that has helped thousands of teachers save time on grading. Come on in!!

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Retrieval Practice: The Most Powerful Learning Strategy You're Not Using

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Nothing cements long-term learning as powerfully as retrieval practice. Learn how to incorporate it into your classroom.

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Retrieval Practice - The Learning Scientists

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Worry Box: In this post, you will learn what a worry box is, why it works, and what the best fit could be for your child. You will also learn how to make a cute Worry Monster Box, a fun activity for home or the classroom.

What is a Worry Box?

A "Worry Box" is a place to store away those feelings that may overwhelm your child.

You may have read about this very same concept described as a Feelings Box, Acceptance Box, or Anxiety Box.

Or you may have come across slight variations that use different types of containers like jars. Those would be your Worry Jars, Feelings Jars, or Anxiety Jars.

It all works the same way.

When worry thoughts, frustration or overwhelming feelings strike, your child (or you, if your child needs help) can write them down on a piece of paper and store them away in their worry box (or whatever container you chose).

Related Reading: Tips & activities to help a child with anxiety

How Does a Feelings Box Work?

This is an amazing coping tool, as it allows your children to:

1. Express their feelings by writing them on a paper (they can also make a drawing, or you can help them write it down)

2. Take control of the situation.
They decide to put those feelings away, so they are taking control of their emotions.

3. Park feelings or emotions that they may not be able to cope with at the present moment until they are ready to deal with them.
They can go back to the box once they feel better, and decide to:

1. Face or tackle the situation

2. Ask for help

3. Accept and move on.

4. Let feelings go.
Sometimes, there is nothing we can do about the situations or events that trigger our emotions. In those cases, it may be better to accept those feelings and let them go.

Kids that worry often may be able to use this tool in conjunction with the "Worry Time" strategy.

Worry time is a time in the day you allocate to think and talk about worries.

The rest of the time, they need to think about something different.

This is not easy to do when you feel worried about something. Asking them to stop thinking about it may even make them more focused on the worries. They may feel it is an "unfinished business" or they may worry they will forget about it.

A worry box comes really handy in this situation. You know you will go back to the problem, so it is easier to let your worries go for the moment.

(Disclosure: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. There may also be other affiliate links in this post. You can also read our Disclosure & Disclaimer policy here)

Worry Box Ideas

There are two different ways you can approach the worry box concept:

1. the imaginary worry box

2. an actual (physical) box

Each of them has its own pros and cons, they may require certain skill sets and work in different contexts.

Let's explore these two options.

An Imaginary Worry Box

This may work well if your child is capable of using their imagination and visualize the concept of a worry box.

It may also come in handy when you are away from home or school and you can't have a physical box.

This is an example of a script you may use:
Sometimes when we feel worried, frustrated, or overwhelmed it may help us to store our problems away. Imagine you have an imaginary box in your mind. We will call it your worry box.
Can you see it? Is it big or small? New or old? What color is it? Does it have a lock? Now, let's think about the things that are upsetting you. We are going to open the lid in our box, and we are going to put all those thoughts away. We can do whatever we want with those thoughts. We can come back later, and deal with them. Or we may just leave them there and not worry about them again.
A Physical Worry Box

Some kids may find it difficult to use visualization techniques and will benefit from using an actual box.

Using the box and writing down your problems on paper also helps to turn something intangible into something they can actually touch, work with, and control.

We'll share a tutorial for a fun monster worry box in the next section, but let's be clear, this technique is equally effective with any box you may have lying around in the house.

You can also use a jar, an envelope, or any container that serves the same purpose of storing worries away.

When we first started using this tool, we recycled a small black box that he had in the house (image below).

We often use it store away:

Problems that we don't have control over

Little nuisances that annoy us and make us mad

You may use a similar script to the one we used for the imaginary box:
We are going to write down what is worrying (or upsetting) you right now. We don't need to do anything about it now. We will put it away in our worry box, and you will decide if you need to come back to it later or not. If you decide to come back to this thought, we may look for ways to solve this issue. We may also decide to just accept it. While it is in the worry box, it can't bother you.
Worry Monster Box Tutorial

Now we are going to do something really fun.

If you are looking for mindfulness crafts to do some work with your kids or students this can be a great project.

It will allow you to talk about emotions (worries, frustrations, anger, insecurities) while you engage in a fun activity.

Let's prepare a fun Worry Monster Box that will eat and take away our worries
Supplies: How to Make a Worry Box: Cute Worry Monster Box Tutorial

1. Cut out the plastic part of the tissue box, as this will be the "mouth" of the monster.

2. Paint the entire box blue. Set aside to dry.

3. While the box is drying, you can start making the other parts. Take the popsicle stick and paint it green.

4. Put a piece of white cardstock on the table. With your pencil, trace the bottom of a cup to make two big eyeballs. Set aside.
Take your black cardstock and put your tube of paint on it (or any object with a round base that is smaller than the one you use for the white cardstock).
With your pencil, trace the bottom of the paint tube to make two big pupils. Cut out the eyeballs and cut out the pupils. Set aside.

5. Check your box to see if it has dried. If it has, start to paint large green polka dots all over the box. Once those have dried, start to paint small purple polka dots all over the box. Set aside to dry.

6. While the box is drying, cut the white foam paper to look like teeth. You can make them square or triangular. We chose the triangular ones.

7. With your hot glue gun, place a line of glue all the way down the line of the white foam teeth that you cut out.

8. Place them on the inside of the box on the top and repeat for the bottom. You'll want enough space to have an "open" mouth, showing teeth.

9. Take your pipe cleaners and wrap them around your pencil to make them curly.

10. Place a dab of glue on the top of the box. Place one of the curled pipe cleaners on top. Continue to make a cluster of curled pipe cleaner "hair" on top of the box.

11. Bring out the eyeballs and pupils. Glue the pupils to the eyeballs.

12. Place a dab of glue above the open mouth in the center of the box for each eyeball. Place the eyeballs on the box.

13. Place a line of glue on the bottom part of the popsicle stick and glue it to the back of the box.

14. Cut out a square piece of the purple foam paper and glue it to the green popsicle stick.

15. Cut out your paper that says "Feed Me Your Worries!!" and glue it to the purple foam paper.

16. Your monster is now complete! Feed him any worries you may have!

Would you like to make sure you don't lose this tutorial? Pin it to go back to it later😊⇓

Other Mindfulness Crafts

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Worry Box: A Surprisingly Useful Coping Tool for Kids (+ Fun Worry Monster Box Tutorial)

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Worry Box: In this post, you will learn what a worry box is, why it works, and what the best fit could be for your child. You will also learn how to make a cute Worry Monster Box, a fun activity for home or the classroom.

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To enable us to communicate with you effectively, we may sometimes use your data for the purposes of analysis, based on information that you have provided to us. We only ever share your data for these purposes with trusted, contracted suppliers, AET partner training hub providers and the Department for Education (who provide the AET with funding).

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To enable us to communicate with you effectively, we may sometimes use your data for the purposes of analysis, based on information that you have provided to us. We only ever share your data for these purposes with trusted, contracted suppliers, AET partner training hub providers and the Department for Education (who provide the AET with funding).

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Adjusting to the many changes that accompany puberty - physical, cognitive, hormonal and social - can be challenging for anyone. But it can be especially difficult for autistic children, who inherently have trouble adapting to change and communicating with others.

Boys and girls in the United States typically enter puberty at around age 12, although the timing can vary from person to person. Autistic girls start puberty about 9.5 months earlier than non-autistic girls do, according to a new study. The findings were published in October in Autism Research.

Starting puberty early could intensify autistic girls' social-communication difficulties and put them at an increased risk of mental health concerns, says lead investigator Blythe Corbett, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Corbett spoke with Spectrum about why girls with autism might hit puberty so early and how her findings could help doctors better equip autistic adolescents, especially girls, for their transition through puberty.

Blythe Corbett: Remarkably little is known about pubertal development and autism. The timing of pubertal onset can set the stage for a cascade of events. For example, typically developing adolescents who reach puberty early are at an increased risk of being harassed or bullied by their peers and having mental health conditions such as depression. We already know that individuals with autism are at an increased risk of peer victimization, and so early puberty onset might substantially increase that risk even further. On the other hand, some research has shown that adolescents with autism improve in some areas, such as behavioral regulation, once they reach puberty. Thus, we need to better understand the onset and course of puberty in girls and boys with autism.

Ultimately, we would like to be able to identify those who may be especially vulnerable to the changes that occur during adolescence so that we can best provide support and treatment to them.

BC: We do not yet know the answer. Previous research in typically developing adolescents suggests that a variety of factors, including body mass index, socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, could contribute to earlier onset or even late puberty. We tried to control for as many of these factors as we could in our statistical analyses, and to see whether or not they impacted our findings. Thus far, the only one that was significant was body mass index: Higher body mass index was associated with more advanced pubertal development. But we cannot determine from our data whether that is a causal relationship, in one direction or the other.

We are in the process of exploring these factors. We will continue to follow the study participants over four years to examine other key aspects, such as the pace at which an individual goes through puberty.

BC: Early pubertal onset can contribute to social withdrawal, because it creates a disconnect between an individual's physical maturity and her social and cognitive maturation. Moreover, girls with autism who are physically more mature than their peers may feel even more socially isolated from others than usual.

BC: Previous studies on pubertal timing have been somewhat mixed and often limited in scientific rigor. Nevertheless, the preponderance of the evidence has hinted at differences in pubertal timing in girls with autism, which we have now substantiated with our study.
S: S: What are the future directions of this research? What are the clinical implications of these findings?
BC: We need to better prepare, educate and support youth with autism during the pubertal transition. This is especially true for girls with autism who are showing earlier menses and breast development. For example, for the girls in the current sample who were menstruating, their age of menarche occurred on average 9.5 months earlier. We need to better prepare young women with knowledge of the physical, sensory and emotional changes they will experience and normalize these changes. We also need to recognize that youth with autism may benefit from psychological and sexual education about the many changes in adolescence.

BC: The participants in this study are part of a longitudinal study in which we are following the cohort for four years. This will allow us to continue to examine pubertal onset, tempo and how timing relates to autism traits and factors related to risk and resiliency. It will also enable us to monitor the onset and trajectory of related mental health concerns, such as anxiety and depression, that often present and worsen during adolescence.

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Puberty may arrive early for some autistic girls | Spectrum | Autism Research News

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Adjusting to the many changes that accompany puberty - physical, cognitive, hormonal and social - can be challenging for anyone. But it can be especially difficult for autistic children, who inherently have trouble adapting to change and communicating with others.

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Adolescents with autism are more likely than their neurotypical peers to experience bullying. They are also more likely to have suicidal thoughts and behavior.

We know that bullying contributes to suicidality in typically developing adolescents. When the news covers a young person's tragic death by suicide, bullying is often mentioned. This anecdotal evidence is borne out by research: Young people who experience bullying are 1.4 to 10 times as likely to develop suicidal thoughts or behavior as their non-bullied peers are.

Most of the time, having suicidal thoughts and behaviors goes hand in hand with having a psychiatric condition, something that is also more common among adolescents with autism than among typically developing children. But not all people who are diagnosed with a psychiatric condition experience suicidal thoughts or behavior. The higher incidence of co-occurring psychiatric conditions in adolescents with autism may reflect an underlying biological vulnerability, or the fact that they are exposed to more stressors than are their typically developing peers.

In a new study, we controlled for the presence of co-occurring psychiatric conditions and other possible confounders that could influence suicidality independently of bullying. We found that adolescents with autism who experienced bullying were still twice as likely as those who did not to later develop suicidal thoughts and behavior.

Our findings underscore the critical importance of identifying and preventing bullying among autistic youth. Bullying must be viewed as a negative outcome for children with autism, and not accepted as something for which there is no solution.

Real risk:

We examined the clinical records of 680 autistic adolescents who had been referred to a mental health clinic in South London, England. We focused on adolescents who were not suicidal at their initial visit.

At that first assessment, 30 percent of the adolescents in our sample reported having been bullied by peers. They were nearly twice as likely as those who did not report bullying to go on to have suicidal thoughts or behaviors during the next five years.

Our findings could support a number of causal theories of suicidality. One we feel is clinically helpful is the interpersonal theory of suicide, which suggests that a combination of three factors leads to suicidal behavior: thwarted belongingness, 'perceived burdensomeness' and acquired capability.

Belongingness is our sense that we are accepted by others. Being married, having children and having many friends are all associated with lower rates of suicide. It is easy to understand how being bullied by one's peers might negatively impact upon one's sense of belonging. Being bullied can also exacerbate 'perceived burdensomeness,' which is the belief that others or society would be better off without you.

Young people who experience bullying may also become habituated to painful experiences and, as a result, feel less fear of death than do other young people. This sort of desensitization leads to an acquired capability for suicide, which is necessary for suicidal thoughts to be acted upon.

A call to action:

In our experience, clinicians who see autistic adolescents may regard bullying as so pervasive that it's hardly worth commenting on.

We urge clinicians to fight this tendency and make a concerted effort to ask children with autism about bullying. And when a young autistic person reports bullying to mental health professionals, it needs to be taken seriously. Our research suggests that bullying not only contributes to suicide risk but also impacts young people's treatment trajectories.

Most clinical services involve scheduled assessments that outline what essential information clinicians should collect during their sessions with young people. We suggest that information about bullying should be added to these assessments. Some adolescents may not feel comfortable sharing information about bullying with a professional they've only just met, but by asking about it early on - for example, simply asking, "Do you feel anyone is being really mean to you at the moment?" - we can make it clear that it's something appropriate for them to talk about with their clinician. When information about bullying is difficult to collect from the young person directly, clinicians should query family members, caregivers or schools.

Teachers have a key role to play. In school settings, evidence suggests that intensive anti-bullying interventions in which teachers meet with parents are most effective. Schools can also benefit from autism-specific anti-bullying strategies, including 'befriending interventions,' which help autistic children form friendships with typical peers. Schools should use robust evaluations to assess the effectiveness of such interventions and involve young people with autism in the development of their anti-bullying policies. Although moving schools should be a last resort, it is sometimes necessary. These moves should be well planned with input from the prospective school and clinician. Schools are normally keen to help early; they generally want to ensure a successful transition for new students.

For autistic adolescents remaining at their school or moving to a new one, clinicians and teachers should focus on creating interventions that enable them to develop a sense of belonging and to identify the value they bring to the people around them. In fact, these approaches can be applied to all students as a universal approach to prevent bullying. Clinicians also need to support school leaders to sustain their anti-bullying strategies; it should always be a 'live' issue within their local schools. In our experience, schools really value local clinicians providing advice to their school leadership, especially when advocating for regular awareness campaigns on the serious consequences bullying can have on the mental health of young people, and the need to provide targeted approaches to support those with autism.

In addition to school-based bullying, cyberbullying is an emerging concern. Further research is needed, as we suspect that young people with autism may not be equally affected by all forms of bullying. The majority of cyberbullying prevention efforts focus on educating young people, their teachers and their parents to recognize and report it.

The latest version of the Long Term Plan issued by the United Kingdom's National Health Service calls upon mental health professionals to look beyond their consulting rooms and think about mental health efforts in communities. Bullying prevention initiatives are often left to schools or websites. Given the serious consequences bullying has on mental health, however, mental health professionals should play an active role in developing and evaluating anti-bullying initiatives.

Johnny Downs is senior clinical lecturer in the child and adolescent psychiatry department at King's College London in the United Kingdom, and honorary consultant at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Rachel Holden is a clinical psychologist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, help is available. Click here for a worldwide directory of resources and hotlines that you can call for support.

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Why it is imperative to ask autistic adolescents about bullying

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Adolescents with autism are more likely than their neurotypical peers to experience bullying. They are also more likely to have suicidal thoughts and behavior. We know that bullying contributes to suicidality in typically developing adolescents. When the news covers a young person's tragic death by suicide, bullying is often mentioned.

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Metacognition and self-regulation approaches to teaching support pupils to think about their own learning more explicitly, often by teaching them specific strategies for planning, monitoring, and evaluating their learning.

Interventions are usually designed to give pupils a repertoire of strategies to choose from and the skills to select the most suitable strategy for a given learning task.

Self-regulated learning can be broken into three essential components:

cognition - the mental process involved in knowing, understanding, and learning

metacognition - often defined as ​'learning to learn'; and

motivation - willingness to engage our metacognitive and cognitive skills.

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Metacognition and self-regulation approaches to teaching support pupils to think about their own learning

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Learning is complicated so it can be useful to use conceptual models to help understand and discuss it. For me, a powerful concept is the idea that we organise ideas, knowledge, the things we learn, in patterns of connected information called schema.

Schema-building is at the heart of this diagram by Oliver Caviglioli for my Rosenshine booklet:

It's important to bear in mind that any model is a deliberate simplification - but there's an assumption that people can and will broaden back out to real-world complexity. For example this diagram was produced in the context of a book on instructional teaching; it's not a universal model for all kinds of learning. There is undoubtedly and unashamedly, an emphasis in the book on the kinds of learning that are difficult and require significant levels of teacher instruction; conceptual ideas that require deliberate, careful chunking, sequencing, modelling and practice.

However the 'Learning' label still includes all manner of learning modes:

listening to an explanation

reading books; studying diagrams and images

handling equipment or artefacts

witnessing an event or a demonstration

experience such as seeing a waterfall and perhaps feeling the spray on your face

making a circuit or a pot or solving a puzzle

Similarly 'remembering' is a label for a wide set of processes that involve drawing on our memory of things we know or have experienced; it doesn't only mean the simple act of conscious factual retrieval. As Dan Willingham explains beautifully in his book, Why Don't Students Like School, understanding is remembering in disguise. (If your first-glance reaction to that is to be doubtful, I'd strongly suggest reading the book directly because the statement is not self-explanatory but, in DW's hands, it makes perfect sense.). So 'remembering' includes ideas about thinking and understanding.

With this in mind, I think it's really important that when we talk about teaching by breaking things down into chunks or we discuss retrieval practice techniques, we always consider that information and ideas arrive and form in complex ways and should be assessed and evaluated in a variety of ways. If we think too reductively in terms of simple knowledge inputs and simple knowledge outputs, we're likely to be missing huge swathes of the warp and weft that enable us to form sound schema for the concepts we're dealing with.

In addition to this, there are questions about developing students' agency in relation to learning; helping them to determine their own learning goals and gaps as part of building metacognition and self-regulation. It's not enough for teachers to own the knowledge checking process - always setting the quiz questions and framing the terms of how knowledge is encountered and tested. Ultimately students need to learn to do this themselves, generatively constructing and evaluating what they know and don't know and learning to explore a knowledge domain with purpose.

Where students have knowledge gaps, there could be all kinds of underlying reasons:

gaps in experience - insufficient exposure to situations, phenomena, events, places so that abstract ideas can't be rooted firmly in a foundational schema and are either not understood or are swiftly forgotten.

gaps in memory (including gaps in understanding - ie knowing how ideas connect): not having encountered knowledge before or failing to absorb knowledge into memory,

gaps in confidence and fluency - where knowledge has been encountered but hasn't been subjected to sufficiently intense or varied practice such that students are continually tentative or forgetful or prone to errors.

limited or faulty schema: where knowledge has been arranged in a schema that contains misconceptions, preventing students making sense of new information.

In nearly all the situations I encounter where students are struggling, it is possible to drill down to find that one or more of these reasons explains their problem. In one way or another, it all boils down to them not knowing something they need to know.

However, experiential, tacit knowledge can't be imparted: it's about providing opportunities for it to be gained:

Formal, declarative, procedural knowledge usually requires sound instructional teaching, especially at a novice stage - but can be gained from reading and other forms of learning, followed up with lots of practice. You can't do too much practice.

But the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. There's a schema-fabric that is woven from lots of parts, none of which are fully meaningful without the others.

If we're going to succeed in addressing students learning gaps, our approaches have to have the richness that the material warrants. Quizzing, for sure, can play a role in supporting fluency and recall of some factual knowledge. But, if students:

are asked to practise explaining something verbally in pairs

have to manipulate a piece of apparatus using their knowledge in order to demonstrate a phenomenon or take some measurements

have to close their books and engage in a dialogue from memory using the language they've learned

have to produce a timeline or essay plan exploring how a character in a novel develops as the story progresses

engage in a paired elaborative interrogative question exchange, devising and exchanging questions and answers

...they could all be far richer retrieval practice experiences. Remembering takes many forms. When they're more complex, less easy to define and control, messier, harder to give precise feedback on.. they're probably going to deepen learning more than a daily quiz produced by the teacher can for the very reason that they are more complex, linking more ideas together. For some students, an overemphasis on quizzing processes may continually misfire because their experiential platform for the knowledge just isn't adequate or they can't apply the knowledge in new contexts due to lack of practice.

The solutions lie in planning a curriculum rich in experience but with a strong instructional focus and sound formative assessment processes where the conditions of practice are varied, embracing simple and complex forms, and where students are learning to evaluate their knowledge for themselves. It's so important that we don't use simplified models of learning to fuel reductive policies such as the absolute requirement for daily teacher-led quizzing and to remember that the underlying complexity is ever-present.
Related posts: The #1 problem/weakness in teaching and how to address it. Tight-Loose and the Folly of Prescriptive Lesson Structures. 10 Techniques for Retrieval Practice

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Schema-building: A blend of experiences and retrieval modes make for deep learning.

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Learning is complicated so it can be useful to use conceptual models to help understand and discuss it. For me, a powerful concept is the idea that we organise ideas, knowledge, the things we learn, in patterns of connected information called schema. Schema-building is at the heart of this diagram by Oliver Caviglioli for...

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In response to demand for my workshops and masterclasses on Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction, I've recorded a screen capture of me talking through the slides I use for my one-day events.
The slides are available here
I have posted the links on youtube in a playlist that can be found here:

There is 2 1/2 hours of material there so take your time to browse.

If you would like to book me for in-school CPD please do - just follow the teacherhead-consulting tab at the top of this website.

If you want bulk copies of the Rosenshine booklet email as@johncatt.com to discuss a discount offer. Or order your own copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rosenshines-Principles-Action-Tom-Sherrington/dp/1912906201
Update: Video Booklets.
I'm delighted that AHT, Claire Grimes, has made a superb workbook to go with each of these videos. They walk through each of the youtube videos linked above with a series of thoughtful reflection activities and prompts. After 15,000 free downloads, Claire has now published the booklet with John Catt as a companion to the Rosenshine in Action booklet.

Books are available for £3 each from https://www.johncattbookshop.com/rosenshine-s-principles-in-action-the-workbook. You can contact as@johncatt.com for bulk discounts. Huge thanks to Claire for making these and sharing them so generously for so long.

You might also like to check back in with the Rosenshine blogs I've written and other related posts connected to the videos:

Here is the session I did for ResearchEdHome with a focus on curriculum.
https://youtu.be/JZGpFfsZuuk

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Rosenshine Masterclass Captured. Free CPD!

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In response to demand for my workshops and masterclasses on Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction, I've recorded a screen capture of me talking through the slides I use for my one-day events. The slides are available here I have posted the links on youtube in a playlist that can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_WHYo5KULlfcpKvyf5fXrFEXbA6zroIk There is 2...

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We provide comprehensive news and analysis of advances in autism research. Through our work, we hope to catalyze new collaborations and perspectives on autism.

We sift through the steady stream of autism papers and highlight the most noteworthy. Our deeply reported news articles explain the context and impact of each finding. We also turn to experts in the field for their opinions on trends or controversies in autism research.

Spectrum began in 2008 as the News & Opinion section of SFARI.org. In the summer of 2015, we spun off to create an independent online identity. As we evolved over the years, we experimented with various types of articles and added dozens of voices - but one thing that has never wavered is our commitment to provide accurate and objective coverage of autism research. We invite you to add your voice to that important conversation.

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But language evolves, and many people in the autism community now strongly prefer identity-first language ('autistic person'). This terminology embraces autism as part of a person's identity rather than a condition that is separate from them. Some professionals are also beginning to prefer this language. The style guide of the National Center on Disability and Journalism no longer recommends person-first language. Instead, it simply recommends asking a person how they prefer to be identified.

In light of this shift, as of July 2018 we use person-first and identity-first language interchangeably. As always, if a writer expresses a preference, we will defer to that. Our writers will also start asking sources on the spectrum how they prefer to be identified in a story.

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About Spectrum | Spectrum | Autism Research News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Skip to main content The leading source of news and expert opinion on autism research. Our Mission: We provide comprehensive news and analysis of advances in autism research. Through our work, we hope to catalyze new collaborations and perspectives on autism. We sift through the steady stream of autism papers and highlight the most noteworthy.