RESEARCH

Imagine a future in which artificial intelligence (AI) is fully embedded within our education system. AI algorithms mark our children’s essays, decide what they need to learn (and the best time to learn it), detect when they are cheating in exams and judge the performance of their teachers and school. Does it make you feel comfortable or uncomfortable?

“What can educators do to personalise assessments?” We posed this question to five of the UK’s leading edu-suppliers. Here are their thoughts....

I have been interested in action research for a number of years. Having working in social services for the first part of my career, we were trained to within an inch of our lives. Much of the training was practical, and focused on the concept of practice development. This evidence-informed practice enabled us to look at the skills and strategies we needed to meet the needs of our service users. Entering teaching in the nineties and noughties I found that this wasn’t really the case. Training was very prescriptive and centralised from government (National Strategies/APP) or ad hoc, and wasn’t concerned with meeting the needs of everyone in every classroom.

To mark London EdTech Week, the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) has published a report on how the impact of edtech is currently measured in the classroom. The report features survey work undertaken by the National Education Research Panel (NERP) on ICT leaders and decision-makers from 454 Primary schools and 252 Secondary schools in England.

Homewood is a large Secondary academy in rural Kent. The new post of teacher researcher was first created here in 2013, as a part time role, in conjunction with my existing role as Science teacher and PhD student. It has the full support of my principal, Sally Lees, who has a vision of Homewood as a school that has evidence based practice as its foundation, and practitioner led research embedded in its staff development. This article explores the use of methodology and philosophical worldview in shaping the tasks and responsibilities of a teacher researcher.

An official part of Finland’s centennial celebrations, HundrED is a Finnish-born project researching global innovations in education, and helping to disseminate this best practice. The organisation has offices in both Helsinki and London, where the teams are working to find 100 innovations in Finland locally and 100 innovations from around the world.

Alzheimer’s Research UK, the UK’s leading dementia research, charity has launched a curriculum-linked learning programme to help 11-14 year olds lift the lid on brain science and inspire the next generation of dementia researchers. Brain Box, developed alongside the National Schools Partnership, helps teachers to develop their pupils’ scientific enquiry skills at Key Stage 3 with online content, researcher blogs, videos, games and research case studies.

Remember the first time you stepped into the classroom of an experienced teacher to observe their lesson? Did they make everything seem so easy? Were you swept along with the rest of the class in the energy of the lesson? Or bored to tears because you didn’t know what you were looking for; keen to get on with teaching your own class? If you have student teachers in your school, this is likely to reflect part of their school experience. Described in Lortie’s seminal Schoolteacher (1975), teacher training is an “apprenticeship of observation”; learning through observing others is an integral part of all Initial Teacher Training (ITT) in the UK.

SOLE and chips

What is SOLE, and how can it be used to innovate education. Taking the the lead from Sugata Mitra, e-learning consultant Jacqueline Emkes illustrates how she’s utilised this learning method to achieve inspiring results.

I am a roving e-Learning Consultant based at Biddenham International School and Sports College (BISSC) in Bedford. In 2012, I was asked to take a lead on 'SOLE' learning sessions with a group of home-educated children on the PLACE Scheme, a parent -led and community based support programme for home educating families. It is commissioned by Bedford Local Authority and administered through BISSC. To be eligible for the scheme children must be on the Elective Home Education Register of the local authority in which they live.

How do teachers in different subjects view PE? Elliot Simmonds of VoicEd has, along with his peers, been conducting research into this very subject.

In light of the fact that this summer has seen a World Cup, Wimbledon, test cricket and a Home Nations Commonwealth games, my colleagues and I have recently completed some research with teachers to understand their opinions around just how important sport is in the classroom. That report will be published soon, but I wanted to give Innovate My School readers a bit of a preview, and to talk around some of the issues we feel it brings up.

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