When teachers step into the classroom, we never act alone. There is no “I do”. Each of our actions is a response, a small arc, in a continual loop consisting of ourselves, our tools, and our students. 

Problems arise in lessons due to transient information, which occurs when information appears and then disappears (Wong et al. 2012). This is common with the presentation of slide decks. A crucial image is shown but vanishes when the teacher moves to the next slide. This puts pressure on the student to retain all the aspects in mind while connecting them to the information on the next slide.

Not long ago a drive emerged against "fun" lessons. The push was to rid the focus on fun and return it to subject knowledge itself. Soon followed the argument that students had to accept boring lessons. Now I hear ever more reports of widespread boring lessons. Often, it seems, following a script of teacher does, students do. With an ontology of controllability comes the urge to pin systems down like an insect to a cork board. While learning through entertainment didn't wor

Including metacontent in your teaching will ensure students learn for the long-term.

Does knowledge = understanding? This simple equation suggests that the extent of a person's understanding is purely equal to the extent...

Often, people seem to discuss schools as centres for optimising students' learning and teachers' teaching. However, I want to share a...

Recently the idea of "rehearsal" has appeared in UK-based educational blogs. But there appears to be confusion. What's it for? Here are...

Around 2012ish, a new movement rode into the UK (school) educational scene. It came with the banner of "evidence-based", to counter the...

Advising students how to study is complex. Learning is messy, with ups and downs. Sudden insights may punctuate periods of seemingly...

The variation theory of learning is a theory about how we learn and, therefore, how to teach. It isn't a theory of how memories are...

Summer is ending and the new syllabus is rolling out. I just spent a few months developing my resources for the entire course and I want...

For years I've toiled with quiz questions in my biology courses (AKA core questions). I've used quiz questions as starter quizzes, to...

What are the most important factors for teacher sustainability? I'm sure there are many. Student behaviour, planning time, teaching...

Short answer questions are currently ubiquitous in UK secondary biology education. They work well for providing objectivity. This gives...

This is a summary of my paper here in the Journal of Biological Education , whose ideas have been vastly advanced and presented in my...

Ebbinghau's forgetting curve has seen a resurgence in popularity. While I agree that knowledge is essential for domain specific...

In the UK, the knowledge curriculum seems to be enjoying high levels of popularity. The pendulum has swung (and rightly so) away from...

How the 'cult of pedagogy' of pedagogy can distort the knowledge of the biology curriculum One of the defining characteristics of my...