“If I have seen further

it is by standing on the
shoulders of
GIANTS” Isaac Newton

1 Standing shoulders of giants

- The work of people that have researched education, and can
give us guidance as to what really works.
- You wouldn’t expect to drive somewhere without a map
would you?
- Yet we quite often go on hunches - things that “seem like
they work”
 Enser
Bokhove De Bruyckere
Ashman Willingham Sherrington
Slavin
Newmark
Baddeley & Hitch Barton
Rosenshine
Lehain
William
Bjork Ericsson Didau
Kirschner, Sweller
& Clark Hendrick & McPherson

Hattie Old
Christodoulou Tharby
Bennett
E.D. Hirsch Gladwell
Lemov
Why the school of the future
must learn from schools of
the past
Ben Rothwell Head of Technology and Innovation
Victory Heights Primary School

#WWDubai
A traditional school layout.... How far will our Area 2071 school differ from it?

Not as much as you’d think, I’d argue….

Will children be studying from home, using VR?

Unlikely.

For one, the immersive aspect of VR is actually too stimulating. Our cognitive
processes are overloaded by it. But we will touch on that later….
Some people claim that its because its a way of controlling a
subservient workforce.
But is it really?
- Board at the front, teacher at the front
- Individual desks give each child space, a chair ensures (or at
least hopes) for good posture
- The Bell - what’s to dislike about a bell? Sure factories have
them, but so do front doors
- But what about group work? Desks are flexible and can be
arranged. What about group work? Is that as beneficial as we
think?

Group work - Slavin - conditions and accountability - no social

loafing
Helps develop collaboration skills - but as a method for primary
knowledge transfer - no
 “We don’t grow into
creativity, we grow out of
it. Or rather, we are
educated out of it”

Sir Ken Robinson

If we are to believe in that message, then we consider how

children learn best… surely we are no longer expecting the teacher
to be “sage on the stage” - but “guide on the side”

Surely that is no longer in question - teachers are just there to

facilitate right? Wrong.

Later, we will talk about Barak Rosenshine’s 10 principles of

instruction - about how direct, or explicit instruction is significantly
more effective than learning through inquiry or discovery - and why.
 4C
Creativity, Collaboration, Communication and Critical Thinking

4Cs - creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking.

21st century skills. 4th Industrial revolution. What all the silicon
valley companies like Google and Facebook want us to learn - vital
for our futures in which the robots will be doing most of the hard
work - and knowledge can be googled (so we don’t need to learn it)

Creativity - and the process of divergent thinking that Ken

mentioned - why is it that the children in the study got worse at it…
was it really that schools was beating the creativity out of them?

No… its just that the children, as they grew older have acquired
more knowledge… and therefore their creativity is being channeled
more efficiently. They know what good looks like, and what bad
looks like - and they are reluctant or perhaps unable to write down
bad ideas. From an evolutionary viewpoint, it makes no sense for
humans to refer to solutions that they know don’t work.

Essentially at the core, each of the 4Cs is to do with solving

problems. If you can’t identify the problem then creativity won’t
help. We collaborate and communicate to assist us with this
problem. And critical thinking, the ability to make an objective
analysis of a problem to form a judgement.

The 4cs are not a new phenomenon - since the dawn of time
mankind has been engaging in this process. Early hunter gatherers
had to creatively apply their knowledge in order to survive. These
skills are biologically primary forms of knowledge. Our biological
adaptation is to quickly and effortlessly acquire these skills. Unlike
secondary forms of knowledge, such as writing, which is a relatively
new phenomena and is a heavy burden on our cognitive processes
- as opposed to speaking - which children are able to pick up
relatively easily, through listening and immersing themselves in
speech. (Geary 2008)

Therefore can we really teach creativity? No

Lets consider some examples

Steve Jobs
Jonny Ive

Jonathan ‘Jonny’ Ive - the design genius behind a host of Apple

products

Could Jonny Ive teach creativity to others? Surely as one of the

most celebrated industrial designers of our generation, he should
be able to? Unlikely.

Because Jonny Ive’s genius is built on rich foundations. He was the

son of an engineer, and took an early interest in cars and their
designs. From an early age he was acquiring knowledge.

His schooling was not particularly unique or interesting, Ive

attended a large high school in Staffordshire. He would have
encountered a curricula, and indeed teaching styles, that were
common at the time.

Ive studied a BA in Industrial Design at Northumbria Polytechnic,

and then went to work firstly at Robert Weaver and then Tangerine.
He designed a large range of products - including toilets and
microwaves. He didn’t join Apple until 1992, where he designed the
2nd generation Newton.

Was Jonny Ives success down to the schooling he received?

Probably not, there is nothing to suggest that he received an
education that was in anyway different to his peers, nor was his
education particularly ground-breaking - he studied the traditional
subjects. But Ive had an early immersion in engineering, an early
interest in design, and a fascination with the work of Dieter Rams at
Braun and the Brauhaus design school which influenced his work.
Jonny Ive creative success was a result of lots of hours of
deliberate practice and knowledge of form, function and style.
Anders Ericcson, Malcom Gladwell et al.
Mozart

Let’s consider Mozart. Widely regarded as one of the top

composers of all times - his genius and creativity is beyond
question. But how did Mozart get there, was there some secret
ingredient that we should be bottling and selling?

No. Mozart was immersed with music from an early age. His father
Leopold a musician and teacher, his older sister a competent
musician as well. Mozart learned to play from an early age, and
composed many pieces. Yet he did not reach competence until
some 10 years after he first started to compose. His first
masterpiece (Piano Concerto #9 - aged 21)

Mozart was home schooled, and his competition with his older
sibling, almost ferociously drove him to musical success.

Yet again, Erricsons 10,000 hours principle comes to the forefront.

Even chess grand masters, when playing chess, there is almost an
assumption that they are expert problem solvers, developing
strategies on the fly as they play. Chase and Simon (1973) pitted
experts vs novices using known positions on the board. Experts
won every time.

They randomised the placement of the pieces on the board and

expert performance was the same as novice. Therefore what we
are seeing is recall and not problem solving.

Problem solving is domain specific. It is possible to be an expert in

one field and a novice in another.

10,000 hours of practice is DELIBERATE practice. That means

targeting the areas of weakness and the areas of most importance.
Practicing in a meaningful way, seeking feedback and acting upon
it.
As much as this applies in the arts and in sports - this applies to
school.

John Wooden said “Never mistake activity for achievement” - just

because they seem engaged and participating - is learning actually
taking place. Is that specific feedback loop happening. Because if it
isn’t it’s just performance and not learning.

I go to driving range to practice golf. I am not very good. I usually

break out the 7 iron first, to warm myself up. Hit 20+ shots, and
then the driver. Hitting the driver well is the most masculine of
shots. I want to drive it 300+ yds. Yet I only hit the driver 10-12
times a round. I’d be very lucky to break 100 shots in an 18 hole
round of golf, yet I focus the majority of my practice on a skill that is
rarely used. What skills should I be practicing.

Deliberate and purposeful practice.

Sir Richard
Branson

Outliers.

Of course, there will be outliers. Those who break the mould. Not
as many as you would think.

Tiger Woods, the Williams sisters, the Beatles, Bill Gates… they
didn’t break the mould - they got plenty of practice.

But occasionally people break the mould.

These are the true outliers. People who have achieved success
despite dropping out of school, or perhaps following unconventional
paths.

But we should remember they are outliers. There path to the top
was extraordinary. Their journey is not one we should promote.
Tara
Westover

Recently, the press reported Tara Westover, a mormon, who is

starting a PHd at Cambridge, despite never attending school -
should we therefore assume that not attending school is the key to
success? Of course not

But if we look at correlation, we have a story of a girl who’s

religious upbringing meant she would receive no formal education -
yet has a Harvard fellowship and Cambridge PHD to her name.
Thats why its important not just to look at correlation.
 0.4 Effect size (Cohen’s d)

You may be familiar with the term effect size. Effect size 0.4
(cohens d) is a measure of how interventions (that is, a change of
what we do as teachers) impact the learning of pupils. 0.4 is the
mean effect size, so it is argued by Hattie, that we should only
consider interventions of 0.4 or above as having any significant
value.

There is also another significant number to consider alongside

effect size, and that is significance. The measure of how likely it is
that the result could appear just by chance. A commonly accepted
value in measuring educational interventions is 0.05.

Hatties work has come in for some criticism, mainly due his
aggregation of seperate studies in which, for some, significance
hasn’t been calculated.

There are other organisations such as the Education Development

Trust and Education Endowment Foundation that also carry out
research studies, and the reference to these studies should at least
be a starting point for any school making significant changes.

There is room for moonshot or blue sky thinking, but the culture in
schools should be the same as in medicine - test on a small pilot
study, evaluate it, consider its effect and its significance, and the
cost (both in time and resources) of implementing it.
Hopefully, if schools do more of this, we will get less of this - VAK.
 1 Rosenshine’s 10 Principles of
Instruction

And now to the takeaway.. Something you can go away from this
lecture - and begin to use, in your school.

Introducing Barak Rosenshine - and his 10 Principles of Instruction

(american educator magazine) - possibly the most important study
you’ve never heard of…

Developed from
- research on how the brain acquires and uses new information
research on the classroom
- practices of those teachers whose students show the highest
gains
- findings from studies that taught learning strategies to
students.
 1 Daily Review

Adapted from Barak Rosenshine’s 10 Principles of Instruction (American Educator)

1 Daily review - 5-8 minutes (self quizzing, flash cards, quizzes) -

information fluency and automatic recall - Daisy C - MCQs -
Plausible, Dylan William - more than one write answer
2 Small steps - our working memory is small (4) baddeley and hitch
- don’t try to give children too much info at once
3 Questions - the most succesful teachers spend about half the
lesson talking, demonstrating and asking questions - quality
questions let the teacher determine if things are being learnt
‘Curse of knowledge’ - the more we know the harder it is to
recognise that others might not know it
4 Provide models - think aloud, how would I solve it, worked
examples
5 More succesful teachers allow time for students to rephrase,
elaborate and summarise material
2 New material in small steps

Adapted from Barak Rosenshine’s 10 Principles of Instruction (American Educator)

3 Ask Questions

Adapted from Barak Rosenshine’s 10 Principles of Instruction (American Educator)

4 Provide models

Adapted from Barak Rosenshine’s 10 Principles of Instruction (American Educator)

5 Guide student practice

Adapted from Barak Rosenshine’s 10 Principles of Instruction (American Educator)

 6 Check student understanding

Adapted from Barak Rosenshine’s 10 Principles of Instruction (American Educator)

6 Check student understanding - dont just ask “any questions” -

check for understanding from all. Dont leave it to chance - lolly
sticks
7 Obtain a high success rate - this is really hard, but you want to
provide sufficient challenge so that they don’t get everything right,
but not that they are discouraged - Bjork desirable difficulties
8 Scaffolds- these are temporary - because as the children become
more expert in their field - too much information can actually be
negative - but for novice learners - scaffolds such as cue cards and
checklists help them achieve
9 Independent practice - children must ‘overlearn’ - cover material
at least 3 times, to ensure depth of learning and information fluency

Performance is not learning!

10 Weekly and monthly review - cover old material weekly and

monthly - recall aids understanding, builds schemas and allows you
to connect new learning to old concepts.
Learning is the commitment of knowledge (declarative or
procedural) to long term memory.
7 High (80%) success rate

Adapted from Barak Rosenshine’s 10 Principles of Instruction (American Educator)

8 Scaffolds for difficult tasks

Adapted from Barak Rosenshine’s 10 Principles of Instruction (American Educator)

9 Independent practice

Adapted from Barak Rosenshine’s 10 Principles of Instruction (American Educator)

10 Weekly and monthly review

Adapted from Barak Rosenshine’s 10 Principles of Instruction (American Educator)

 Thank you
Join the debate @vhps_innovation
Ben Rothwell Head of Technology and Innovation
Victory Heights Primary School

#WWDubai