An Irish perspective on education for all who value teaching
Episodes
Monday Dec 12, 2022
Monday Dec 12, 2022
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
On this podcast I spoke to Professor Mark Windschitl from the University of Washington about teaching science and especially the science of climate change. As usual with these podcasts we covered a wide range of topics, including the following:
- What core practices are in teacher education (e.g. teachers need to elicit ideas students already have about the topic being taught).
- Why, although important, there is much more to teaching than core practices, such as developing respectful and trusting relationships with students.
- As teachers gain experience, they add nuance and flexibility to the core practices.
- What ambitious science teaching is: willingness to constantly improve one’s practice, to take risks to improve their practice and to base changes on students’ response to their teaching.
- The need for a teacher pursuing ambitious science teaching to understand topics (e.g. the greenhouse effect) in great depth, with flexibility, and connected to children’s everyday lives.
- The biggest ideas in biology that can be taught in a second-level school setting (e.g. how ecosystems function in the world).
- Trees extend their roots out to other trees and can cause chemical changes in other trees.
- Selecting candidates for teaching science and engaging in ambitious science teaching
- How the impact of testing in schools shapes the curriculum.
- The importance of academically productive discourse in the classroom about science ideas. Productive talk in a classroom is a process of sense-making and meaning making.
- The need for teachers to have models of ambitious science teaching that is relevant to the setting in which they teach.
- How to teach children the science of climate change without elevating eco-anxiety.
- Why solutions need to be threaded into the teaching of climate change
- The importance of understanding the greenhouse effect and why understanding that is not enough (the need to know about ecosystems, the oceans, the cryosphere – the frozen parts of the earth, and tipping points)
- The scale of climate change phenomena
- The idea of “carbon footprint” was introduced by a petroleum company (BP)
- What schools can do to mitigate the effects of climate change (e.g. making Prom night – the Debs – greener)
- Plastics pollution is different to climate change but both are connected in many students’ minds
- Students being exposed to sceptical points of view in some areas. Although such perspectives need to be managed carefully, sceptical views might not be as big a problem as we would expect. It may help to focus on the science of the greenhouse effect.
- The challenge of beef production as part of the climate change discussion
- The difficulty of conveying the scale of climate change
- Finding and evaluating climate change data – the challenge of media literacy. Among the known reputable outlets he identifies are: NASA, NOAA, WHO, and the UN.
- The importance of having a reason when sharing data about climate change.
- Assessing students’ knowledge of climate change
- How he became interested in education research
- How he conducts his research to find out how novice teachers become “well-started beginners”
- Helping novice teachers use agency to move beyond reproducing someone else’s teaching
- How he finds time to write – bringing a notebook with him when going out for a stroll and doing 14 versions of an article before it’s ready for publication
- Who research in education is for and how does it influence practice in education? Is it through instructional coaches? School leaders?
- Having children do well-structured work in small groups (that is equitable and rigorous) in class, at least part of the time, is hugely beneficial for their learning.
- Productive academic discourse in science is difficult to find in classrooms in the Unites States.
- Another research question is why technology failed to deliver for education during COVID
- Why schools and the communities around them should have porous boundaries
- The value of a teacher sharing (a) the kind of science they’re interested in (b) something about their family and (c) a hobby they have with their class in order to decrease the psychological difference between the teacher and their students.
- He refers to the book Teaching and its predicaments by David Cohen.
Wednesday Sep 30, 2020
Wednesday Sep 30, 2020
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.
On this week's podcast my guest is Professor William (Bill) Damon from Stanford University Graduate School of Education where he directs the Stanford Center on Adolescence. He is the author of many books, including The Path to Purpose. We discuss how students can be helped to find purpose in life. Among the topics discussed on this week's programme are:
- Many young people looking for something to believe in - about a quarter of them “drifting”
- Responses to being adrift: hedonism, anxiety.
- Being adrift originates in not finding something that is a positive direction for themselves.
- Profile of young people who are drifting
- How young people have found purpose in previous eras (national, economic…)
- Difference between seeking a purpose and seeking a meaning in life
- How having a sense of purpose can help you have a psychological balance
- Any activity can be purposeful if you believe in it, do it well and give it your all
- How teachers can model a purposeful life for their students
- Profiles in purpose
- A teacher’s role in helping students find their purpose
- When parents dislike the purpose chosen by their daughter or son
- Most of us have multiple purposes in life
- The link between purpose and entrepreneurship
- Atul Gawande’s book Being Mortal
- The relationship between mission, commitment and purpose
- Where people find purpose
- The importance of “why” questions for teachers
- How exams could be purposeful
- Barriers students encounter in trying to find their purpose in life
- How he conducts his research
- Questions to help people find their purpose
- Diane Ravitch
Wednesday Mar 04, 2020
Wednesday Mar 04, 2020
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
This week's podcast is a collaborative one with Darren Ralston from The Ed Narrative podcast. Darren was in Ireland to present a workshop at the annual conference of the Computers in Education Society of Ireland (CESI), which was held in Athlone on Saturday last. Among the topics we discuss on the podcast are the following:
- Integrating technology into one’s teaching
- The difference between an instructional coach and a learning technology integrator
- Using virtual reality in the classroom, using Google Expeditions
- How instructional coaches are organised in US schools
- Becoming, and working as, an instructional coach
- Managing his workload as a coach
- Comparing mentoring and coaching as interpreted in his setting
- How he got into teaching
- How he teaches literature
- How he chooses literature to teach
- Teaching drama – using comedic improvisation
- Brave New World
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Starting The Ed Narrative Podcast
- Equipment used for podcasting
- Selecting guests for podcats
- Neil Postman
Wednesday Dec 19, 2018
Wednesday Dec 19, 2018
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
Theme music composed and arranged by David Vesey
This week I bring you the second part of my interview with Katie Ashford Deputy Head of Michaela Community School in Wembley Park in London. The wide range of topics we discuss include the following:
- Michaela Community School Building
- The Teach First Programme
- Starting a blog, which led to a job offer
- Personalised Instruction and whole class instruction
- Her blog posts
- A typical day
- Family Lunch (at school)
- What she likes most/least about teaching
- Her ideal English lesson
- What schools are for
- Teachers who had a significant impact on her
- Who inspires her
Katie also referred to Tom Bennett's blog and to books by Daisy Christodoulou and Daniel Willingham.
Wednesday Dec 12, 2018
Wednesday Dec 12, 2018
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.
Theme music composed and arranged by David Vesey.
On this week's programme I speak to Katie Ashford who is Deputy Head and Director of Inclusion at Michaela Community School in Wembley Park London. Her blog is called Tabula Rasa. We talk about school culture and other aspects of teaching. In the course of our discussion Katie mentions how she is inspired by people such as Rafe Esquith and Erin Gruwell.
- Different kinds of school culture
- Identifying problems in a school
- Changing School Culture
- Why teaching is tiring
- The kind of records UK teachers need to keep
- Marking children’s work
- The approach used by teachers in Michaela Community School: teacher as authority
Wednesday Oct 31, 2018
Wednesday Oct 31, 2018
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
Theme music composed and arranged by David Vesey.
On this week's programme I speak to Arjen Wals from the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands where he is Professor of Transformative Learning for Socioecological Sustainability/UNESCO Chair. He was a keynote speaker at the 2018 annual conference of the Association for Teacher Education of Europe, which was held in Gävle in Sweden in August. Among the topics we discussed were the following:
- Why a sustainable approach to teaching is important
- Why teachers alone cannot bring about sustainable living
- How to promote sustainable choices in education
- How sustainable choices may vary from one place to another
- Why making teachers more accountable discourages them from taking risks
- CSI – Critical Sustainability Investigations (example with old mobile phones)
- Students taking photos of things that bother them in their environment and sharing them
- “Alternative” pedagogies (experimental learning, embodied learning, place-based learning, discovery learning, problem-based learning)
- The risk of having future people in power acting in an eco-totalitarian manner if sustainability issues are not addressed while time is available
- What Policymakers can do to make education more sustainable
During our conversation Professor Wals referred to Fairphone.
Wednesday Dec 21, 2016
Wednesday Dec 21, 2016
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
esented and produced by Seán Delaney.
On this week's programme I bring you the second part of my interview with Dr. Gerry Jeffers, author of Transition Year in Action, which was published by The Liffey Press. In the interview he discusses several topics including how he would redesign transition year if he could based on his vast experience as a teacher, guidance counsellor, deputy principal, teacher educator, lecturer and educational researcher.
Wednesday Dec 14, 2016
Wednesday Dec 14, 2016
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.
On this week's programme I bring you the first of a two-part interview with Dr. Gerry Jeffers, author of Transition Year in Action, which was published by The Liffey Press. In the interview he talks about the purpose and history of transition year and illustrates it with anecdotes from his vast experience as a teacher, guidance counsellor, deputy principal, teacher educator, lecturer and educational researcher.
Wednesday Nov 23, 2016
Wednesday Nov 23, 2016
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.
On this week's programme I speak to Annette Honan from the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment about the new Leaving Certificate subject, Politcs and Society.
Wednesday Jan 06, 2016
Wednesday Jan 06, 2016
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.
This week I am joined by Brian Mooney to discuss how school leavers can plan their career and the kind of steps in that direction that can be taken during their final year in school. Brian is a guidance counsellor in Oatlands College, the editor of the Education Matters Yearbook 2015-2016 and a columnist with the Irish Times. He is also the author of Start Your Career Journey Here, a Revise Wise publication.
Some of the websites mentioned on the programme are:
www.qualifax.ie
www.careersportal.ie
http://www.cao.ie/
www.ucas.com
http://www.eunicas.ie/
http://www.coa.co.uk/
https://www.edco.ie/