Episodes

Kate Jones, Senior Associate for Teaching and Learning, interviews Science teacher, co-founder of Carousel Learn and author Adam Boxer about retrieval practice in the classroom. Understanding the role of memory in the learning process is essential for all educators. It is important for those planning and designing lessons to be aware of the limitations of working memory and recognise how regular retrieval practice can strengthen long-term memory. Retrieval practice involves recalling already-le...

In this episode, Kate Jones, Senior Associate for Teaching and Learning, interviews Jane Miller and Finola Wilson, former teachers and school leaders and now running Impact Wales, about evidence-informed classroom practices and curriculum. This podcast focuses on the importance of schools embracing an evidence-based approach to curriculum design, teaching and learning. Jane and Finola provide an overview of their careers in education, including their transition from the classroom to launching I...

Great questioning in the classroom (and beyond) promotes deep thinking, helping students connect and elaborate on ideas. Great questioning to assess thinking helps teachers plan and adapt their teaching to respond to what assessment tells them. Teachers ask questions every lesson, every day – so it’s important to make sure that teachers and students are asking the right questions to move learning forward. Kate Jones, Senior Associate for Teaching and Learning, interviews teacher, senior leader ...

Classroom management is a key component of great teaching. Great teachers manage the classroom to maximise opportunity to learn, and no model of great teaching could be complete without classroom management. Managing the behaviour and activities of a class of students is a huge part of what teachers do. Classroom management and culture is multifaceted. In this episode of the Evidence Based Education podcast, we explore just a few factors and ideas that can help teachers consider and manage behav...

This podcast is the fourth installment in our miniseries on teacher collaboration, in partnership with Dulwich College International. Over what has possibly been the most challenging year ever, we’ve followed the journey of teachers and leaders as they seek to enhance collaboration across their family of schools, against the backdrop of a global pandemic! We started out in episode one by meeting collaborations leads, the people responsible for coordinating subject and specialist groups. We talke...

The research evidence shows us that effective feedback is one of the most powerful tools that a teacher can have in their ‘toolbox’. But it also offers some cautionary notes… In more than a third of well-designed studies, feedback actively made students’ performance worse. Not all feedback is good feedback! Facial expressions, verbal or written comments, even silence can constitute some form of feedback. It is so integral to communication that it’s happening all the time. Feedback, in its many f...

In June 2020 we published the Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review, a credible evidence summary of the elements of great teaching practice. In this podcast miniseries we’re talking to the team at Falinge Park High School as they use the Evidence Review and the model for great teaching as the focus of their professional development. Staff at Falinge Park are each selecting an Element from the review to work on as the focus of their professional enquiry. In the first Episode we spoke to Headte...

This podcast episode is a Science of Learning feast for anyone mildly obsessed with teaching and learning! Evidence Based Education’s Director of Education, Dr Stuart Kime, talks to Dr Niki Kaiser and Dr Efrat Furst about the approach the three of them took to the design our Science of Learning Programme. However, this is far more than a conversation about designing teacher CPD. Our teaching trio of Drs discuss: The learning process and the value of teachers knowing about it; The key characte...

In this third episode of the Evidence Based Education podcast mini-series on teacher collaboration, we speak to James McBlane, a regular listener to the podcast who got in touch with a suggestion and so we invited him on for a chat! Dr. Jenni Donohoo, a best-selling author and expert on the subject of teacher collaboration, and Cat Scutt, Director of Education and Research at the Chartered College of Teaching. Tune in to the discussion as we explore: The culture of collaboration The broader be...

In June 2020 we published the Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review, a credible evidence summary of the Elements of great teaching practice. In this podcast series we talk to the team at Falinge Park High School as they use the Evidence Review and the model for great teaching as the focus of their professional development. The review provides a structured point of reference for the things teachers do, know, or believe (elements), which have been found to be related to how well their students l...

In 2011, frustrated by the current state of education, David Didau (aka the Learning Spy) began to blog. He charted the successes and failures of his classroom and synthesised 15 years of teaching experienced through the lens of education research and cognitive psychology. The blog became very popular, very quickly. With well over 2.5 million readers, David’s blog – The Learning Spy – is widely recognised as one of the most influential education blogs in the UK and has won a number of awards. I...

Collective teacher efficacy, professional learning communities, collective professionalism… There are many similar but different forms and terms for effective teacher collaboration, and there is a significant body of evidence about their positive impact on teachers themselves and student learning. There are gains to be made through effective and focused collaboration. In this second episode of the Evidence Based Education podcast mini-series on teacher collaboration, we catch up with colleagues...

Collective teacher efficacy, professional learning communities, collective professionalism… There are many similar but different forms and terms for effective teacher collaboration, and there is a significant body of evidence about their positive impact on teachers themselves and student learning. There are gains to be made through effective collaboration. This new episode of the Evidence Based Education podcast is the first in a mini-series on teacher collaboration. We are following the journe...

On 19th June 2020, Evidence Based Education released the Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review – a credible evidence summary of the Elements of great teaching practice. The review provides a structured point of reference for the things teachers do, know, or believe, which have been found to be related to how well their students learn. The overarching goal here is to help teachers take ownership of their professional learning and to help them enhance their practice for the benefit of students....

In June 2020, Evidence Based Education will publish a report authored by Rob Coe. The report will provide a credible evidence summary of the Elements of great teaching practice. This will provide a structured point of reference for the things teachers do, know or believe, which have been found to be related to how well their students learn. This is the first stage in an ambitious project to provide teachers with evidence-informed guidance and personalised diagnostic feedback for their long-term...

Many schools in South East Asia have recently closed due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus, forcing them to move entirely to an online and distance learning environment in a matter of weeks. Those schools are now looking for answers to questions like ‘how do you deliver assessment and feedback in an online context?’ Not knowing how long this situation may last, schools and teachers have had to completely shift the way they’re delivering an education to the students in their care. In recent wee...

In this latest episode, ‘is teaching becoming more evidence-informed?’, Sir Kevan Collins, the departing chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), is interviewed by Evidence Based Education’s Jamie Scott about his eight years in the role – taking the EEF from a small start-up with three employees (“and a decent bank balance”) to becoming a global leader in generating and using evidence to improve educational outcomes for children and young people. Sir Kevan Collins discusses ...

New Trialled and Tested podcast looks at improving Social and Emotional Learning. Effective social and emotional learning (SEL) can increase positive pupil behaviour, mental health and well-being, and academic performance. Indeed, evidence from the EEF’s Teaching and Learning Toolkit suggests that effective SEL can lead to learning gains of +4 months over the course of a year. However, despite being seen as one of their top priorities by almost all primary schools, only just over one-third say ...

In this episode of the Trialled and Tested podcast we explore working memory and its importance to teaching and learning; what it is, why it’s important for teachers to know about it and how an understanding of working memory can inform the way teachers teach. Working memory is the ability to hold and manipulate information in your mind while you use it to finish a task. For example, this could be how many numbers you can keep in your mind at the same time to complete a mental arithmetic task. R...

“Teaching should start from where the student is, not from where we would like them to be.” says education professor Dylan Wiliam. In this episode of Trialled and Tested: Embedding Formative Assessment, we introduce how formative assessment strategies can be used in the classroom. Dylan is the co-developer of a professional development programme, Embedding Formative Assessment, which supports teachers to use real-time knowledge of their pupils’ strengths and weaknesses to adapt their practice. T...

In this episode of Trialled and Tested: Improving secondary science, Jamie Scott from Evidence Based Education speaks to Emily Yeomans (EEF Head of Programme Strategy), Sir John Holman (Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the University of York) and Dr Niki Kaiser (Chemistry Teacher and Research Lead at Norwich Research School) to explore some of the evidence-informed strategies teachers can adopt or focus on to enhance the teaching and learning of science at Key Stages 3 and 4. Emily Yeomans an...

Is the science of learning really a science? What can teachers and students learn from the research evidence on effective studying and learning? What aspects of cognitive psychology could affect teachers and students in the next ten years? These are some of the questions Stuart Kime posed to Professors Anne Cleary and Matt Rhodes from Colorado State University when they recorded this podcast early in 2019. Anne and Matt’s new book – A Guide to Effective Studying and Learning: Practical Strategi...

In this episode of the Trialled and Tested podcast, ‘Efficacy, evidence and evaluation’, Jamie Scott from Evidence Based Education speaks to Eleanor Stringer and Matthew van Poortvliet from the Education Endowment Foundation to find out more about their approach to identifying projects to fund, scaling-up promising projects and running evaluations. Here’s a full account of the questions put to Eleanor and Matthew: 2:02 – What does the EEF look for when considering which projects to fund? 3:15...

Over the last year, Evidence Based Education and Suffolk County Council have been working in partnership to deliver a robust, cost-effective and enjoyable Research Support Partnership (RSP) programme to train staff from schools and academies throughout Suffolk. The aim of the programme has been to develop a network of capable Research Leads across the county. The training proved a real success among participants (even those who were sceptical at first!). On the last day of training, I spoke to ...