20 years of educational fads

[Piggywaspushed]

This article on Teacher Toolkit is actually two years old so I am sure we could update it! (SLANT anyone??) but it appeared on my Twitter feed and I thought MN might find it diverting:

www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/2016/07/10/education-fads/

loving that triple marking is declared a fad.

Send to all your SLTs! I dare you!!

Blackboard paper, writing on windows, tables and people dressed in paper overalls. Oh and throwing a large inflatable apple to the student who has to answer the question.

I was talking to some student teachers recently who asked me "what do the different coloured pens mean in your books?" I had to laugh at their faces when I replied "the pink means I was near a pink pen when I started marking that day, and the turquoise sparkles mean I was feeling sparkly". Apparently every other school, and most departments in my school, have particular own colours, whereas we use whatever colour we want in my department.

I trained when learning styles were all the rage, and I did loads of card sorts too which may have been a bit crap and I spent loads of time on PLTS in my first couple of years. Nobody talks about them much any more.

Kagan techniques. We all had to try them out, maybe 8/9 years ago. Barely anyone uses them now, mainly because the kids didn't learn any more than they do with the less time consuming methods teachers have used for decades (like mini whiteboards and textbooks)

Paperless classroom and life long learning.

There have been some good comedy threads on the TES in the past along these lines (when TES boards were good and useful).

One was about stupid teaching acronyms, suggesting that W A.N.K (we...all now know) should be more widely used .

There was another where someone suggested forming a whole new totally ridiculous teaching fad to sell to schools. I can’t actually remember any of the details (good story here ) and could never find the post again but I remember tears rolling down my cheek as as I read it!

Tablets for everyone. Or laptops.

Making progress every 10 minutes . Lo for everything and not allowed just to have fun.

MsDragon stay in that school! My kids schoo l the teaching is so micromanaged so very class is identical. I'd hate it

Someone asked a genuine question on my A level facebook page today about how he could match cognitive load theory (that's the new one) to that Kagan thing...

I genuinely mark in whatever pen I can find... my HOF keeps wittering on about green pens and I gaily ignore.

I miss mini whiteboards !

Is AfL still a thing??

TWAT = Things What Are Taught

so that

WANK

BOTTOMs = Bleeding Obvious Things to Ordinary Mortals

Reading this, it seems primary has been subject to many more fads than secondary, although we've had our fair share too.
Possibly there's a few more mavericks in secondary.

Thank you for cheering me up! You've reminded me of so many things I had put to the back of my mind.

I'm so old that we had sessions on how to use the Banda machine in 3 colours on my PGCE. Just sniffing it was enough for me.

I always mark in green sparkly pen in December. I may have agreed to green but I didn't sell my soul... just yet.

Piggy

It does appear on MN that SLT in primary are slaves to the initiative. Or slavemasters.

I think some MATs are too -especially the fascist big ones and those weird London Free Schools.

In my school Data Is King (aka DIcK)

whispers

I think there's more control/micromanaging in primary to certain extent.

I remember ohts and ohps - could reuse then each year and fill in blanks/ lift up flaps and so quick to make!

I found an OHT today in my Really Important Worksheets Box.

G&T used to be a big deal - never hear it mentioned now.

Wasn’t there a time when all kids were supposed to have a electronic portfolio of work? Schools had to all quickly buy into a VLE to host these portfolios.

Don’t think we ever heard about them again.

Great thing about OHTs was that they allowed you to face the class. I loved the 'reveal' and flappy back bits of paper.

I’ve definitely got some OHTs in my filing cabinet. Can’t bear to bin them. One day they’ll go in a museum.

I missed the electornic portfolio but remember g and t!

G and T is still a thing in my school, except now it's A,G and T and we have to write extra sodding targets for them.

I loved ohts. I think my best teaching was that period. Pretty pens, revealing and filling in blanks. And ease of drawing spider diagrams etc. Using a computer ju st isn't the same and I like my big board to have space to write on

OHT pens were guarded and never lent. If I had all 4 colours by the end of a term, I was doing well.

Oh outdoor Learning was defo in when I qualified. A lesson could only be outstanding if done outside in the wind and rain.

Whole class guided reading is a fad at the minute.

Using various online platforms to get children to comment on each other’s work when they could just do it in the book.

Linking EVERYTHING to a topic. PE gymnastics based on a ‘fair trade’ topic when just teaching gymnastics would be better. See also, adding a picture of a tree to your maths sheet cause your topic is deforestation. The irony.

I think it’s okay to quite like a fad, I quite like marking with highlighters, but I think what makes it a fad is when people introduce it as something new and groundbreaking when actually most teachers do some form of it anyway. Like, before growth mindset, did many teachers really reply, ‘yeah actually, you’re Intelligence is fixed so there’s no chance you’ll ever learn this’. It just all gets taken to such an extreme.

We have document readers gathering dust. Like OHTs but rarely working .

Oh my god the electronic portfolios!!!