Modsu: Welcome everyone. I think it would be really useful if we all introduce ourselves and say a little bit about what we’re researching at the moment.

Nicola: I am researching a) wellbeing in adolescents and young adults with language and communication difficulties b) language and cognition in deaf children and c) understanding overlaps between different educational / developmental needs.

Kinga: I’m researching the links between logical thinking and mathematics. We also have a project on the development of time management skills, and we investigate this is both typically developed adolescents and in adolescents with autism.

Lucia: I am Lucia, and I have just started working on my postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley, working on how puberty impacts learning.

ModSu: What would you say are the key ways that puberty impacts learning?

Lucia: We really don’t know all that much. It is hard to tease out effects of puberty (hormonal changes) and those of age. Most of what we know so far comes for animal studies. But we think that puberty might be triggering the increased interest in social status and peers, opening windows of sensitivity and plasticity but closing others.

Nicola: Lucia, in your work do you try to separate out cognitive changes as well as physiological ones – I know these are the same at some level but…

Lucia: We are zooming in on reinforcement learning (learning from rewards) and its interaction with puberty and age.

Nicola: Fascinating – I teach a lecture or two on behaviourism basics but this would be great stuff to mention. Do you have a link to a suitable paper?

Lucia: This is a great review! http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2016.08.042

 

Modsu: And teachers – perhaps you could tell us a bit about what you’re teaching at the moment, and any particular research you’re interested in?

jwatson: I work at Huntington research school with a specialism in cognition. Im also Head of Year 13 so have an interest in adolescent development.

Modsu: That sounds really interesting. Are you currently involved with a research project?

jwatson: We are being the control group for a study into mindfulness and we are also being part of some research looking at how sleep impacts on vocab development. But most of our work is disseminating research and encouraging teachers to engage in evidence based practice rather than actually being involved in research.

 

Nicola: Can you tell us about Huntington research school – is it 6th form or whole secondary?

jwatson: Huntington School is a comprehensive secondary school but the Research School is actually seperate to this – we are 1 of 23 set up accross the country over the past 2 years. They are funded by the EEF and IEE both trying to encourage social mobility.

Nicola: I was not aware of these, sounds like a great idea – does the research school have a twitter presence?

jwatson: Absolutely – check out @HuntResearchSch. It’s super exciting to be a part of!

Nicola: I presume that sleep study is at York – have you met Vic Knowland from their team? 

jwatson: It sure is!!! No I haven’t- I’ve been working with Emma James. I’m really enjoying it – fascinating stuff!

Nicola: Do you find it challenging getting teachers to engage with evidence base, or are most teachers pretty keen?

Modsu: Excellent question – and also, how do you go about sharing research with busy teachers?

jwatson: I suppose part of the issue is that schools choosing to attend our programmes are already relatively interested the problem is getting schools involved that are more sceptical about research. We do 3 day programmes training research leads- the idea that these people will be given time by their schools to do the hard work for busy teachers and make it accessible for them. Eg getting every teacher to complete an inquiry question with a pre and post test, control group etc but the research lead point them in the direction of relevant research so they don’t need to find it. The EEF toolkit is amazing too as its so accessible and in ‘teacher friendly’ language.

Modsu: Yes, I agree. The toolkit is a great resource.

Nicola: Yes the tool kit is excellent.

jwatson: But it’s so important to get teachers to dig deeper beneath the headlines. Many disregard things just by looking at the average months of progress

Nicola: The research programme sounds like a good way in. I have found the training / culture regarding research very different in schools to say health settings.

jwatson: That’s so interesting- I went to Sweden last month to do a talk at the Swedish Institute for Education and they said the same.

Nicola: I think in allied health folk grow up professionally with the idea of evidence based practice, whereas in teaching people often don’t have training or access to journals etc.

jwatson: Absolutely, and many teachers seem to feel using a control group is unethical so don’t feel research has a place in the classroom.

Nicola: Yes, but of course control groups can be many different things. Waitlist controls would be easily found in classrooms I think since children often take turns to do small group activities.

jwatson: Exactly and that’s all based upon us assuming the initiative works rather than trying to be objective about it! 2/3 of our inquiry questions last year showed our interventions were ineffective but thats just as interesting so we can stop doing things that don’t work! Especially with teacher workload issues!

Nicola: This is SO important. Very easy to carry on doing what ‘has always been done’ etc. Also control groups can be active controls, so teachers could compare one method over another. 

Modsu: Absolutely. A finding that something isn’t working is definitely still a finding 🙂

Lucia: Agreed! We need to be more comfortable with negative results.

Modshane: And our next topic on “Evidence in the Classroom” should hopefully be of interest too. Starts on Monday.

 

Modsu: Have any teachers seen the edition of Impact that was sent to schools this week? All about the science of learning – https://impact.chartered.college/issue/issue-2-science-of-learning/  

Lucia: It is fantastic! A great survey of the field, and very accessible.

jwatson: Sounds amazing. No I haven’t.

Modsu: I’m not sure who the copy will have been sent to, but hopefully there will be one around your school – it’s a really interesting read!

jwatson: Thanks so much, I’ll hunt it down…

 

jwatson: I would love to see some more research into metacognition in the classroom.

Nicola: We just had a PhD student, Billie Lowe (also a qualified SLT) finish looking at teaching science vocabulary in secondary classrooms. It’s not strictly meta-cogntive, but the strategies trialled did involve explicit focus on word features (both semantic and phonological) e.g. saying out loud, looking at associated features.

Modsu: Interesting. Was there a difference in effect with the different strategies?

Nicola: The techniques were delivered by mainstream teachers universally using the curriculum vocabulary – teachers had one day training in techniques. They showed promising results, but…fidelity checks showed that teachers gradually ended up doing the most basic (e.g., listing key words on board) and found it hard to maintain the ones we think might be most effective. Teachers found it hard to attend training too.

vmarshall: Was the focus on retention of the vocab as well as the understanding?

Nicola: Yes, the focus was on retaining and understanding. One of the most interesting findings was the science teachers’ raised awareness that vocabulary might benefit from teaching explictly (in the sense of looking at the word structure, sound etc as well as learning what it meant).

vmarshall: Yes – I teach English – primarily to students with SEN so always looking at ways to aid retention of subject terminology. Looking at parts of the word and trying to connect that to the meaning has been effective.

Nicola: Her study was aimed at teens with language disorder who she then assessed even though it was delivered to the whole class. The systematic review on vocab interventions in secondary classrooms is here http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1460-6984.12355/abstract;jsessionid=A64D7DB0F9D66F1B01693CF254F4D468.f02t01. 

jwatson: Would you mind if I do a blog on this?

Nicola: Sure! It would be great if you let Billie know – she is on Twitter.

Kinga: We are planning a project on how mathematics anxiety affects learning behaviour. Our hypothesis that anxiety might affect students’ decision to stop preparing for a test, and also their confidence in their knowledge. Our question is how exactly anxiety affects the learning process. We have seen already that anxiety interferes with learning in the classroom, but we don’t know what happens during revision time.

abena baiden: So interesting! I think anxiety was the only thing that ever got me to study! I was always able to achieve well academically (straight As) but my strategy was to do nothing for most of the term, and then panic approaching exams before swotting desperately. The strategy worked for getting excellent results. But did nothing for long-term retention, or even understanding 🙁

Kinga: So you were anxious about the exam, but not the subject.

abena baiden: Yes – worried about failing but not so much about actually knowing anything. Think I’m so fascinated by the brain and learning now, because I hacked my way so successfully through education. Now I want to actually learn.

Kinga: Yes, most research on anxiety focusses on the negative consequences, but it can also help sometimes.

Nicola: Very interested in the anxiety=avoidance. I see it with uni students on the stats course I teach. Now I say to them explictly ‘the people who don’t do well are the people who don’t tell me they are struggling; all of you can get through this course.

Kinga: Yes, in fact one of the subscales of the statistics anxiety scale is (not) “asking for help”.

Nicola: And many of those who then tell me they are struggling either a)understand it but are panicking or b) have got stuck on something small they can’t get past.

Kinga: There are many links between anxiety and avoidance: avoiding participation, avoiding opportunities to learn… but most of this is not very well-researched.

Lucia: I guess it also relates to the curve of performance under stress. Where mild levels of stress can actually enhance performance and motivation.

Kinga: We have tried to look at this, but the picture is quite complicated. It depends also on the complexity of the materials.

Lucia: Yes, we had some evidence in a task I did during my PhD. We found that while complexity is manageble, motivation can lead teens to try harder. 

Modsu: I think Sam Wass is looking at stress and performance too?

Lucia: Thanks, I will have a look.

Nicola: Is the stats anxiety scale a tool? or do you mean conceptually?

Kinga: There is an actual scale. http://www.redalyc.org/html/727/72720124/.

 

vmarshall: Our school is looking to start an ‘action research working party’. A chance for staff to read and share evidence based practice and then conduct small scale research projects in school. I’m going to get involved when it starts up – I am doing my SENCo course currently and my second assignment requires me to do some action based research – need to start thinking about the topic.

Nicola: This sounds really exciting too! I am really encouraged that these initiatives are happening.

Modsu: That sounds really exciting! Are there any particular research areas you are most interested in?

Lia – Wellcome Trust: We have been funding a project which suuports teachers to do small scale research – they will publish the findings soon – so watch this space (https://www.educationdevelopmenttrust.com/en-GB/news-and-blogs/news/2017/science-of-teaching) 

jwatson: Let us know if you would like any resources in terms of how to set up a research question 🙂

vmarshall: Great, thank you.

Lia – Wellcome Trust: Also this might be helpful – https://v1.educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/uploads/pdf/EEF_DIY_Evaluation_Guide_2013.pdf . It’s a guide from EEF on doing your own in school evaluations.

Nicola: Looks great.

Kinga: This is a great initiative.

Lucia: Thanks! Looks great.

 

Kinga: Do you see particular benefits of applying neuroscience to educational contexts?

Lia – Wellcome Trust: We think there is potential, hence why we funded some trials to test if there is benefit https://wellcome.ac.uk/what-we-do/our-work/understanding-learning-education-and-neuroscience. But also wanted to help clear up some of the neuromyths in the education sector, and instead help teachers to access researchers and research so that they can help in the translation of the research to practice, and help evaluate it by testing it.

Kinga: I did a teaching course a few years ago, and they were still lecturing about “learning styles”. 

Lia – Wellcome Trust: Yes, I know it is still around a lot… when I was a teacher it was the teaching styles that prompted me to start looking into what the research said.. and then realised how difficult it was (even though my degree was neuroscience).

Kinga: It seems that there are some misconceptions that are hard to let go.

Nicola: Ugh – I was even given a session to run at a uni once on learning styles. Of course I just spent the hour discussing with students why it wasn’t evidence based!

Lia – Wellcome Trust: We also have two projects developing and testing science of learning content to go into initial teacher education courses.

Kinga: I did a course for teaching in HE. It seemed to me that the course teachers could choose whatever they wanted to lecture on.

Lia – Wellcome Trust: There is much room for improvement. But also lots of good practice about.. but the whole education sector is slowly becoming more evdence informed.

 

Modsu: It’s been an excellent discussion tonight – I hope everyone has found it useful and interesting. Do have a look around the website at other questions and comments, and feel free to add to them 🙂 Thanks again and hope to see you all soon.