• Question: What pieces of research from your respective research areas do you think could have the biggest impact on teaching/learning if more people knew about them?

    Asked by liac to Sarah, Rebecca, Mike, Matt, Mark, Lucy, Lucía, Katie, Iroise on 27 Feb 2018.
    • Photo: Rebecca Merkley

      Rebecca Merkley answered on 27 Feb 2018:

      I think the biggest thing I’ve been taking away from my own work and communicating with teachers is that maths concepts, like number symbols can and should be introduced in the early years, but through fun, play-based activities. There seems to be this false dichotomy in early education – like in that article the learning zone linked to in the Guardian, about Ofsted’s report about math in early years and those arguing against too much direct instruction and formal lessons in the Early Years.

    • Photo: Mark Mon-Williams

      Mark Mon-Williams answered on 27 Feb 2018:

      The importance of children being physically active during the school day for ‘staying on task’. Here is press release (will try and dig out references) https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/777/exercise_in_schools_can_help_children_pay_attention_in_the_classroom. Here are the actual references – Hill, L.J.B., Williams, J.H.G., Aucott, L., Thomson, J., Mon-Williams, M. (2011) How does exercise benefit cognitive performance in primary-school pupils? Dev Med & Child Neurology. Hill, L., Williams, J.H.G., Milne, J., Thomson, J., Greig J., Mon-Williams, M. (2010) Exercising attention in the classroom. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 52, 929-934.

    • Photo: Katie Gilligan

      Katie Gilligan answered on 27 Feb 2018:

      I think teachers could encourage children to think spatially, engage in spatial activities, and use spatial language. Spatial thinking has been shown to be important for maths (and indeed it is important in its own right) but is often forgotten in the classroom.

    • Photo: Sarah McGeown

      Sarah McGeown answered on 27 Feb 2018:

      I think focusing on reading for pleasure is important to develop reading skills. Finding out what motivates children to read is the best way to encourage children to become independent reader who choose to read (and therefore practice their reading) outside of the classroom.

Comments

  • Photo: liac

    liac commented on :

    That’s really interesting Rebecca, thanks. Is there good evidence for introducing such concepts earlier that you could link to?

  • Photo: Rebecca

    Rebecca commented on :

    The DREME network has lots of great resources. Here is one article: https://dreme.stanford.edu/news/play-mathematics-and-false-dichotomies. Here is another great article on the topic: http://www.kappancommoncore.org/it-all-adds-up-learning-early-math-through-play-and-games/

  • Photo: Mark

    Mark commented on :

    Katie – We just had a paper accepted in psych science that shows children’s ability to intercept a moving target has a relationship with their SATs maths scores – so very much in agreement with your suggestion!

  • Photo: Katie

    Katie commented on :

    There are lots of fun ways to introduce spatial thinking in the classroom like encouraging the use of gesture, spatial language, models and diagrams, maps.

  • Photo: Mark

    Mark commented on :

    And let’s not forget the number line…

    • Photo: Abena

      Abena commented on :

      Thanks for sharing that study Mark. Does it not show a very small effect size given the strong claims in the press release? I’m trying to understand effect sizes and how to determine if something is significant enough to put into practice, but have been warned against using Hattie’s 0.4 as a cut-off. That’s left me a bit lost as to how to evaluate at what point an initiative is worth implementing.

      • Photo: Mark

        Mark commented on :

        Dear Abena

        Your question is written very much in the language of null hypothesis testing (‘significance’) but we actually used Bayesian techniques in the study.

        The size of the effect was around 5.5 months – which seems like it might be quite meaningful (especially considering that this is based on the very general measures taken by the National assessments).

        I must confess that I didn’t know there was a press release (and not sure what it says)!

        But I am not sure what initiative you had in mind… our paper does NOT suggest that improving interceptive timing will improve maths skills (it just shows there is a relationship between these abilities).

        More generally, I would say that interventions should be built on a body of work rather than any single study.

        If you are questioning whether it’s worth implementing a programme to improve children’s movement skills then I would say the weight of evidence suggests many benefits to children being more active (to their physical and mental health as well as their cognition…) – and if good pedagogical principles are followed then I don’t see many costs to such an intervention.

        Hope that helps

        Mark