Taught my paradigmatic model last week: Blood glucose regulation. This time, I decided to remove the stock "glucose in intestine" to keep the focus on the dynamics within the body. I like how it turned out. By having a tool to converse with, models really help us coordinate our meanings.

A tough but incredibly rewarding book for me is Maturana's The Origin of Humanness in the Biology of Love. It paints a very different picture from this. Humans are a loving species who get physically ill when deprived of it.

The metaphor indicated a distinction, the distinction was noted and explored, learning began to be seen this way, people talked about it, the metaphor became good and matched experience. I think they matched my past experience but don't match my experience now I have different metaphors.

Teachers, let's stop referring to students as storers and retrievers. They're not. And when we use this language, we bring forth an epistemology that shapes our practice. This article misses that enactive cognitive science (not cognitivism) has been saying this since the 80s aeon.co/essays/your-...

That’s a perfect example. We’ve narrowed the ‘allowed’ space for children so much that normal play is treated as disruption-even on a cul-de-sac. When streets, parks & ‘just being outside’ become contested, kids get pushed indoors & online. It’s not only a tech issue, it’s a social permission issue.

We’re treating social media like a moral failing rather than an infrastructure substitute. When young people have no safe, low-cost third spaces, the phone becomes the youth club, the park and the bus pass. If we restrict that, we need to replace it with real-world belonging, not just rules.

This is clearly a post from within cognitivism. But what do the EduCogSciers have to say about this? For me, it clearly draws a distinction between knowledge and understanding. Something that many EduCogSciers have denied (knowledge = understanding). #EduSky

I declare this book finished. It's been intense. So much editing. This is the most important work I've written. As far as I'm aware, the first book for general teachers that's deeply rooted in *enactive* cognitive science. Teaching Meaning: What Works When Telling Isn't Enough Out soon!

We spend a lot of time talking about engagement. Much less time talking about investment. This short, free guide explores how schools can move from "what's the point" to kids getting properly stuck in - day in, day out - by design 📘 Implementing botheredness (12-min read) Link in comments below

... agree... and see them as children or young adults.

"As we navigate through the world, we are changed by a variety of experiences." Maybe the reason I remember a Shakespeare quote is because it changed me. "...screw your courage to the sticking place..." makes me feel But even that I had to look up a few days ago to "retrieve" it accurately.

Teachers, let's stop referring to students as storers and retrievers. They're not. And when we use this language, we bring forth an epistemology that shapes our practice. This article misses that enactive cognitive science (not cognitivism) has been saying this since the 80s aeon.co/essays/your-...

Increasingly being submitted AI-written articles. Even the worst human writing has an abundance of signals about the writer in the choices they make. AI-written pieces give no signals and that is deeply weird to read. Some common features include...

The tension isn't just intensity vs. time wasting - it's structure vs. autonomy. We all know schools can be both inefficient *and* overwhelming because we've optimised for management not learning. The real question is whether children get agency over their attention & time in a bloated curriculum

All schools should do something similar. Or at the very least ditch blazers which are not cheap, warm or weatherproof. Interesting that the article quotes research in which, 'a negative effect of uniforms on student academic achievement was found.'

This is the right decision. Be comfortable, not business.

Read this. We need more of these perspectives in our conversations.

I'm increasingly concerned about EduInfluencers who denigrate checks and balances. They berate journalists or anyone who questions something they promote or sell. Checks and balances are a requisite of democracy. This includes journalistic reporting, and airing opposing views on methods.

Anyone else hear Joseph Jebelli on Radio 4 this am? So interesting! A brain science corrective to the 'every second counts' bombardment of young people's brains in some versions of 'science of learning' & current trends like SLANT. Staring out the window & taking breaks may help you learn more!

I found school exhausting as it was - can’t imagine how I’d manage in modern schools which have had all the art & music etc ground out of them in favour of more maths

1. Been thinking about this more overnight. Years back I worked at a school where the MAT told us to reduce suspensions by "finding other strategies." They gave no guidance on what these should be. They sort of "challenged" us to find them. I'm sure the aim was noble but it was bad..

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

For decades the Right has daydreamed about saving their country from monsters, they finally got the chance and it turns out they love the monsters. The monsters are even monstrous in the exact ways they fantasized about! You never have to listen to these guys about anything again

"I see a lot of novelty with limited meaning. AI is helping them do more, but there's much less thought around if doing more is truly meaningful." 🎯

I liked this paper trying to unify ecological psychology & enactivism; had me wondering the implications for teaching & learning. I oscillate between liking the distinction & stuck thinking "But how do we know what affordances are in the habitat?" @adw.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

This week in models: Year 7: the role of fungi Year 10: lung ventilation Year 11: xylem IB2: Sliding filament #SciTeachUK #iTeachBio #SciEd

Ontologizing Enactivism: Worldmaking with Ezequiel Di Paolo (dialogue with Tim Jackson) Timothy Jackson and I were back in the saddle, this time to discuss Ezequiel Di Paolo’s article seeking an enactive ontology: Di Paolo, E. A. (2023). F/acts: Ways of enactive worldmaking. Journal of…

#EduSky #EruditePedagogy I just listened to this podcast (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...) about metaphors and couldn't help but think about teaching & learning. To what extend is the concept of "metaphor" a metaphor for teaching and learning? 1/10

"Why deliberate practice is not a basis for teacher expertise" #EduSky #UKEd www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I'm touched by the incredibly generous assessments that some of the first readers of "The Organism-Environment Pairing" (@mitpress.bsky.social) have offered! I'm excited to exchange ideas with everyone once the book is published in May! 📗 mitpress.mit.edu/978026205282... #HPbio #HPS #evosky #philsky

#iteachsocialstudies In the long tradition of the protest song…Springsteen gives us this: youtu.be/wWKSoxG1K7w

In this post, I trace the idea that we can ‘reverse engineer’ the mind back to its roots in Kant’s transcendental arguments and argue that the idea doesn't make as much sense as it might first appear. open.substack.com/pub/bernarda...

Absolutely! "A focus on teaching as performance isolates a view of ‘the teacher’ from a view of ‘the students’ ... contrasting with the notion that good quality teaching is based on shared understandings and co-operation between teachers and students that iterates over a period of time."

I’m stepping back into a HOD role. I have my own experiences from the first HOD role but what would your best advice be for going into a new dept and what do you wish you’d have been doing from the start? Please share to get more voices. (And answer yourself) @themathsbazaar.bsky.social

Absolutely! "A focus on teaching as performance isolates a view of ‘the teacher’ from a view of ‘the students’ ... contrasting with the notion that good quality teaching is based on shared understandings and co-operation between teachers and students that iterates over a period of time."

"Why deliberate practice is not a basis for teacher expertise" #EduSky #UKEd www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Yes. Was recently at an inset where he talked about checking if pupils have understood. Then slightly improved to a less binary "how much have pupils understood" (in meaningless %). Would have preferred "WHAT have pupils understood." Or what things are pupils thinking.

Fascinating piece and the point about memory alone being insufficient is crucial. Also v strongly agree that this isn’t something that schools can fix on their own. I teach my students all the things listed here but I wouldn’t bet they’ll all remember them in the future. That’s not how memory works.

I’ve been on a pretty self-promotional jag for the whole book publication thing. But I also wanted to write a bit about how to do it, since it’s much easier than many people (including past-me) think. H/T to @cmooreanderson.bsky.social for some advice: davidknuffke.medium.com/how-i-made-a...

How many days can you spend editing a single paragraph in an entire book?

Agreed. QLA is reductionist and points to problems with the EduCognitivist approach: "If we just know the single items of knowledge that they know and don't know, we'll how to teach precisely". There's much more to understanding and meaning.

Totally agree with @joel120193.bsky.social All the QLA shows you is how well they've answered that specific question, phrased in that particular way. Much more benefit annotating a paper as you do the marking, noting common errors and then feeding back based on that.

What are we doing here Ed tech is profitable. It is also mostly useless economist.com/united-state... from The Economist

I used a PowerPoint one lesson last term with Y9. Thought it would be nice for them to have something clear and definitive to sum up what we had been meeting. The reaction was stunning. Instead of interacting and thinking together, they switched off completely. And my questions instead of leading

#hpBio Another fantastic episode by @bigbiology.bsky.social www.bigbiology.org/episodes/202...

Tying reading tests to specific content can shift teacher practice to a focus on enabling kids to understand the content--not just practice skills. Louisiana tried a new kind of reading test & that's what happened. Read more in my latest post: nataliewexler.substack.com/p/is-testing...

I tried booklets once. I wanted to see what it was about and how it compared to other methods. I spent *hours* making one, images, examples, great text and questions. Fellow teachers loved it. It failed so badly in the classroom. The booklet took over. It inhibited conversing and co-enacting ideas.

The Party told you to ignore the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

Worth remembering when looking at the horrific scenes in the US right now that both Reform and the Tories have pledged to bring in ICE-style organisations to the UK if they win power

And trends like ‘bookletisation’ fly in the face of this and contribute to the problem.