Education: a crucial public provision which receives a great deal of attention and regular debate, even in a comprehensive and well-designed system. Regular topics of contention continue to emerge regarding the preparation of teachers and their readiness to meet the…
“The Religious Safari” – an example of active, co-operative, interdisciplinary and outdoor enquiry-based learning.
What?! All of those things at once? Surely there must be some mistake? And what is a “religious safari” anyway? Are you off hunting for religious people, and bringing them back to mount as trophies on some ghastly wall? Of course not. The…
STEM outreach – Is enthusiasm, expertise or collaboration key?
When the president of the Engineers Without Borders student society at the University of Glasgow approached the School of Education to support them in developing a resource for a STEM outreach project in local secondary schools, a new collaboration was…
Placing children firmly in the hearts and minds of our student teachers
Putting children at the centre of our thinking and practice is fundamental if we are to make a difference as teachers. Asking what children’s behaviour is communicating is essential if we are to nurture them through their school days. These…
Is our current framework for thinking skills helping our pre-service teachers BLOOM or should we consider going SOLO?
Almost anyone involved with the curriculum for excellence (CfE) in Scotland will be familiar with the framework of Bloom’s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Building the curriculum 4 ‘Developing skills for learning, skills for life and skills for work’ back…
Are engineers better placed to learn to become physics teachers than physicists?
To be successful in initial teacher education courses all students will need to adapt to the teaching approaches, feedback mechanisms and assessment practices of the discipline of education which are likely very different from those that they are used to…