Education Bookcast

Finally! An episode with the word "teacher" in the title. What kind of teacher is Andrei Toom? And what interesting comparisons does make between education in Soviet Russia and in the USA?   Andrei Toom is a mathematician, and "teacher" here refers to his teaching of undergraduates. The fact that he self-identifies as a teacher should already strike many as strange. In the US, and to some extent i...

Well well, the grand finale. We've seen in the previous episode how laboratory studies have shown that extrinsic rewards lead to reduced motivation and lower-quality work, as well as a priori arguments for why it's a bad idea to incentivise behaviours with rewards. For those of you who are still unconvinced, I'm losing hope a bit since I've spent a total of about 3 hours so far over two episodes (...

You'll remember from Daniel Pink's Drive (episode 2) that common assumptions about how rewards affect motivation and behaviour have it all wrong. Common sense tells us that to motivate somebody to do a better job, we should offer them a material reward, but scientific experiments show us that this is one of the best ways to de motivate people. Perhaps you weren't so easily convinced. Well, good ne...

Last week's episode served as an introduction to behaviourism. This week, in the name of balance, we are looking at another theory of animal training, the so-called dominance approach. Cesar Millan is a Mexican dog trainer who emigrated to the US in his youth. He now has a TV show called The Dog Whisperer . Unlike Karen Pryor, he taught himself his approach to dogs through experience and exposure...

Why should somebody who is interested in education be interested in behaviourism? Because it's had a huge impact on educational theory and practice over the past more than 100 years. When I started reading books on education, the I was astounded at the frequency with which behaviourist arguments were put forward to support ideas. I felt like I could hardly budge without bumping into another refere...

Common sense tells us that in order to get someone to do something, or to get them to do it better (faster, more thoroughly, more carefully), you might offer them a reward - or if the offer is already there, increase its size. All kinds of clever-sounding people hold this view - principally economists and management consultants, but more or less anyone else too, as it seems to be so basic and so w...

The ideas from Carol Dweck's research, explained in her book Mindset, seem to be very popular nowadays. They are even part of the curriculum of the Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) for new teachers being trained in the UK. And, I believe, with good reason. The ideas here are very powerful. They almost read like self-help, but (thank goodness) they are grounded in many years of research...

This is the very first episode of Education Bookcast, in which I introduce myself and the podcast. I will leave a brief introduction here in the description also.   Brief introduction to the podcast Education Bookcast is a podcast in which I talk about one book or article relating to education per episode. The intended audience is mainly teachers and parents who would like to know more about educa...