Powerful Learning Podcast

What do we mean by the term ‘Feedback’ – is it really just as simple as giving a student information about their performance? Or is there more to it?  And what are some of the models and strategies that underpin high-impact feedback in various educational settings?    In today’s podcast, I’ll attempt to tackle some of these tricky questions by standing on the shoulders of many of the intellectual...

What does it mean to be engaged in your learning?  When superficially understood, engagement refers to the level of involvement and participation that students have in their own learning process. But that’s an impoverished view of engagement. In today’s podcast, we’re going to take our understanding of student engagement to the next level with my guest and friend, Dr. Amy Berry.  Amy is a research...

Do schools really “kill creativity”? ( a claim famously made by the late Sir Ken Robinson ). Does a tightly structured curriculum stifle creative potential among some students while rewarding a conformist mentality among others?  How can we best foster and nurture creativity in schools whilst maintaining academic excellence?  In today’s podcast, I’ll be discussing these issues with John Munro, a d...

iPads, podcasts, vodcasts, YouTube, interactive books, the metaverse, zoom, virtual and augmented reality, eBooks, laptops, social media, antiscocial media, creators, consumers, coding and maker spaces... Welcome to the 21st century classroom where students engage with text through multiple modalities that are fundamentally shifting the way we think about learning.  And for those of you who’re unf...

Feedback is one of the most widely-used and regularly deployed strategies in the toolkit of educators.  And rightfully so. Much of the research points to the fact that feedback can be extremely powerful at improving student learning.  Yet did you know that major reviews of the scholarly literature on feedback suggest that up to one-third of all approaches to feedback can actually harm rather than...

How important is the notion of ‘health and wellbeing’ in schools?  Should schools simply 'stay in their lanes' and avoid this topic altogether?  Or should they play a pivotal role in the lives of learners in how they develop their health and wellbeing? And if you agree with the latter point, then to what extent should teachers be responsible for the health and wellbeing of their students...

In 2008 Professor John Hattie released his landmark publication, Visible Learning.  This book synthesised research from over 800 meta-analyses representing findings from research involving millions of students and over 100 different influences on academic achievement. John’s book was widely celebrated for having built that elusive bridge between the field of educational research and practising tea...

How do you know if you're an effective teacher? How do you interpret and evaluate evidence to inform your teaching practice?  At least part of the answer to these questions must have something to do with the impact a teacher has on the learning of their students. But the next question of course is ‘How do we know that our students are learning?’  One way to answer this question is to make lea...

Do you want to integrate ‘Evidence-Based Teaching’ into your practice? If so, where should you begin? What are some of the key steps and working 'models' that we can adopt to help integrate evidence-based teaching into our educational practice?    In this podcast, we'll look into some of the key features of different models of evidence-based teaching that have had currency over the...

Why is it that there seems to be such a massive gap between research and practice when it comes to teaching and learning?  It turns out that this is a highly complex question to answer. But that will not deter us from trying! So, for today’s podcast, we’ll look into some of the anecdotal and empirical claims about why the research-practice divide exists and what can be done to address it.  -------...

Have you ever wondered what is meant by the terms ‘Evidence-Based Teaching’? Why is it that evidence-based teaching has become such an important topic among circles of students, educators, and policy-makers? And what are some of the models and strategies that underpin evidence-based teaching?    Well, in this series I’ll attempt to tackle some of these tricky questions.  --------------- Are you ne...

Interested in discovering more about about the science of learning and evidence-based teaching? Look no further.... Welcome to the Powerful Learning Podcast!  This episode provides you with a brief outline of things to come. Luke shares his mission and vision for the podcast and a bird's eye view of the research framework he'll be drawing upon when it comes to expertly curating and discu...