Dr Liz Pyne

Very proud wife, mother and dedicated history teacher. AHT for T&L, CPD fanatic, AQA moderator/adviser for the NEA. ECT/School direct mentor. Loving learning!!

[Dr Liz Pyne @LizPyne]

‘Feedback is an act of love’
https://t.co/Lr6R8ACNmR

[Tammy Reynolds @MistypeaTam]

My 1st blog!
Top takeaway from @cogscisci 2026.
Inspired by @adamboxer1 and @adamrobbins but based on a talk by Jess Wood from @ArkCurriculum.
Implementing new ideas in my 3rd decade of teaching.

[Nathan Burns @MrMetacognition]

Teaching students how to learn effectively is crucial. But it isn't always straight-forward.

Here are the top five mistakes that I have come across when it comes to developing a Learning to Learn or study skills curriculum.

These ideas aren't bolt-ons, throw-away ideas that need to be done once. They require teaching, and revisiting, just like anything else that we would be trying to teach out students.

[Helen Reynolds MBE @helenrey]

My thoughts on use of tech in the classroom... from my first computer to what I do today.

Super interesting (for me!) to think through this timeline from designing the school website to using cogsci to examine what I'm doing and why.
https://t.co/xxlGESudyl

[Efrat Furst @EfratFurst]

Teaching? What do you see in your mind’s eye when you think about working memory? How does it shape the way you plan instruction? Does it matter?
https://t.co/Q7mXR0qrd5

[Scholarship for PhD @ScholarshipfPhd]

AI is forcing universities to rethink assessment and in a fundamental way.

In this paper, Moorhouse et al. (2023) look at how the world’s top-ranking universities responded to generative AI tools such as ChatGPT.

The paper shows that university guidelines tend to focus on three major areas:

Academic integrity
Assessment design
Communication with students

First, academic integrity.

We can no longer reduce the conversation to “students are cheating with AI.” That is too simplistic. Of course, misuse is real. But the bigger issue is that AI has blurred the boundaries between assistance, authorship, collaboration, and plagiarism.

If a student uses AI to brainstorm, is that misconduct? If they use it to improve grammar, is that allowed? If they use it to generate an outline, where is the line?

If they submit AI-generated text as their own, that is clearly a problem. But many other uses sit in a grey zone, and that is where schools need clarity.

Second, assessment design.

One important recommendation from the paper is that teachers should test their own assignments with AI tools.

Put the prompt into ChatGPT and see what it produces. Then ask yourself: What exactly am I assessing here?

If AI can complete the whole task with little student thinking, then maybe the problem is not only the tool. Maybe the assessment itself needs redesign.

The authors highlight several useful directions:

Focus more on process.
Break large assignments into stages.
Ask for drafts, notes, reflections, and explanations.
Create tasks that connect to class discussions, lived experiences, local contexts, and real-world problems.
Give students opportunities to critique AI outputs rather than simply avoid AI altogether.

This is an important shift. Assessment should not only produce a final answer. It should make learning visible.

Third, communication with students.

This is probably the most practical takeaway for teachers. Students need clear expectations.

Definitely not “AI is forbidden” statements that no one knows how to apply. They need to know what is allowed, what is limited, what must be disclosed, and what crosses the line.

The paper also makes a powerful point: teachers now need a new kind of competence, what the authors call generative AI assessment literacy.

I like this idea.

Teachers do not only need AI literacy in general. They need to understand how AI changes assessment specifically.

That means knowing how AI affects academic integrity, how to redesign tasks, how to guide students toward responsible use, and how to keep assessment meaningful in a world where AI can generate polished work instantly.

[Simon Beale @SPBeale]

I recently re-shared a post about sources of historical scholarship. Here is the sequel! How to embed historical scholarship in your lesson with over 25 practical approaches. Organised as a hierarchy based on how much time it takes to implement.

https://t.co/flg8ZCUMt1

[Efrat Furst @EfratFurst]

When Prior Knowledge Helps, and When It Doesn’t

Which factors make prior knowledge helpful or unhelpful? And which should we consider first?

https://t.co/e43bdqgHiq

[Shaun Allison @shaun_allison]

Liking this from @PepsMccrea

[Doug Lemov @Doug_Lemov]

Really good summary of the broad research into the cognitive benefits of writing by hand for students by @YoukiTerada at @edutopia.

Some highlights:

The slower, more deliberate pace of capturing ideas by hand, on paper, translates into a sharper recall of details—even days later.

Handwriting notetakers, however, are forced to slow down their minds and focus on broader principles and big ideas, rather than isolated facts, allowing them to connect new knowledge to existing knowledge they’ve already processed.

A deeper analysis revealed that handwriting notetakers were much more likely to add drawings, diagrams, and charts of the material being learned: a sketch of the water cycle, for example, or visual annotations linking concepts together.

https://t.co/UT7WCIHWBk

[CogSciSci @cogscisci]

Busy day do far at the CogSciSci conference. We have @adamboxer1 explaining why research is important but not as important as classroom level strategies

[Helen Reynolds MBE @helenrey]

It feels like I keep coming back to 'what's the purpose of schools/teaching/teachers'...

Here's some thoughts:
https://t.co/93Vlk6EVEO

[Samantha Lippert @SamanthaBrauns2]

Our job is not to deliver the story to students. Our job is to hand them the keys and teach them how to drive.

Check out my latest piece:
Are Your Questions Working For You — Or Against You?
https://t.co/ke718tnJfv

@SoRclassroom @Doug_Lemov @karenvaites

[North Landesman @MrLandesman]

This is a great and terrifying sentence: "Marking (grading) can potentially be a waste of time if learners do not read engage with the marking provided." From Feedback by @KateJones_teach

[David Didau @DavidDidau]

We’re often fooled by what looks like effective teaching - charisma, energy, confidence - but engagement isn’t learning. Great teaching requires both subject expertise and the ability to make complex ideas clear to novices.
https://t.co/CXZ8y3yAOK

[Scholarship for PhD @ScholarshipfPhd]

Types of Research Methods

[Helen Reynolds MBE @helenrey]

@teacherhead ... and it was the first of a BRILLIANT series! A summary here... of all of them!:

https://t.co/O8uDMfRgaw

[Nidhi Sachdeva, PhD @nsachdeva2019]

https://t.co/O89rjnHuNJ

[David Didau @DavidDidau]

We know teachers vary in quality but teacher effectiveness isn’t an unvarying trait that can be plugged into to another school changed.
Great teaching needs schools that are able to nurture it. Importing expertise may create a possibility but it isn’t a sustainable improvement strategy.
NEW: The myth of the portable teacher https://t.co/EfPcoJEFyb

[Helen Reynolds MBE @helenrey]

Another cogsci classic... The Learning Rainforest by @teacherhead! BRILLIANT metaphor for teaching - so many thought-provoking points not just about classroom practice, but the 'why' of classroom practice.

DEFINITELY worth a read!

Summary here:
https://t.co/O8uDMfRgaw

[Nicola Cole 👩🏻‍🏫 @MissCole279]

Fab CPD with teachers today. Continuing to draw on the work of @SCottinghatt we strategically paired staff from contrasting subjects, challenging them to ask each other ‘why’ when deciding how they would CFU in certain scenarios. Such rich discussion around adaptive expertise!🤓