spikedt

Mum, traveller, teacher, leader, coach. Committed to improving the life chances of all young people. DT, T&L, Instructional Coaching, Safeguarding, Post 16, SLT

[spikedt @spikedt6]

I love our year 13 afternoon tea and exam wellbeing bags tradition. So good to be able to celebrate the end of an era while we’re all still together and help set the students up ready for their exams. First exam today. Textiles. Good luck year 13. You’ve got this.

[Kirk Hallam Sixth Form @KHCA6thForm]

A huge thank you to everyone who came along to our year 13 afternoon tea – what a brilliant way to unwind together and take a well-deserved break before the exams.

The room was full of chatter, laughter, freshly baked goodies and a wellbeing bag.

#6thform #alevels #afternoontea

[spikedt @spikedt6]

@Mrslhteach @LiamTAnderson What a wonderful DT thread. I had promised myself I was only posting to Bluesky but had to post on this one. So wonderful to hear she wants to teach DT. If she would like any advice or help happy to share email if she (or you) PM me.

[spikedt @spikedt6]

You can now find me where the Sky is Blue @spikedt6.bsky.social

[Peps @PepsMccrea]

At Steplab, we're *obsessed* with codifying great teaching.

Eg. we've just spent 3 months re-organising our steps around a 'simple model of teaching'.

This is to help...

A. Coaches make better diagnoses
B. Teachers develop more expertise

A geeky thread:

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[spikedt @spikedt6]

@riley_ed @SCottinghatt Yep totally agree.

[spikedt @spikedt6]

@ATTIDeputy @HFletcherWood @nickpointer_ @Doug_Lemov @wheninclass @DrSamSims @CatherineRusht2 Congratulations x

[Nimish Lad @NLad84]

Everyone who works with and in schools is time-poor.
Many of us wish to engage with evidence/research to drive development.
I'm grateful for those who take time to put this research into digestible books that are easy to read.
A thread of books that have guided my thinking. 🧵

[Peps @PepsMccrea]

How does time spent in direction instruction vs peer interaction vs practice/assessment impact learning? And does the answer differ by subject?

@profsimonb et al analysed the performance and data from 250+ teachers to answer these Qs.

Here's what they found:

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[spikedt @spikedt6]

Look what just arrived. Excited to start reading this. It has been on my pre-order wish list since online researched. @_KatiePattinson, @ATTIDeputy @overpractised

[Billy Oppenheimer @bpoppenheimer]

In 1985, Nike held a 24-hour shoe design contest.

Nike was struggling. Their stock dropped 50%. They had to lay off people. Adidas, Converse, & Reebok were all selling more shoes.

So in a panicked attempt to find creative talent, Nike held a shoe design contest.

The winner was

A corporate architect named Tinker Hatfield.

"Two days after the competition," he said, "I wasn't even asked—I was told that I was now a footwear designer for Nike."

As he got to work on his first official shoe design, he thought about a building he had studied in architecture school: The Centre Pompidou in Paris.

The Centre Pompidou is an inside-out building, meaning that the structural, mechanical, and circulation systems are all exposed.

“That building,” Tinker said, “was describing what it was to the people of Paris. And I thought, ‘Well why not do that with a shoe? Let’s cut a hole in the side and show what’s in the shoe.’”

So Tinker designed an inside-out shoe:

The Air Max 1.

The Air Max 1 was a massive success, and it steered Nike's design direction from then on.

"To this day," Tinker says, "Phil Knight says I saved Nike."

Takeaway 1:

Had he not studied that building in Paris, Tinker says, he couldn’t have created the Air Max.

Creativity, he says, is a function of the “library in your head."

“When you sit down to create something...what you create is a culmination of everything you’ve seen and done previous to that point.”

Takeaway 2:

Tinker Hatfield went to architecture school and then he was a corporate architect for 4.5 years. Then, literally overnight, he became one of the best shoe designers in the world.

This makes me think of a counter-intuitive discovery made by psychologist Charles Spearman in 1904.

Before Spearman, the natural assumption was that the more you specialize in one thing, the worse you’ll be at other things.

Instead, Spearman discovered "the positive manifold" phenomenon.

He found that different abilities tend to be positively correlated. That the expertise gained through specialization is transferrable. That the cognitive and creative abilities cultivated as an architect could positively correlate with being a shoe designer.

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"Creativity is a function of the previous work you put in."  — Robert Greene

Follow @bpoppenheimer for more content like this!

[spikedt @spikedt6]

@MissLewisFT Top tip, use a normal whiteboard marker over the top and wipe off. Takes it off straight away.

[spikedt @spikedt6]

@mrlockyer @Ambition_Inst all of their training practices what they teach. Apart from maybe leaving me slightly cognitively over loaded!!! The retrieval in the next sessions with them normally over comes this.

[spikedt @spikedt6]

@Crowley_Volpato You really are a great loss to the profession but our loss is a great gain to those in search and rescue. Don’t forget us. Please come back and inspire students with your next exciting life adventure. All the best Johny x

[spikedt @spikedt6]

@MrsWollertonDT @VickiR26 @TechSoft_UK @Onshape @SapientiaTrust Sounds great would be interested too if you were happy to share. How have you made the driving licenses?

[Peps @PepsMccrea]

🚨EXCITING NEWS🚨

Today, I'm launching a weekly 5-min email for teachers who are keen to keep up-to-date with thinking and research around effective teaching.

It's called 'Evidence Snacks'. Here's the lowdown:

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[spikedt @spikedt6]

Looking forward to seeing what we can achieve together this year. ‘Achieving excellence within a caring community’. #workhardbekind

[Kirk Hallam Sixth Form @KHCA6thForm]

Happy New Year from Kirk Hallam Sixth Form. Looking forward to a great year ahead for our students (and our future students).