Educational Entropy

Hey

Hope you’re not too distracted. Today, we’re cracking open a new series of snacks (that I’ve been sitting on for years) on the invisible forces that shape school effectiveness…

Big idea 🍉

Entropy is a beautiful but devastating idea from the second law of thermodynamics: all systems naturally tend towards disorder and decay... unless energy is put in to counteract this.

Educational entropy is, by analogy, an invisible yet inexorable force continually thwarting school improvement. It's why things constantly feel like they're either getting harder or falling apart... even when everyone is working just as hard as before.

Entropy is largely a function of complexity. And complexity grows with (a) the variety of things we're trying to achieve and (b) the range of ways we can go about achieving them. Increase either, and you generate coordination cost, which consumes effort and time like a hungry organisational beast.

Goal variety × Approach variety = Coordination cost

Think about what schools now do that barely featured 30 years ago: mental health support, online safety, anti-radicalisation, attendance intervention. And where once a school had one behaviour system, now there are restorative approaches, trauma-informed practice, sensory regulation strategies, individual plans... all running simultaneously. Each new goal or approach doesn't just add: it multiplies, because it must be coordinated with everything else.

As coordination cost has ramped up, schools have either (a) directed ever more effort just to maintain the system, or (b) kept effort constant and let things slowly unravel. You will no doubt have felt both over the years. That creeping sense you're running faster just to stand still? That's entropy at work.

In coming Snacks, we'll explore how to stem this drift. For now, just notice where goal and approach variety are quietly multiplying your coordination cost... and ask whether the trade-off is worth it.

🎓 For more, check out this paper which explores schools as complex systems.

Summary

• Over time, systems decline and decay unless energy/effort is put in.

• As new goals are added, system complexity multiplies as everything has to coordinate with everything else.

• As schools attempt to do more, we either to put in more effort to keep everything held together (or we don’t and things start to slide).

Little updates 🥕

• Research into the use of leaderboards in the classroom → finds that they can improve achievement for learners at the top but threaten performance inequality.

• Study on the impact of high expectations → shows how they can boost achievement in the classroom.

• Analysis of feedback timing → argues that a combination of immediate & delayed feedback can lead to the strongest outcomes.

• Paper on the use of AI amongst SEN learners → argues that it can massively raise learner agency & help-seeking.

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