The Last 50 Years

Hey 👋

Welcome to March (Is it spring/autumn yet? No-one actually knows). In today’s snack, I grill two of my biggest heroes—my mum and Professor Dylan Wiliam—on how education has changed over the last half-century…

Big idea 🍉

🎓 For more, check out this analysis of the last 20 years of reform in England, and this fab book on edtech by Daisy Christodoulou.

Little updates 🥕

• Study on new teacher retention → finds heavy workload and lack of support push them out, while strong relationships and sense of purpose keep them in.

• Paper on how social norms shape student motivation → suggests that peer goals influence individual goals more than classroom expectations​.

• Study on teaching order → finds problem-solving first helps beginners learn better, while instruction first works best for those with more knowledge (note: this is a super tentative finding, I wouldn’t make any big changes yet).

• Review of multimodal AI affordances → argues they can personalise learning and support teachers but risk inaccuracies, bias, and overuse​.

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