Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.

This week on the podcast I speak again to Dr. Siobhán Keenan Fitzgerald whose book Listen: How Child and Student Voice Can Change the World has just been published by Routledge. Among the topics we discussed are:

Among the topics were discussed were:

• Connecting to a network of Changemaker schools
• Getting interested in outdoor education inspired by a colleague who did Forest school training.
• Travelling as part of the Erasmus+ programme.
• Learning about peer mediation and the Student Council in Donabate Educate Together National School.
• The process of becoming recognised as a changemaker school.
• Studying for a doctorate on public speaking in primary school (focusing on self-efficacy and vocabulary development). She used the work of Albert Bandura.
• The paucity of research on public speaking in primary schools.
• The connection between children expressing their voices and public speaking
• Children have opportunities to practise public speaking in team sports settings, in church and in school-related events (e.g. science fair).
• How teachers already recognise student voice in their classrooms (e.g. taking children’s interests and likes into account, in discussions, circle-time activities, rotating class-captain roles, and in choosing pedagogies to promote learning).
• How Siobhán’s school developed the role of play leader, that rotates weekly. Play leaders keep an eye out for younger children, to bring out equipment at break times and ensure it is distributed fairly, push younger children on the swings, and helping children sort out issues themselves without involving adults.
• That which is most personal is most universal – why storytelling is a form of public speaking.
• Matthew Dicks and his ideas of “homework for life” and how this might help children find their personal voice.
• Limits on children expressing their voice.
• Creating a safe space for children speaking in public and involving students in co-creating the rules around it.
• Who the book Listen: How child and student voice can change the world is written for.
• How those who get to speak publicly tend to be the privileged in society
• Shy or reluctant speakers may need additional scaffolding to be encouraged to speak in public. This may include children with speech and language delays or difficulties, children with other additional needs and children for whom English is not their first language.
• What she learned from writing the book: finding two extra hours in each day between 6 and 8 a.m.
• Teachers who want to write a book: If not you, then who? If not now, then when? Reach out!
• The Comfort Crisis, a book by Michael Easter was mentioned.
• She mentioned podcasts she likes including The Rethinking Education podcast by James Mannion; The Teach Middle East podcast with Christina Morris; and the Lead the Way podcast with Ann Byrne was mentioned.
• School 21 in London
• Her YouTube Channel.

Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.

On this week's podcast my guest is Perry Share, who is Head of Student Success at Atlantic Technological University. Among the topics we discuss are:

• The impact of taking a module with Hilary Tovey on rural sociology and a module with Brian Torode and Barbara Bradby on language, discourse and French theory.
• Perry’s belief that artificial intelligence is a catalyst that helps us better understand and question contemporary practices around teaching, learning and assessment.
• Artificial intelligence forces us to ask questions like "What does it mean to assess students?" "How can we teach in ways that are engaging and productive for students?"
• In education, the arts and the humanities, we take text as a representation of what is in students’ heads and tend to make assumptions about the knowledge, understanding or learning held by the student. The foundation is taken out of this when we don’t know where the text comes from.
• Problems are outlined with the take-home assignment, oral assessments and standard written exams but the “unsolvable” problems may constitute a productive space for educators.
• The likes of ChatGPT can be used effectively in fields where you have knowledge. An area of concern in higher education is in relation to fields where people are just beginning to acquire knowledge and understanding. In addition, artificial intelligence threatens opportunities to learn on internships in professional placements.
• Perhaps the role of “learned” knowledge becomes increasingly important for novices in a field whereas in recent years the importance of critical thinking has been lauded.
• It is likely that resources will need to shift from activities we currently value to new – yet-to-be-determined – resources at secondary and higher education levels.
• What prompt engineering is.
• Ethan Mollick’s book Co-Intelligence.
• Examples of good and not-so-good prompts.
• How Perry is using ChatGPT in his own work: summarising large documents; combining documents; Brainstorming; Outlining a proposed structure of a document or presentation. It has been used for computer programming and other tasks.
• Data protection implications may need to be considered in relation to some uses.
• In the future it may be used to grade and provide feedback for public exams.
• Various kinds of data on the results would be available almost immediately.
• Decline in language learning in many countries due to the dominance of English and due to the availability of translation tools.
• The days of the academic essay may be numbered.
• Simulations may be a future direction of assessment in professional settings but these too are not without complications.
• Can we avoid interacting with artificial intelligence?
• Impact on equity in education.
• If students can teach themselves, where does that leave the teacher? There is a job of imagination for teachers to start thinking about how they will work alongside artificial intelligence.
• The impact of artificial intelligence on what (and who) we can trust.
• People Perry respects on the topic of artificial intelligence: Anna Mills, a lecturer in academic writing in the United States; Charles Knight who works for Advance HE; Maha Bali at the America University of Cairo on critical artificial intelligence (environmental, commercial and ethical impacts).
• The purpose of school.
• Daryl Nation
• Raewyn Connell’s book The Good University.

Perry's own expanding list of resources on artificial intelligence is available here.

Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.

The format of this podcast differs a bit from the usual one in that I am joined by my colleague in Marino Institute of Education, Dr. Gene Mehigan to discuss a book that influenced him on his journey as a teacher and teacher educator. The Book is The Master by Bryan MacMahon, published by Poolbeg Press in 1992. Among the topics we discuss are the following:

• How a book about teaching in Rural Ireland from the 1930s to the 1970s could speak to a teacher in a DEIS band 1 school in Darndale in the 1980s and 1990s.
• The consequences of poverty on children in schools.
• The “stain” of large classes (and their impact on children with language difficulties in particular).
• The importance of reading
• How Bryan MacMahon encouraged children to collect words (red notebook) and Gene Mehigan’s variation of it (jar on teacher’s desk).
• Stages in a reading lesson as outlined by Bryan MacMahon (who noted that they are not rigid and may need modern modification):
  • Arousal of interest (day before)
  • Introduction (before lesson begins to heighten interest in the text)
  • Examination of matter expressed in the text (Comprehension)
  • Examination of matter implied in the text (Comprehension)
  • Write difficult words on blackboard (Tier 1, 2 and 3 words today)
  • Teacher models reading
  • Children read aloud or silently
  • Isolate phrases for composition usage
  • Informed organic chat (in style of everyday conversation)
  • Dramatisation of the text (Reader’s theatre today)
  • Committal to rote “not to be scorned on special occasions”
• Why a teacher needs to back down in a confrontational situation with a pupil
• Characteristics of a good teacher;
  • Dedication
  • Sense of humour
  • Clear penetration in the timbre of the teacher’s speaking voice
  • A love of learning
  • Versatility of approach to a lesson
  • A congenial monotony (that can be departed from)
  • Occasional informal language
  • Good blackboard use and being able to sketch
  • Act in harmony with the traditions and culture of the school area
• Bringing the extraordinary into your teaching.
• The teacher’s job is to help each child find their special gift.
• Bryan MacMahon: “I realised that each child had a gift, and that the ‘leading out’ of that gift was the proper goal of teaching. To me a great teacher was simply a great person teaching.”
• Thoughts on a school library, access to books and encouraging children to read.
• Trying to entice children to read by tidying books. Buddy reading – to help beginning or reluctant readers but also helping older children consolidate their interest it reading. Helping a teacher narrow down who in a class might have dyslexia
• How Brian MacMahon practised an early version of “home-school liaison”
• Contemporary resonances – children from Germany fostered by local families during World War II.
• How Bryan MacMahon recruited children to look after other children who were vulnerable in some way
• Resonances with Johathan Haidt’s book The Coddling of the American Mind (preparing the child for the road and not the road for the child).
• How learning tables enthusiastically helped a pupil later excel as an emigrant
• “A school is nothing if it is not a place of laughter and song.”
• Sources of creativity in education
• The importance of a teacher being a philomath.

Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.

In this episode I interview Hugh Catts from the Florida State University about reading comprehension, dyslexia and more. People interviewed on previous Inside Education podcasts are mentioned in this episode: Jerome Kagan, Daniel T. Willingham and Tim Shanahan.

Among the topics raised on the podcast are:

• How his interest in educational research grew from problems members of his family, including himself, had in learning to read.
• The benefits of having knowledge of phonetics and linguistics in studying reading difficulties
• His thoughts on whether someone with reading difficulties can teach reading well
• How he became interested in comprehension
• Why thinking about comprehension as a skill is unhelpful in teaching reading
• Comprehension is a complex set of behaviours or cognitive processes that is more like listening. It is the interaction between the reader and the text they’re reading to construct meaning between what is written in the text and what the reader already knows about the topic.
• Comprehension needs to be taught within the context of the subject matter we want the reader to understand.
• Quote from Daniel Willingham: “Memory is the residue of thought.”
• “Comprehension is essentially changing your understanding of the topic based upon the text.”
• “The more you learn about a topic, the more interested you are in learning more about the topic because you feel comfortable with it.”
• The “simple view of reading” claims that reading comprehension is a two-stage process where you decode/recognise the word and thereby turn print into language; this is followed by turning the meaning of words into the larger meaning of the text. Decoding can be learned over a number of years whereas the language comprehension part is learned over a lifetime. The view has advantages and disadvantages.
• We’re missing a good curriculum “in some cases by focusing in early reading on reading rather than focusing on subject matters to where you can gain the knowledge at the same time as you’re gaining knowledge about reading.”
• Questions teachers can ask to help develop children’s comprehension. (E.g. what are you thinking about? How does this relate to what you already know? What experiences have you had that are related to this?
• Assessing comprehension. It’s not easy to measure!
• “You cannot reduce comprehension down to a single score because it’s not a single thing.”
• Comprehension should be tested within texts on the subject matter upon which children have been provided with instruction.
• Benefits and shortcomings of cloze procedure to test comprehension
• Evaluating psychologist Jerome Kagan’s stance on dyslexia.
• Comparing the neurological basis of dyslexia with someone who has little musical ability.
• There is no consistent brain-based marker for dyslexia.
• The difference between someone who has dyslexia and who does not have dyslexia is evident in how much you struggle to read when provided with quality instruction.
• How dyslexia and comprehension difficulties could co-occur or could occur independently
• Consequences of having dyslexia
• The causes of dyslexia are multi-factorial, some relate to risk and some to resilience
• The probability that a child might have reading problems can be determined before a child has reading problems.
• Dyslexia cannot be diagnosed until the end of first class/beginning of second class.
• Intensive, systematic, supportive and scaffolded instruction from an early stage can help students who are at risk of having dyslexia.
• Having dyslexia is not a categorical phenomenon – it exists on a continuum.
• How he finds time to write.
• He likes the work of Daniel T. Willingham, Tim Shanahan, and Natalie Wexler

On this week's podcast I speak to Professor Etta Hollins from the University of Missouri-Kansas City about teacher education and the role of the teacher. Among the topics we discussed are:

• Why observation is key to good teaching practice and learning to teach
• The need to be observing, documenting and analysing classroom practice from early in a student teacher’s course
• How the influence of theorists like Jerome Bruner and John Dewey can be seen in classroom practice
• Directed observation – how the subject you're studying narrows your focus of observation
• She gives an example of how a student teacher might learn to teach with reference to learning to teach aspects of early literacy. She illustrates her point with reference to the book Brown Bear Brown Bear by Bill Martin and Eric Carle.
• As the teacher educator, she engages in epistemic practices (practices related to knowledge) with student teachers including focused inquiry (studying something specific that you’re going to be able to observe or apply).
• Knowing when it’s time to redesign a teacher education programme.
• How to solicit feedback on a teacher education programme’s impact and outcomes. (Do peers trust graduates’ knowledge? How do school leaders evaluate performance of our graduates?)
• Using generic versus subject-specific instruments to evaluate student teachers’ teaching.
• A student is ready to graduate from their teacher education programme when they can consistently apply academic knowledge to practice and make adjustments as needed for differences among children and get the learning outcomes that are expected for the child’s age, grade and subject matter. How students can progressively demonstrate their development of teacher knowledge throughout their programme.
• Why she believes assessing students in particular contexts does not mean that their competence is confined to those contexts: responding to students is a habit of mind that can be transferred to wherever you are teaching.
• She draws a parallel between how teachers respond to children in classrooms and how she responds to teacher educators when reviewing teacher education programmes.
• Why teachers need not just academic knowledge but to be aware of why they’re teaching. Teachers need a bigger purpose for their work.
• How children responded to her as a middle-school history teacher
• “Every teacher, whether they do it intentionally or not, influences children’s perception, their relationships, their values and who they become.”
• How extreme events such as school shootings can be traced to children being isolated, excluded by their peers in school.
• A teacher’s role is to help every child find a place of comfort in the school, learn to build relationships with peers, and help peers become more accepting of difference.
• Bank Street in New York is an example of how teachers can help transform schools and communities serving students from socially and economically backgrounds.
• Schools founded by John Dewey. At the centre of such schools was the study of children. He conceptualised how learning takes place and he had a conception of diversity. The spirit has been maintained because of a sense of clarity and commitment to John Dewey’s principles.
• The Lab school in Chicago was founded by John Dewey and takes children from low-income environments.
• Culture influences cognition, values and practices.
• She compares how children learn to think with how they learn a language from caregivers.
• She gives an example of how student teachers trusted their own experience over theory. She gave them an experience to help them understand difference.
• She is inspired by the awesome responsibility of being a professional educator.

Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.

On this podcast I discussed social and emotional learning with Professor Sara Rimm-Kaufman from the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development.

Among the topics discussed were:

• What social and emotional learning is
• The implicit and explicit process of learning social and emotional skills
• How children can learn empathy
• Her book for teachers: SEL from the Start
• From listening to respectful communication to respecting others’ perspectives
• Where social emotional learning fits in the regular school curriculum
• What service learning is and examples of it in practice
• Three possible categories of service learning solutions: Educate others, change a policy or take direct action.
• The relationship between service learning and project-based learning
• How Sara Rimm-Kaufman and her colleagues (including Tracy Harkins and Eileen Merritt) developed Connect Science, a scheme that uses the service learning approach to combine social emotional learning and academic content
• Applying service learning in different curriculum subject areas
• The notion of “fidelity of implementation” in education research (and an “intent to treat” analysis)
• The theme that characterises her research interests: the centrality of social emotional learning (e.g. for racial equity) and the widespread practices in school that have never been studied but would benefit from research into their effectiveness or lack of effectiveness
• The source of her research interests
• Her early research on primates and working with Professor Jerry Kagan to subsequently working in schools with children in first grade.
• Why she likes conducting research in schools, despite the challenges such research brings
• Relational trust – what it is and why it is important among the adults in a school
• Who has responsibility for building relational trust among the adult community in a school?
• Building relational trust with and among children in a school
• The relation between a teacher’s beliefs and their practice – a bidirectional process.
• She loves the work of Dan Willingham, a former guest on this podcast.