An obsession with measuring activity means that it needs to be obvious and unmistakable.  This is the only way we can be sure about it and calm our fears.  When it comes to teacher training, such as course I am currently undertaking, it is often assumed that one is passive when one is listening.  ‘Lecturing is the least effective form of teaching’, we assume.  It is supposed that we retain the least information if we are listening.  We must ask ‘Are my students active?’  We must prove...

A debate is going on in the Times Higher Education Supplement over the value of teacher training in Higher Education.  It is a debate that is of course always going on but a letter in response to a recent article is particularly striking.  I have heard teacher training described as ‘self-perpetuating’ by some.  It is a criticism also levelled at management theory and seems to concern disciplines that have emerged relatively recently and whose claims to importance conflict with those of ol...

An obsession with measuring activity means that it needs to be obvious and unmistakable.  This is the only way we can be sure about it and calm our fears.  When it comes to teacher training, such as course I am currently undertaking, it is often assumed that one is passive when one is listening.  ‘Lecturing is the least effective form of teaching’, we assume.  It is supposed that we retain the least information if we are listening.  We must ask ‘Are my students active?’  We must prove...

A debate is going on in the Times Higher Education Supplement over the value of teacher training in Higher Education.  It is a debate that is of course always going on but a letter in response to a recent article is particularly striking.  I have heard teacher training described as ‘self-perpetuating’ by some.  It is a criticism also levelled at management theory and seems to concern disciplines that have emerged relatively recently and whose claims to importance conflict with those of ol...