Psychology in the Classroom

Ever wondered about the difference time makes to your teaching practice? This week David Weston from the Teacher Development Trust discusses the difference between novice and expert teachers, how teachers develop expertise in their craft and how schools can best create conditions for teachers to thrive professionally - all of which is underpinned by research. With top tips for both early careers teachers and the more seasoned professional it is well worth a listen. You can find out more about the Teacher Development Trust on their website www.TDTrust.org or follow them on Twitter @informed_edu. Click to access the Kraft and Papay (2014) paper and the DfE Standard for Teachers’ Professional Development and the TDT Culture of Improvement Review.

This is the first of 3 podcasts with Professor Willem Kuyken in which we discuss mental health in schools culminating in an episode about the Myriad Trial (My Resilience in Adolescence) which looked at the impact of a brief Mindfulness intervention on the wellbeing of young teens. In this episode we start with a broad discussion around mental health in young people, the role schools have in supporting mental health, why mental health and wellbeing interventions should be evidence based, what ‘evidence based’ actually means and, the challenges of delivering universal interventions. We begin a discussion of school climate and how this may be central if we’re to take a fresh and evidence-based approach to mental health in schools.

Willem references Casel in our discussion - here is the link should you wish to find out more. Another couple of useful links are Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Centre and the EEF Toolkit

I have been struggling to get my head around Metacognition and what it looks like in the classroom. In this episode I go right back to Flavell's 1979 paper where he outlines his ideas and discuss a variety of examples of metacognition in the classroom. I hope you find it a useful introduction to metacognition and a spring board to thinkin about what it looks like in your classroom.

Useful links:

Podcast on Cognitive Psychology

EEF Metacognition Guidance Document (2018)

Reference: Flavell, John H. 1979. “Metacognition and Cognitive Monitoring: A New Area of Cognitive-Developmental Inquiry.” American Psychologist 34 (10): 906–911.

Aphantasia is the inability to visualize, people with aphantasia don’t create any pictures of familiar objects, people, or places in their mind’s eye. Not for thoughts, memories, or images of the future. This conversation is a fascinating insight into the condition itself but also how our assumptions about other people’s perception and understanding of the world may differ from our own. Whilst research into Aphantasia is in its infancy this conversation is full of thought provoking ideas about the uniqueness of individual perception and a reminder that we need to be mindful in the classroom about assuming one-size-fits all.

If you would like to find out more check out the Aphantasia Network and you can find out where you fall on the imagination spectrum.

In this second podcast with Professor Willem Kuyken, we explore mindfulness - what it is, how it can be practised and how it can benefit mental health. We debunk the idea of mindfulness as a panacea and explore instead for whom and under what conditions it might be helpful. We consider the many facets of mindfulness such as curiosity, kindness and compassion and how we learn mindfulness through our everyday lives and other people. We discuss how our attention has become a commodity that social media successfully harnesses and that perhaps mindfulness is a way to claim back our attention. Finally we start to think about the best ways to introduce mindfulness in schools, revisiting the idea of school climate.

If you want to hear more about codesign do listen to the RE-STAR podcasts