In the ever-evolving landscape of leadership, a curated collection of domain-specific literature can serve as a guiding compass. In this post, we delve deep into the ALTA bookshelves, uncovering the wisdom of three must-have books that every leader should consider… Read More »What are the 3 Books that Every Leader Should Have on Their Shelf?
There just aren’t enough hours in the day. How often do you feel like, no matter how hard you try or how long you work, the tasks on your to-do list will never fit in the time you have available… Read More »3 Ways to Organise Your Leadership Time
How would you define knowledge? What is learning? Before going any further, I would like to start by defining knowledge as everything that we know (or can do) which is stored in our long-term memory. This allows us to define… Read More »Why Learning Mathematics Is Hard… and What We Can Do To Help.
Thank you for reading this far! By daring to lead with the words ‘Active’ and ‘Learning’, I expect many potential readers are already a dozen items further down their feeds. Those of you who have remained have likely done so… Read More »Active Learning: Powerful Pedagogy or Futile Fad?
This article was first published in Teach Primary Magazine by https://www.theteachco.com/teach-primary Teachers in England are standing at the precipice of the most significant change to their working practices in over a decade. Not since the removal of national curriculum levels… Read More »Breaking Free: The Future of Assessment in Mathematics at Key Stage One
Understanding and retaining information involves more than just cramming facts into your brain. Mayer and Moreno (2003) describe meaningful learning as a deep grasp of the material, including paying attention to important details, mentally organising it into a coherent structure,… Read More »4 Working Memory ‘Hacks’ Every Teacher Needs To Know
We’ve known for a long time that mathematics is a series of interconnected ideas. At its simplest, this means that different mathematical concepts are related to each other in different ways. For example, the concept of multiplication is related to… Read More »Harness the Power of Number Bonds
This post is for anyone who leads (or aspires to lead) mathematics in their institution. Time with colleagues is precious and can easily be consumed with admin which whilst feeling important, detracts from the main task of improving teacher efficacy.… Read More »Transform Maths Meetings With This Collaborative Gem
As teachers and professionals, we continually reflect on how we can improve the outcomes for our students. However, when coping with a full curriculum, a packed school calendar and the many additional requirements of being a teacher, finding time to… Read More »Thinking About Learning: Cognitive Science for Teachers (Part 1)
Previously on ALTA Blog: Last time out we explored both the perilous nature of engaging with the research into the use of concrete resources and established our first guiding principle: The more salient a resource, the less likely transfer becomes.… Read More »Old Yellow Bricks: Developing an Evidence Informed Approach to Concrete Resources in the Mathematics Classroom (Part 2)
In the January of 2021, Christopher Such and I were, as I’m sure everyone does from time to time, casually discussing the validity of claims made in a paper about the use of digital manipulatives. And while I cannot remember… Read More »Old Yellow Bricks: Developing an Evidence Informed Approach to Concrete Resources in the Mathematics Classroom (Part 1)