Thinking Classroom Podcast

Mike talks to author John Budden about his 2023 collection of short stories, 'We Aim To Live' - 14 tales about men at times of crisis, choice and revelation. John's work has been reviewed favourably in The Sunday Times and on BBC Radio. If you like stories that make you think, feel and talk about the themes raised; stories in which things actually happen, then this is one for you.

Mike talks to AI policy researcher Thorin Bristow and AI specialist Tess Buckley about equitable access to AI and how we balance regulation with innovation. Tess shares some quality go-to AI resources for educators and Thorin starts this episode with solid advice for becoming AI Literate. Listen out for the background sounds of excellent coffee being drunk in the Blighty Cafe, Finsbury Park.

Mike talks to Sonia Gill of HeadsUp and author of Journey to Outstanding and Successful Difficult Conversations in school about, well, those two themes. How do you have a knotty conversation with kindness? And what would Sonia do as Secretary of State for Education?

Mike talks to Tara Elie of Starperformance about teacher wellbeing and the challenges and opportunities of senior educational leadership for marginalised and under-represented groups. Tara's masters research reveals the lived experience of these groups and offers positive ways forward. In this episode you'll also hear a completely silent pneumatic drill. Wow.

Mike talks to Jamaican engineer, entrepreneur and author Dianne Plummer about how early childhood experiences at home and at school set her on a path to STEM success. Dianne talks about her book, Science in the Sun; describes her learning journey across the world; and tells us about the power of asking why?

Mike talks to Emmie Bidston, teacher and director of coaching and leadership at Wellington College. Emmie brings fun and energy to the world of education; she's a pragmatic advocate of 'flourishing' and describes for us the coaching culture in her school. This episode radiates positivity about being a teacher in the world today. And Emmie let's us know if she'd accept the job of Secretary of State for Education and what her priorities would be.

Roy Blatchford CBE has served the world of education for over 50 years. Teacher, headteacher, consultant, advisor and international thought leader, his vision is inspiring and his approach pragmatic. In this episode I talk to Roy about Blinks and how they offer a far more effective way to empower schools to get better by making sure that the folks who work there are the ones with the agency and autonomy. In 20 minutes we only get to the very tip of his educational iceberg. However, we do cover Tony Blair's 1997 pledge (Roy shares his 2023 version); we look at teacher standards (which Roy wrote); and we find out how the French school inspection system works. And we learn that brown is actually yellow. It all depends on if you’ve been to university.

Education, Thinking, Innovation: Educator, Author and Coach Mike Fleetham explores the latest thinking in pedagogy, teaching, learning, leadership, coaching, thinking skills and artificial intelligence.

Stephanie Davies is head of happiness at Laughology,  a company that applies the science of emotion to teaching and learning. Steph tells Mike that this is far more than just making lessons fun: there’s a lot of empirical evidence around that links neurotransmitters with laughter and memory – and if we get this right in the classroom, learning can be more effective and more enjoyable. She’ll tell us about her FLIP model for making that happen and also reveal how many times as a child she sadly had to let a school go due to incompatibility issues.

Mike talks to author and educator Hywel Roberts about his concept of botheredness  – what it is and how it can help children get invested in their learning. Find out about the let's say technique and which millworker inspired Hywel in his pedagogical journey. And we discover his top priorities if he were to ever be made secretary of state for education. We also get to meet his dog.

What are the two kinds of gamification? Does gamification work or is it bull****? (get to hear the beep again). And is there a best way to use the design of games to enrich the planning of learning? Mike talks to Josh Barton, lecturer in Games Design at the University of Middlesex, UK about games design and learning. We cover designers as 'architects of meaning and experience', step into the magic circle and find out why the gamification of cars might make better drivers.

Mike talks to Alex Nightingale and Hannah Spencer of the Yorkshire Endeavour English Hub about their work in the North of England giving our young learners a great, linguistic start to life. But their region is a little different to most. Children often come to school by quadbike or tractor. Sheep can be involved. Alex's school has around 30 children. (that's school, not class). His current YrR cohort is a massive three (3) big. Go figure the data implications. Find out how Hannah manages her English hub of smaller schools, like Alex's, and if you're curious about how to develop your own skills as a Literacy Specialist, Hannah describes exactly how to go about it.

What do you do when the conversation is so difficult that words are not enough? You can turn away, you can harden up...or you can use the creative arts with kindness, compassion - and with food! You can communicate in ways that transcend spoken language and culture. Mike talks to Roni Edwards of Pamodzi Creatives https://pamodzicreatives.com based in south England about her work with refugees, inspirational women and schools. Find out how Brexit prompted Roni to do what she does best and learn the value of breathing for Year 6. And discover what 'Pamodzi' really means.

From Peek-a-Boo to Puns; from tickling to teasing, humour follows a developmental pathway in our youngest learners. Mike talks to Associate Professor Elena Hoicka about her Early Humour Survey and how it reveals which kinds of humour develop when. At what age do children generally understand teasing and tricks? When would a sheep on your head be funny? And is it aggression in 4 year olds or just cubs having a laugh and play fighting? Get involved with Elena's research through her website, babylovesscience.com, where you can take part in her ongoing studies and also download your very own Early Humour Survey. (which should easily sit alongside early phonics screening as an essential EYFS educators' data point!)

Mike talks to Professor Howard Gardner about his 2020 cognitive memoir, A Synthesizing Mind. In part 2, and with the help of researcher Matthew Courtney, we cover Multiple Intelligences, empirical evidence, Artificial Intelligence and consider how to remodel a national assessment system. Which critique of MI theory is most wrong? What is 'empirical evidence'? How does AI make us look at our own humanity? And why is transforming assessment so difficult? And to fit it all in, this episode lasts a whole 3 minutes longer than usual. Listen to part one of this interview here (https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/UDAttapG0Cb) Check out Howard's blog post about ChatGPT here (https://www.howardgardner.com/howards-blog/a-hrefhttpsthegoodprojectsquarespacecomgood-blog202395chat-gpt-first-musingschat-gpt-first-musingsa)

How do we set the rules for using AI in education? How do we balance safeguards with opportunity? How can we integrate tools such as ChatGPT, DALLE-2 and Otter.ai into our day-to-day teaching and leadership? One answer is to begin with an ethical framework. Mike talks to Ann Skeet, co-author of 'Ethics in an Age of Disruptive Technology', about the book's genesis and its practical ideas. Known as The ITEC Handbook, it is a dynamic and living document combining input from the Vatican and evidence of what actually works best in organisations. You can download it here: https://www.scu.edu/institute-for-technology-ethics-and-culture/itec-handbook/ Although now based in Silicon Valley, and supporting companies globally through the Markkula Centre at Santa Clara University, Ann is also an ex-teacher who, in our conversation, applies the book's concepts to school contexts. Should a student declare their use of AI for homework?Did the pope contribute to the handbook?What is an anchoring principle and does your school have one? Contact Ann here: askeet@scu.edu Ann's blog: https://www-dev.scu.edu/ethics/leadership-ethics-blog/

Synthesising not memorising: a manifesto for authentic, rigorous, future-focussed learning and study. Mike talks to Professor Howard Gardner about his 2020 memoir and the concept of 'synthesising/synthesizing'. With the help of researcher Matthew Courtney, we discover Howard's take on Donald Trump, Brexit, Charles Darwin and virgin births - yes you'll need to do some synthesising of your own this episode! In part 2 later this month Howard will talk about artificial intelligence and we'll find out what he really thinks of ChatGPT.

Turning the pages of a book that is over 250 years old is an awe-inspiring experience. Mike talks to Robert Betteridge from the National Library of Scotland and Ash Charlton from the University of Edinburgh about the first few editions of the ground-breaking Encyclopaedia Britannica, and finds out why you don't wear white gloves with this kind of artefact. The encyclopaedia was a disruptive and innovative concept; way ahead of its time on social justice and in democratising expert knowledge. Robert explains how the encyclopaedia came about through an early version of crowdfunding and Ash describes her use of digital tools to read between the lines and pick up hidden patterns related to race and slavery. You and your students can explore digital versions of Britannica and even carry out your own digital analysis with out-of-the-box tools (thanks Ash for curating these links): National Library of Scotland Digital Gallery (where you can view images and text): https://digital.nls.uk/gallery/  National Library of Scotland Data Foundry (downloadable datasets with images and text): https://data.nls.uk/  Encyclopaedia Britannica in the Digital Gallery: https://digital.nls.uk/encyclopaedia-britannica/archive/188936619 Encyclopaedia Britannica dataset in the Data Foundry:  https://doi.org/10.34812/cg4r-dn40  Data analysis tools on the Data Foundry, including the tutorials and Jupyter Notebooks with NLS collections, as well as recommendations for freely available tools (at different levels of programming ability): https://data.nls.uk/tools/  The out-of-the-box tools I recommend are: AntConc (downloaded to run locally): https://www.laurenceanthony.net/software/antconc/  VoyantTools (can be run on web browser):  https://voyant-tools.org/ To code your own text mining and analysis tools: The Ready to Code initiative by the American Library Association is aimed at libraries, but the resources and strategies are aimed at encouraging computational thinking, and some of the resources could be easily adapted outside of libraries: https://www.ala.org/tools/readytocode/ At a more advanced level these are some good resources on digital humanities skills. The Programming Historian:  https://programminghistorian.org/  There are lessons in English, French, Spanish & Portuguese.  The University of Edinburgh's Centre for Data, Culture & Society has training guides to some methods of digital analysis, including data visualisation and text analysis:  https://www.cdcs.ed.ac.uk/training/training-pathways  (disclaimer: I (Ash!) have worked for them in the past and am affiliated with them, but these are helpful nonetheless and are aimed at humanities analysis with free tools, where possible.)

Mike works out that comedy and learning have a great deal in common and finds out how a good stand up routine is like a good lesson. He talks to autistic comedian Joe Wells about school, grammar, confidence, writing and english teachers. Along the way there will be at least several jokes, three ways to use the structure of comedy in your lessons and proper theories that start to explain why we find things funny. CONENT WARNING: there is content in this podcast. https://www.joewells.org.uk/ https://www.edfringe.com/ https://www.thinkingclassroom.co.uk/

Mike talks to leadership facilitator Michael Meinhardt from leaderswarehouse.com about the four transformational aspects of the FISH! Philosophy; an idea from the late '90s originating in the day-to-day practice of fishmongers from Pike Place Market in Seattle. We also take a quick look back at some lost gems - the 'leadership training video' made popular by John Cleese, Mel Smith and Gryff Rhys Jones. And hear Pete doing a very passable Basil Fawlty and Manuel. And another short poem. About fish.