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Things in Education

This is our repository of all our newsletters which are delivered to the inbox of our subscribers.

List of Published Newsletters

Edition 3.35

25 Oct 2024.

In this edition we write about a part of the main character in most of the discussions on information processing for student learning - working memory. Specifically, we write about the need to optimise the load on students' working memory and how too little load on the working memory is equally bad for learning as too much load! Read More.

Edition 3.33

11 Oct 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 85th edition of our weekly newsletter, Things in Education. In this edition we write about a part of the Cognitive Load Theory that gets overlooked - Sensory Memory. How do our brains pay attention to some things and ignore some other very obvious things? Read More.

Edition 3.31

27 Sep 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 83rd edition of our weekly newsletter, Things in Education. This edition we write about the cognitive science of learning--specifcially the way we process new information and remember it. This is a precursor to multiple editions in the future, in which we will write about classroom practices, time tables, yearly planning and its links with how we process new information. Read More.

Edition 3.29

13 Sep 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 81st edition of our weekly newsletter, Things in Education. This is a special edition because we are drawing connections between human evolution, human psychology, educational psychology, cognitive psychology, and a little neuro-biology to give you a simple strategy for when you plan your next lesson. Maybe it becomes a cheat code for predicting what the students will find hard to learn and what will be relatively easy. Read More.

Edition 3.27

30 Aug 2024.

Are the assessments you are doing next week formative or summative? We think that after reading today's edition you will know for sure. So please dig in... Read More.

Edition 3.25

16 Aug 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 77th edition of our weekly newsletter, Things in Education. Isn't it ironic that almost everyone in India can enjoy this long weekend, but teachers need to come to school even on Independence Day? Teachers go above and beyond! This edition is about critical thinking. And we have written about it earlier, but this time we really get into the nuances of how this would look in a classroom. Hope there is something for everyone in this one. Read More.

Edition 3.23

2 Aug 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 75th edition of our weekly newsletter, Things in Education. We hope you are staying safe with the weather taking over almost the whole of India. In today's edition, we examine the multiple intelligences theory. We take a look behind the curtain and bust myths with scientific arguments. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this. Read More.

Edition 3.21

19 July 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 73rd edition of our weekly newsletter, Things in Education. In today's edition we do a deep dive into what scaffolding is. And as you will also realise, by the time we are done with the thousand words, we want to write another thousand on the nuances that emerge. We will be writing more on these in the coming editions, but for now let's get our thoughts on how scaffolding works. Read More.

Edition 3.19

5 July 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 71st edition of our weekly newsletter, Things in Education. We've had many interesting conversations with teachers over the last few months. And as we reflect on our learnings, we will periodically share our learnings and thoughts with you. We did the same a couple of editions ago, and today too, we are going to write about student understanding. Read More.

Edition 3.17

21 June 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 69th edition of our weekly newsletter, Things in Education. Today's edition has a few reflections on teacher professional development in India, based on our experiences over the last year. We would love to hear from you if your experience has been similar or dissimilar. Read More.

Edition 3.15

7 June 2024.

The NEP 2020 and various other guidelines emphasise the need for educators to transition from traditional lesson formats to project-based learning, inquiry-based classrooms, and experiential learning. We believe that at the foundation of all of these is the fact that students should be actively engaged in learning. And in this edition, we write about what it means to actively engage students in learning. Read More.

Edition 3.13

24 May 2024.

With the new academic year beginning and teachers preparing for their classes, we thought that we could summarise the different pedagogical approaches and what needs to be kept in mind while using different pedagogical approaches. Read More.

Edition 3.11

10 May 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 63rd edition of our fortnightly newsletter, Things in Education. Our organisation started with the question, "What can we do so that teachers can upskill themselves?" So when we write about continuous teacher professional development, it is very close to our heart. In today's edition, we go into why continuity is important in teacher professional development and what the different ways are in which professional development can occur (hint: there are more things apart from hands-on workshops). Read More.

Edition 3.10

26 Apr 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 62nd edition of our fortnightly newsletter, Things in Education. In today's edition we try to explore why Direct Instruction is so maligned as a pedagogical approach. Is it that there is no pedagogical upside to Direct Instruction? No. Are there some misconceptions about what Direct Instruction should look like in a classroom? As we find out, maybe. Read More.

Edition 3.9

12 Apr 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 61st edition of our fortnightly newsletter, Things in Education. Today we write about something that a lot of experienced teachers do intuitively. But we think that writing about it makes it concrete for the experienced teachers, as it is no longer just intuitive, but also research-backed. For teachers with fewer years in the field, knowing that you can blend two approaches while teaching comes as first, a surprise, and then a relief. Imagine that you didn't have to only follow the Reggio Emilia approach for foundational learning, but you could also take elements of the Montessori approach. Life becomes so much simpler for teachers! And dare we say better for students' learning outcomes. So let's dive into the what and how blending of approaches. Read More.

Edition 3.8

29 Mar 2024.

As we wind down yet another academic year as teachers, principals, school leaders, owners we thought this would be good time to post something that can help with self-reflection, building better hiring processes and just cooler ways to plan professional development. Today we write about how content knowledge is different than pedagogical knowledge and the ramifications of these in our approaches to teaching. Read More.

Edition 3.7

15 Mar 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 59th edition of our fortnightly newsletter, Things in Education. In this edition, we have tried to uncover the basics of what teachers need for the best chance of ensuring students meet their learning outcomes. We think that constant and frequent feedback on students' thoughts and actions are key to better planned and customised lessons. However, students' thoughts and actions are not easily seen. We write about a model of how to make students' thoughts and actions visible. Read More.

Edition 3.6

1 Mar 2024.

In today's edition, we write about which topics teachers find difficult to teach or are at least, not interested in teaching. Over the last few years, we have been meeting with teachers and we have seen that teachers find some topics harder to teach effectively than others. So we tried to make sense of it by asking: Are there any patterns to the topics that teachers don't like to teach? Are not good at teaching? And many more. Tell us if you agree with our model. We want to know if you have had different experiences. Read More.

Edition 3.5

16 Feb 2024.

In this edition of the newsletter, we annouce the launch of our Data-Informed Teacher Development. We have been doing teacher professional development for private schools and teachers from various government schools. Finally, after a year little more than a year of building, we think we have a solution that supports teachers and schools in the best possible way. And it exists as a combination of online and in-person intervention, and a combination of support and accountability in equal measure. And our favourite part is that the entire solution is modular. You only want the online part? Okay! You only want the in-person sessions? Okay! So dive in and have a look at our solution. Read More.

Edition 3.4

2 Feb 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 56th edition of our fortnightly newsletter, Things in Education. This In the last edition, we wrote about what is STEM in the foundational years and why it is important. We now explore the other side of exploring STEM in foundational years - the pitfalls. But before that, as promised in the last edition, we share examples how technology and mathematics can included in foundational STEM. Read More.

Edition 3.3

19 Jan 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 55th edition of our fortnightly newsletter, Things in Education. Does STEM have a place in a foundational learning classroom? Is it just a fad? Does it really help foundational development of learners? This edition explores these questions and hopefully shows why STEM is crucial in early education. Read More.

Edition 3.2

5 Jan 2024.

Hello and welcome to the 54th edition of our fortnightly newsletter, Things in Education. This edition is on foundational numeracy, specifically focussing on how an innately present number sense can be leveraged to teach mathematical operations. We hope that today's edition helps our readers pinpoint specific reasons why hands-on activities are important in teaching and learning foundational numeracy skills.