It's not just talking to teachers talking to teachers about academic research and evidence-based practice with continuing professional development at PNA 1977 on Twitter were just talking to teachers. Hello and welcome to Nana's Ngata in association with the teacher development trusts and this week. I'm incredibly excited to be joined by teacher author and all-around education Guru Doug lomov. And listeners will be aware of my long-standing admiration for Doug and his work. So I first became interested involved in this work when I moved to Blackpool in 2013. And as SLT lead for induction, I was looking for a program that new teachers could use to learn the art of teaching and the tools of the trade and teach Like A Champion was and indeed still is our go-to text for new teachers with every training and nqt entering the school getting their own copy the techniques and the videos that go with them have been a staple of our staff induction for years. Also fully support our teach first participants and their use of teach Like A Champion. So in this podcast, we also discussed Doug and his co-authors cleaned Rigs and Erica will always reading reconsidered and this would be pertinent to many teachers listening who will have used a book in their own practice. I asked dog about his thoughts on the Blackpool literacy project organized and headed up by Steven Tierney. Listen to be aware of Stephen at leading learner on Twitter, which is implemented many of the recommendations suggest it in Reading reconsidered. So explore the deployment of a literary canon the importance of vocabulary instruction. And of course my favorite topic implementation. So before we get into the natto with dog, it's time for our weekly segment with the team from the teacher development trusts and we have bethan and David ready in the studio over to you. Bethan. Thanks very much Phil always a pleasure working with you. I invest in hind leg from the teacher development trusts and I'm joined by our CEO David Weston. Oh this week we're exploring the map. Of topic of curriculum and its implications for senior and middle leaders were considering the following questions. How can senior School staff design and Implement curriculum change in their schools? How can they build the leadership of middle leaders in this area? And how can they bring all staff with them on the journey to answer these questions. I've asked David to give us a preview of his upcoming presentation at our conference developing curriculum and teachers leading from the middle which takes place in London on the 16th of October. David your session is titled avoiding resistance curriculum change that sticks. What are the key principles here? Thanks Beth Ann. Hello, Phil. Yeah, the curriculum is suddenly the Hot Topic, isn't it? I get the sense that most School leaders are generally quite welcoming of moving the focus toward curriculum and away from internal monitoring and data, but it does throw up a bunch of questions about getting ready. There was a tweet doing the rounds last week. I wonder if you saw it where a school middle leader was sharing all of the in-depth questions. They were being asked on their ofsted inspection. It was a massive list. Yeah, I saw that list and it was causing some alarm especially for Middle leaders and small schools. So, how can we use research and best practice around leading change to think about curriculum? Okay. So here's a few ideas from my keynote next month. So there's a very interesting psychology of change and it suggests. There are five key things people need to believe in order to buy into Change these come from research by I think you pronounce it arm and Marcus and colleagues from 2000 and it's summarized really nicely on a great website, which is called science for work.com. So the first thing is discrepancy do your staff really believe that improved curriculum thinking is actually desirable to they see what's missing in the current thinking only at that point. They really want to make the change the second thing do staff really believe that your plan to improve. These curriculum will help everybody achieve their goals. So it might well be they think yes curriculum could be better but I actually believe that your plan is going to make it better. Third thing efficacy is their confidence in within School staff that this is a place where people are good at making plans and carrying them out. Is there a history of implementing change well here also to staff individually think they're capable of changing to a new way of thinking because because any change needs people to believe that both we can change and I can change and ultimately are we going to make it with the new curriculum fourth principle is principal support. So that's leaders being really engaged in the process. So do your staff think that this is a real priority that you're going to stay really committed to over the long term or is it either a flash in the pan or just another thing in a huge shopping list of priorities? And fifth oneself benefit, so for staff to really buy into curriculum change, they need to think that the new curriculum will help them to teach better. So their children will achieve better and learn better. It needs to feel like it's aligned with their values because staff might think it's great for the organization but not good for them and they won't buy it. So we haven't got time now, but in my talk, I'm going to go on and have a look at their steps that our leader would take in creating change that addresses all of these five. He's biting anyone can benefit from just thinking of the five different psychological aspects. So we'll also get key notes from International curriculum expert Tim boats from leading executive head teacher Rose McMullen on how she put curriculum at the Harper School improvement from leading lesson study expert Julie Jordan on the Japanese approach of cues, I can queue or that's em in English curriculum material study and how they use it in a number of countries to develop teachers thinking and finally we've got an amazing. A panel of school leaders chaired by the tears. They're going to talk about how to help middle leaders. Get ready for this change. Thanks David some really interesting psychology and Leadership research there find out more about this event on the 16th of October in London at TD Trust dot-org forward slash curriculum now Phil back to you in the studio. Thank you Beth Ann and David and it's also worth pointing out that a previous guests of the podcast that's ofsted's Daniel MERS. Also going to be speaking at the conference. It's going to be an absolutely unmissable day. Okay. So without further Ado now we're going to move into the podcast with teacher author and all-around education Guru Doug lomov on teach Like A Champion and reading reconsidered welcome to nailers nattering musings and evidence-based teaching and professional learning follow us on Twitter are PNA 1977. Ok, so hello dog. And welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me on no problem. It's an absolute honor to speak to you. I've been a massive fan of your work for many years and we use it extensively in the UK and particular the stuff that I'm doing over in Blackpool. We use your books a lot. So I'm going to be asking lots and lots of sort of fan-based questions of the kind of things that you do the first thing I'm trying to give you a respectable and I'm sure you will the first one is just I always start with a sort of gentle introductory questions. So I'm sure the listeners will be aware of you and your But if you could just has a little bit more about your own personal journey in education. Okay. Well the teacher of my first job right out of University, I did it for three years. I loved it and then I guess I got a little bit of a wander lots and wanted to see the world a little bit. I ended up in a Ph.D program in English because I thought that I wanted to be a university professor and then I realized that wasn't that wasn't for me and I started to school in Boston. I don't really know what a charter school was. But I had a colleague who is starting one and she talked me into starting it. It and fascinating in about a year and a half into it. She left and suddenly on her way out the door. She said and guess what you're the principal which is, you know head of school and I was 27 or 28 and fairly clueless. So there's a steep learning curve there. But as a principle for a couple years and then I have a job overseeing tartar schools in New York state in the US and trying to help. Figure out how we're going to assess whether they were good or not with the business school wrote A business plan to start a network of high-performing inner city charter schools and ends up starting uncommon schools. And in the course of doing that wrote a book about how to solve some of the challenges of teaching and challenging situations and that became teach Like A Champion and that sort of forced me to get full time into studying and learning from teachers, which is what I get to do now really brilliant. And in terms of talking about the concept of uncommon schools, just tell us a little bit more about how you went about selecting. The schools are involved and the fieldwork that you wanted to talk in the production of teach Like A Champion. Yeah, great. So uncommon schools with we found and run Hopefully a high performing schools in underserved communities throughout the u.s. So we're in actually we're in the Northeast part of the u.s. We work in New York City in Brooklyn some of the some of the tougher neighborhood there in Newark, New Jersey Austin in Upstate New York and Camden New Jersey. We have 53 schools. And the idea is to you know, the lot of the communities we work in, you know, three percent of kids go on to University less than 10% of kids graduate from High school until the ideas, too. Put in these communities great schools that get kids prepared for University to go there to succeed there and change the equation of opportunity. So we better start 53 of them in the course of doing that, you know, the we would hire great idealistic enthusiastic teachers and they would go into the classroom and it would be really really hard and come back to us and they would say what do you do when you know fill in the blank with all the challenges of teaching generally and especially teaching in communities like that and we found that we just did Not have answers for them. So I was recovering from my MBA at the time and I ran some data sets where I try to identify where the teachers were who taught in high poverty communities in high poverty context and still got tremendous results and still maximize student achievement. And so I found found as many of the schools is like of those classrooms as I could and went to visit them to try and take notes on what the teachers there did and as soon as I I went it was remarkable as incredible as inspiring. If you remember the you know, the best teacher that you had it was like walking into that teacher's classroom day after day after day and so I started Bring my cat bring a video camera with me because one part because I thought people just weren't going to believe how good it was and how different it wasn't how amazing it was. So I started to shoot a little video clips, you know, the very first teacher that I shot a video of it looks like bad wedding footage. But but you know, I started to study these teachers and take notes on what they did and that, you know studying the case what positive outliers did that made them different from other teachers ultimately became to Target champion and Then my team and I tried to apply some of that thinking to reading your considered as well. Yes. Absolutely. I'm will come to reading reconsidered in a second half of the podcast but in terms of teach Like A Champion and you talk about the art of teaching and it's tools so what exactly do you mean by that and I'm not I'm not sure whether you're aware in terms of the evidence based movement. That seems to be taking hold in the UK. But how is that different or maybe even complementary to the evidence-based teaching movement? I think I think that's a great question. And I think they're complimentary. I don't think art. Spaced are anyway one excludes the other I'll start with the word tool tools is a really important word to me. It's opposite and it's teaching perspective might be program or system. I just believe that each teacher is different that there's a toolbox of things that techniques that teachers can use to make their classroom more engaging more rigorous more more Dynamic, but that there's no one. Over all right way to do it that what I want to do is get teachers that they tools that they can use to adjust and improve what they already do and be more intentional at what they already do as opposed to tear up everything you do start over on follow my system. If nothing else. I just think that like that approach just feels lacking in humility to for someone to write a book saying I have all the answers about everything in the classroom. You know, I think that most teachers do most of what they do is really good and if the question of finding a few areas to are interested in that they want to get better on without throwing out everything as it was found that intimidating the teacher so the word tools implies pick one pick the other apply it to a situation use it with your discretion as a teacher at the that's also really important to me as the autonomy and problem solving the teachers use I do think that that's the idea is complementing the evidence-based teaching movement, you know evidence is really really important and I think there's a lot of alignment between what they haven't chosen what you know found great teachers doing but I also think that as evidence is necessary but not sufficient, you know, I can know that retrieval practice is really important or I can know that I have to manage working loads on working memory from Cognitive load Theory, but just knowing that doesn't necessarily help those ideas survive their their interaction with 29 skeptical ye rates at 10:30 in the morning on Tuesday. Right just because I have to figure out how to apply that idea in a complex setting in combination with other tools what other tools what other useful ideas do I use them with how do I combine them? How do I adapt them? And so I guess what you could describe the art of teaching and its tools as being is Building the environment in which evidence-based teaching which research Based Teaching works and finding ways to apply those ideas as effectively as possible in the classroom. Definitely definitely in a phrase that we use quite a lot in terms of the research skills that I'm working with is the evidence should supplement not supplant the teachers experience and I find that certain writing that down. I can't claim credit for a credit for that dog. That's not my phrase. I'm sure that someone at the research goal will claim that one, but it's absolutely what we try to do in terms of, you know, giving teachers. You're actually using these things in their classrooms and teach Like A Champion is perfect for that. Yeah. Well, thank you for having I'm glad I'm glad to know it. Well coming to that and teach Like A Champion 2.0. I always make sure I say 2.0 has been phenomenally successful in the UK and I also used a field guide and I find it an excellent accompaniment working with new teachers and working with the staff more broadly. So how would you advise schools to best use the book? Thank you. I appreciate that. I think the first thing is Is don't try to do everything 62 techniques trying to do sixty two things at once is the same as trying to do nothing. Right? It's a have to be selective and choose a few things and try and do them well, but a couple of other key ideas, I think in using the book, I love the fries theme and variation if you watch if you look at the videos in the book, I always try and provide whenever possible in the book and in the trainings that I do more than one example of Any Given technique because I think every teacher has to find what's consistent about the idea and what's unique to them or what they want to adapt to their their classroom on any given day. And so don't feel like School shouldn't feel like they should be encouraging people to copy exactly what someone does in the video but to Look for look at the themes look for the principles across multiple videos and then adapt them to each individual's style approach. And then I think it's important to think about both strengths and weaknesses, you know, all of us should always be trying to work out what these teachers is so important and so, you know, we have a responsibility to always try and be improving and fixing things about our teaching that could be better. But when I look at Great teachers who Accomplish amazing things in their classrooms. They're not people without flaws. They also they also have flaws in their teaching and interestingly. They be the first to tell you that what's often have are just incredible strengths that overwhelm the opposition that all the overwhelm, you know, the difficulties in the classroom and so investing in what you're good at is as important as fixing your Shoring up what you don't think you're good at and in fact, sometimes people will say when I talk about a technique in the book all I already do that and that to me is not not a reason not to study something but it's twice the reason to study it because if you're already good at it a few tweaks can help you help you be really excellent at it or apply to new situations new situations that you haven't thought about and you're most likely to get benefit from studying it because it's already something that works well with in everything you do in the So thinking about strengths as well as weaknesses, I think is really important and I would also show out throughout this the value of shared vocabulary. If there's one thing that I think is important about the book is that it gives teachers a way to talk about all the thousands of decisions that they make in the course of teaching day. And if you don't have technical terms to talk about the things that you do in the things that students do it's really hard to have intentional conversations about getting better. And so You know teachers May hope they agree with some of my conclusions about the classroom. They might not agree with all of them. But at the very least it allows them to take a vocabulary and talk about what they you know, whether that was an opportunity for cold call or whether I could have used a right but I could have used everybody writes there to increase the ratio and whether whether I checked for understanding, you may solve those problems differently for me, but it allows people to communicate more efficiently about really complex work. And I think that that's That's really important also, and the last thing I would say is use the writing chapter commemoration for reading chapter because that's my favorite. Yeah. Absolutely. I was just thinking that while you were talking in terms of how these terms have become part of the Lexicon of teaching certainly of the people that I've worked with, you know, you think about Coke or right is right. No opt-out everybody writes as you mentioned there do now exit tickets. All of these things will become part and parcel and and people would understand those as well. Definitely. Yeah, it's amazing. To because people do people do great things with them. I just started yesterday working with kind of right to check a champion version 3 T 3 3.0. I don't even know what it's called yet, but we started writing it and at first I didn't really want to ride it because it's going to be exhausting friend of mine once said, you know writing a book writing a book is the same as reading a book except book is trying to kill you. So I was I was trying to find every reason I could not to write the third version of the book, but as I started to talk about it with a couple of colleagues, I got so excited and motivated because the ideas that are in the book teachers we've seen teachers do such incredible things to do you even better than what we originally what I'm virtually envisioned when I wrote the book that teachers take the ideas and adapt them and they do great things with them and they talk to their peers about him and they solve new problems with them and I just find that I find that process really fascinating and motivating and I think that's what happens when you have when you have shared vocabularies people, you know, whatever's in the book people can learn Times more than that just by being able to have conversations with their peers and being able to reflect on ideas and precise and intentional way. Absolutely and you mentioned that about it's not just focus on you know, the weaknesses but also strength, so I think that with my own teaching is just a personal reflection, but I've always thought I was fairly strong in terms of controlling the classroom making sure that the behavior of classroom is how it should be but very simple technique that I always go back to and in fact I did this with staff training last week and I might pronounce this wrong dog, but was it called Pastore? As perch is that what it's called in terms of where to stand in the classroom and it's such a simple idea and I just think that I always go back to that even when I'm leading staff training or I'm looking in a classroom. I always find myself standing in that particular position and it's such a simple idea, but it works so well. You know, it's so funny that you said that I love that technique in part because it's named after a teacher who I just think is he's the perfect guy to to have people halfway across the world using his name to describe the technique because he's such a humble gracious hardworking person who just does everything he can for students but it also reminds me of the heath Brothers chip and down he has this great book called switch, which is about making organizational change. Have this incredible observation that we always think that the size of the solution has to match the size of the problem and that's actually not true. And if you look at studies on social change actually, very small Solutions, very small changes can have massive and cascading effects and complex environments and I think something really tiny like standing a pastor's perch when you get directions suddenly, you can see the classroom. And better and it's clear whether kids follow through and so you can show your appreciation when they do and you notice more when they don't and so they feel more accountable and they're less liquid. It's engaging off task behaviors and suddenly your classroom is more productive and you know little tiny things like that can have some surprisingly large effects on a classroom and I just think that that's you know, when you're struggling in the classroom. Look we've all been there. I guess I'm thinking of your teachers out there who might be listening and they've had a bad day or a bad week. a bad start to the year, like every person has been there and there's a temptation to give up hope and thing because I'm never going to be able to turn this class around or my career around or whatever it is, but actually Time, you know what when you start to see the effects of small changes you start to realize how engineer will the environment it is and that you know, it's a it's a soluble problem. Definitely definitely. So do you mind if we just move slightly on dough into looking at reading reconsidered and reading has been a massive Focus for all the schools that we're working within in Blackpool in the UK and we've used your work extensively along with the expertise of Alex quickly who's written clause and the vocabulary Gap may be aware of that as well. And our great book. It is a great book and he does a lot of great work with us up in Blackpool, but I'll literally their Becky Jones has introduced a literary canon across the school and we've actually changed the timetable to build a fit. A fixed reading period daily with people working through this cannon. So obviously I'm reading your book. Why do you think that the cannon or the use of a cannon has declined and how important is book choice in that I think book choice is one of the most underrated underrated things and the teaching of English. It's so important. I think that the the idea of a cannon have one pair of a couple things going against it and a couple of really big things going for it. The thing for has going for it is wanted to like quality matters whether or not we all agree on quality the idea that some books are especially worth reading because they give us cultural capital and they let us participate in ongoing conversations of because The Richer and more thoughtful in the better, you know truly believe that Lord of the Flies is just a great Orca section and that students should read it and then it causes us to reflect on aspects of our society that almost no other book get fat and I think there's a sort of sadness that at least in the u.s. That books are relatively interchangeable and what you're doing when you're reading is your teaching kids to ask and answer questions about it about text and any text and it doesn't really matter what gets honestly like I - I think it's a great effect the great book in the gift to students to help them read it. I think the other thing that I can and does is it gives you it gives you a shared Corpus of texts that you can refer to, you know, no text exists in a vacuum. We should always be able to make comparisons among and between texts how they say how they tell stories differently how they address ideas differently and I just think one of the real challenges ages of teaching in this day and age is that they're very few books that you can refer to and assume that all of your students will have read it or the most of your students will have read it and that limits you instructionally can't refer to three other examples of an intrusive narrator aren't you know examples of intrusive narration of your other books that you know your students abroad you have to ask questions like has anybody read, you know fill in the blank and so I think that idea of shared text is very very powerful and so I think schools can recreate this idea of We're going to set up for greatness. We're going to redefine greatness around. Our own standards are standards of the cute as our own Community up to date. We're going to get over we're going to let go of the the power dynamics of a cannon Capital C across a culture which you know, I understand why people have a problem with that. But if you let go of that and you have an internal cannon that serves and represents, you know our school community and we agree that we're all going to read these books then you have a way of talking about Shared tax across texts and being able to reference stories that everyone has read in a way that makes us books much more relevant and brings them to life and makes the study of any one book much richer. So I think there's a lot of power there and I really like your and Becky's approach of Reinventing and updating the idea of a cannon to enable share discourse. Just making it a little bit more little more modern a little bit more flexible a little bit more responsive. So we get the educational benefits of it. Absolutely so you having selected the counter and obviously we spent quite a lot of time looking at that and it's very much an ongoing process and we're not saying that it's absolutely want it to be what approach is to read and do advocate in part 2 of reading reconsidered the parts that you called the fundamentals. Yeah, thanks. Well, I think that one of the great things about shared text once you have it is it gives you an opportunity to bring the book to life. And so one of the one of the most mundane things to think about when you're reading is how students read and how much students read my son just went away to University this year and let's talk to him on the phone last week and he was talking about his experience and he's kind of the stem kids that he's doing doing science and things like that. And ask them how much reading there was and I could just I could just hear him rolling and he said, you know four hours a night sometimes more that's a lot of reading that you have to do. If you want to make it in University and I think about how much reading our kids do in schools. In fact, someone wants came to one of our workshops and she said oh, yeah. I did my PhD I did my dissertation research on this and I followed 40 kids through their lives in City Public Schools, and the average kid did 20 minutes of reading a day. How can you possibly prepare to do four to five hours of reading of complex texts in University? If you do 20 minutes of reading a day combine that with the fact that this research was done before the book entered into its death struggle against the phone, which is kids kids read last. They read books last they read differently, you know, they go home and they're constantly tempted by the device that is in their pocket that is flashing telling them. Hey, guess what fills up to right now? Guess what? I guess what's happening across town? Not only does that mean that they read last but when they read they read in a state of constant half attention distracted waiting for their phone to beep again, they don't sit with a book and lose themselves for an hour straight. And so one of the most basic things about reading the classroom reading shared textures. You can read it as a group and you can read it for a sustained period of time and you can bring it to life and of right and you can sell students on the task of reading. And so the first thing that we talked about when we do reading workshops as we call reading cycle, which is we're going to read together in class and it's going to be a combination of teacher reading aloud, which is beautiful because a teacher can is the best reader in the room can breathe life into the text and self students on how funny or how tragic or how moving it is combined with students. Allowed which is students practicing mirroring the teacher and also reading with expression and sewing each other on the book, you know, if a teacher reading a book Express only sells me on it hearing my peers read it expressively and laughing at it and enjoying it together sold me on it 10 times as much combined with what we call accountable independent reading which is long stretches of you know were significant stretches of me reading by myself silently from the text, but with tasks like annotation to help me learn. Learn to mark it up and interact with it and focus on it and also to allow the teacher to circulate and make sure that I'm understanding what I'm reading. And so one of the things that's happened in the u.s. At least as you know, choice has gotten valorized and if you walk into a lot of English classrooms kids are often different corners of the room reading their own books and never talked to anyone about it. There's not much accountability is not much shared joy and you've all read this book and appreciate it together. So we're you know Colleen and Erica my co-authors and reading reconsider. We're big Believers in the idea of shared text and the idea of bringing the text to Life as a center of the class. We're going to read it for a bit and we're going to talk about it and we're going to write about it. We're going to read some more and we're going to talk about it. We're going to write it write about it. And the three different ways of reading teacher reading aloud students reading aloud and students reading silently balancing those three to build a culture that sells students on the power of books is I think it's always been important. But it's doubly important now when every interaction is really an effort to convince ourselves convince our students. That books are still relevant. so I think at the core of any but you know, obviously then there's a lot of stuff in there about you know, annotation systems and discussions systems are and how important that is not go deeper if you want to but I think those things are also really important but I just think that fundamental of bringing the book to life as the center of an English classroom is easily overlooked now, actually, I was just going to go and ask a slightly and different question and one that you may not be in a position to answer but working with new teachers and looking at politics Like A Champion and reading reconsidered And some of the newer teachers were quite honest about their understanding of a literary canon and their understanding of some of the the shed text that you've talked about and you know, we've done a little bit of a role in terms of some staff development of some staff trained obviously the for those that think they need it or want it in terms of their understanding of those texts and the different techniques and ways that they can encourage reading because the, you know, their generation of kind of come up with phones and probably less reading as well. We're addicts trying to raise a generation of addict. Yeah, it's really true. But I think you actually I think there's real Synergy between the two books. So if I wanted to work on let's say some techniques from the writing chapter and teach Like A Champion. the best way to do it would be and there's another benefit of having a cannon I get together with all the other year seven teachers and we choose a book that we're all teaching because we're all teaching the same book because it's in the cabin and we practice designing writing prompts and then answering the questions ourselves not as as kids but as adults, right, what's the best answer we can come up with what so and so we can we can practice doing are questioning with other adults in it. What that does is build our background knowledge and our shared understanding of the text and deepens and enriches. It were enriches it for ourselves as teachers. We've also in the course of doing it practice using the techniques that will help the classroom be more engaging and rigorous for students. And so it has two beneficial outcomes and then I'm much more prepared for class because I know the book better and I know my techniques better so embedding technique practice I think in a specific shared book that were all teaching is a really efficient way to do CPD and it's kind of what my big project for this year is my team and I are reading an English curriculum for the Middle grades and part of the reason we did it was because we felt like unless people had a shared curriculum that was aligned to a lot of the techniques that we talked about in Reading reconsidered and teach Like A Champion was just just too hard to do the shared work of getting better together, you know, making improving teaching as a Team sport and so the part it was about that a curriculum for students in the classroom and in part. It was about better tools for teachers in their professional development. But right now I'm aware that this next question is a really big question. And if any of us had the answer to this, we would you know, we thought they wouldn't be Satya and the Sydney would be on holiday somewhere around the world. But how can we go into that mean if I get it I get it right. Well, I mean, you know to me where you are already will be a dream to be able to go there. I'm not sure you. You could say the same about Blackpool that UK, although, you know, if you would ever like to visit we would be more than happy for you to come along dog. I do appreciate that. So the big question is, how can we go about building vocabulary during reading? I've I'm glad that you think that's the $10,000 question because it is such an important question and hugely underrated, you know, you referenced earlier evidence-based teaching and I do think that one of the Key things that's come out of that movement that is starting to get a foothold in u.s. Is the idea that background knowledge is hugely. Hugely important to reading comprehension that it influences reading comprehension more than quote skills as a reader and the single most important form of background knowledge is vocabulary that said, I think that when we teach vocabulary for the most part we teach it as if it were a skill at least in this country. We spend a lot of time so if a teacher came across Vocabulary word they might ask students. Does anyone know what the word does anyone know what the what the word mimic means who's heard that word before and we'd spend a lot of time guessing at it and the best case scenario here is that the process ends with a B+ definition of the word mimic or the teacher might say can anyone guess from Context Clues what the word mimic means here? In the belief that this is a transferable skill that if I learn to infer word meaning from Context Clues, I'll be able to infer the meaning of any word and that's a beautiful dream but it's a dream context clues are you know insufficient for Miss directive? It's only in a very rare case that context was there sufficient to drive word meaning in that case. It's the word is redundant in the sentence and in most cases, it's not And so I think teaching vocabulary well requires thinking about it as a knowledge of an Endeavor and that means to me you start with the definition and I would say to mimic means to imitate put in the way that slightly pejorative like making fun of some of someone or something and then I would ask students to play with the word. Could you guys would it be risky to mimic a tyrant? Why might it be risky to mimic a tyrant good what would happen if you mimicked one of your parents at the day if your big brother mimic one of your parents at the the dinner table what might happen what might they do and students would have to answer those questions using the word mimic and so happens is we call this term active practice, but instead of instead of spending my time guessing at work meaning start with the word meaning and now I'm trying to apply the word and use the word in different settings and problem-solve with the word and he's a visit takes different forms and understand its nuances and shades of meaning you could argue. It's a form of retrieval practice to go back. The evidence-based teaching but I think that that shift to let's start with the knowledge and then practice applying the knowledge is key to making vocabulary instruction better. And that could mean let's say I'm reading a book and I start the lesson with three words that I know we're going to come up in this days reading and we spend 10 minutes to beginning the lesson learning these words playing with them for five different iterations of each word so that when I encounter them in the text, I know them really richly and well but it also could mean that I come across a word in the book and we spend 15 seconds playing with it. Great. That word is pejorative. Everyone say that pejorative right? So just being able to pronounce the word is really really important to attending to it when you read it if you can't pronounce it you skip over it and then if you don't encode it in your memory, you don't learn from it, you're less likely to recognize the next time around and then maybe I give you a definition ask you a question or two. That who's being pejorative in the book right now? Yes, that's exactly right. Kevin is being pejorative. Let's get back into the book. So I could do little tiny moments like that to call student call increase students attentiveness and attention to the word. So they get slightly more out of them. I probably wouldn't do it with every single word in the book because I want the book to sing but reinforcing words with a cliff active practice like that. I think is is a really powerful shift in the way that we approach vocabulary. And I'm sorry for such a brutal a long-winded answer. That's absolutely perfect. I was just you know going back to that particular example, I thinking about inference just with my own children and reading and the idea that you know inference as a transferable skill without any background knowledge. It's quite dangerous in a way and you know without the understanding of the words. There's not really any way that you can infer across text. Yeah, that's right. The problem solving is not in deriving the definition but applying the definition. That's fascinating stuff and I'm just conscious of your time doakes. I'm going to move it on a little bit on to what is probably one of my favorite topics and listening to the podcast will know this so and I teach science and therefore I'm a bit of a sort of a science geek in terms of things that are like so one of the things that particular like is implementation and the science of implementation and I was fascinated to read about how you suggest that the readers had to go about implementation. So how important is the implementation is in developing reading systems and and To describe it a key phases in this process. Also. I'm not a thing. That's perhaps it isn't everything. Yeah, honestly, I think you know a plus implementation of a B+ idea is going to be better in the long run than b plus and what invasion of an A+ idea and I think that that's you know, really careful and really careful high quality implementation is going to win in the end. So I think that you know, a lot of the a lot of the science of retrieval practice and habit formation is really critical here. The first thing I want to do is I want to roll out a system. I want to explain to students what it is why it matters to them how we're going to do it and then I want to practice it a lot of deliberate practice. So that we get used to it and we learn how to do it. Right and then I want to just I want to engage in some periodic maintenance right? I want to make sure that my system restrict remains sharp and effective. So whether this is annotation of a text, so I start by explaining why we want to annotate text. I show you an example of how I annotate and then that say let's try it right away and I give you some feedback maybe a show called. Some examples of annotated text that students have done and we talked about why they're effective and has it could be better and I reinforced the you know, we really intentional about practicing it five times in the first week. Then I built a system now students know how to annotate they do it as a habit. I don't have to spend a lot of time talking about it. They don't have to use up a lot of working memory using it. It's now piece of tacit knowledge its operating in the background and as long as I just reinforce it and A knit with occasional attention. It's going to be really powerful same with something like discussion systems in the classroom. Like one of my one of the ideas we talked about in the book is habits of discussion socializing students to listen this carefully that they talk during discussions and reference each other's ideas. Right if I roll that out explain to them how to do it have them practice it deliberately and intentionally for a few days or a few weeks. They're going to start doing it without a heavy load. I'm working. We will make all discussions classroom more powerful more listening based and and then they can focus their attention on the text. So I think the steps are rollout deliberate practice and then periodic maintenance. I mean I even before and this is not something particular that you're going to but even before roll out and we did a lot of sort of logistical arrangements with so no bite sound trivial are on a podcast or return at this but we had to make sure that we got infrastructure in the school to help. How is the amount of books that we're going to need for a 1,200 pupils cool and a cannon that goes with it? We're to make sure that we have the time for the people's to be dedicated reading time because previously we tried things like drop everything and read which you know could be successful but only successful if it was done. So we did quite a lot of logistical organization before we even got to roll out. I think it's I'm writing I just it's not true at all. It's hugely important all the steps before you even start and then roll out phase logistical and even you know teachers getting getting getting together to practice. You don't want the first time you do your rollout speech to be in front of students live with you your sevens, right you want to have practice it with a colleague and gotten feedback on it and make sure that it's right to make sure that you're confident and happy delivering a rollout speech and you've talked through your system with They can help you troubleshoot it and say oh, yeah, but if the books are in the back corner of the room and you know, you say take out your books and your nervous system for getting the books then it's going to be chaos. So I think you're right that the real intentionality run the planning the planning phase is I'm really glad you pointed that out. I think it's absolutely important and I mean well because what I can tell you're serious about your implementation, oh, well, absolutely. I mean, I'm the kind of person that when I picked up teach Like A Champion and we did practice giving out the exercise books and see How quickly we can get them back in you know, the am that I am that teacher that does all of those things to save the extra minutes so that I can do something productive and the one who will go for the the strong start straight away and the entry task so implementation. Yeah, but I mean just just on that about schools that maybe haven't been as effective with it have been the ones and you mentioned it then that have got a cannon but it's sitting on the back corner, but it's in a particular room. It's inaccessible. People can't move it around people lose the books people take them home people. Don't bring them back and Staffs faith in your son that you've implemented. It is reduced not because of the quality of the intervention, but because the quality of implementation, yeah, that's exactly right. He will give up on ideas. I'm that idea or we tried that it didn't work and then they start to give up on my ideas. Generally right bringing a new idea. It could be very powerful idea and stuff fold their arms and say, Not again, and I think you're right that that's part of the obligation of well-run organization is to make sure that the things that we try were successful at and we do them well so that, you know, the risk is otherwise a wave of cynicism and external locus of control washes over the school and that's very dangerous. Definitely. I'm glad and by washing them in school. I mean the adults and the school. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay, don't just want to say Thank you so much for your time because they think it's this afternoon for you. But it's this evening for us. It's been absolute honor to speak to you. And you know, I'm going to keep working with the books that the teach Like A Champion the fieldwork feel guide sorry and reading reconsidered just to finish off could tell listeners a little bit more about maybe have you got some some timelines in terms of teach Like A Champion 3.0 if we can call it that or have you got opportunities that you're speaking whether it be in the US or whether it be over here in In England. Yeah, thanks for asking. So teach Like A Champion 3.0. Like I said, I started it yesterday. So look for it and look for it in your book stores in a decade know. I'm supposed to have a manuscript done by by next summer. So that would mean might be out six months after that, but it's interested. I'm going to be in London on October 3rd and 4th and then again in December, I think it's the 12th and 13th doing two-day workshops. The October Workshop is on building positive classroom culture and the December Workshop is in on reading we consider it and a lot of things that we talked about today and the typical to workshops that I run with my colleagues. We show lots of videos of teachers in the classroom. We analyze what they do we do some practice. It's lots of fun and I know it's a long journey from Blackpool and other great. No, do you know what dog to be honest Audrina? Yeah. Well, I'm sorry. I interrupted you there to be honest. It's probably the easiest Journey. We do thanks to the the Great British trains week. We are regularly in London as part of the research goal and at each developmental stuff that we do it's actually quicker to get to London than it is to get around the north of England so we could well be there in October and December. I really hope you all and as a side note, you know, every time I'm in England English people complain about the trains and they say they're so awful. And so I just want to say from my perspective as an American English trains are absolutely incredible. I just think it's a fantastic system. And I love to I love to take you can get just about anywhere. So for us from far away, it's a remarkable thing. So. Well, they don't don't don't kick furniture out. There is no British round where but don't kick him. Don't kick the rail network around you and they go listen to so everybody can get to London without a problem and the public transport is great. So everyone can go and see dog in October and December love to see you. Yeah, we'd love to let's see any of your listeners there and appreciate get having the time to chat with you. It's been really fun and I hope to I won't be able to take the train from London Back to Black Bull this time, but I hope they do in Black go sometime soon. Because I hear great things about I know there are several schools that follow their including yours, and it sounds like there's great work going on. So. Absolutely there soon. Thank you Doug. Really appreciate your time. Thank you. Thanks though amazing interview there with dog and again a massive. Thank you to him for his time and his generosity and his Blackpool football knowledge, which was second to none. I didn't make the cut but absolutely fantastic so into these Shameless plugs section and research at Blackpool probably doesn't really need the Shameless plug as it has now reached 595 tickets at the time of recording. So if you're thinking of coming for a day of research by the seaside, then act quickly and those last few tickets can be available through the Blackpool research School website or through Eventbrite lead learn links is on the 12th of October and I'll be speaking about using CPD to change culture in schools. So that's the work of the teacher development trusts in the CPD Hub. And also the work of the research school and I did mention last week that I might be sharing with the giving away two tickets to research Ed Blackpool and that of course will depend on whether there are any left by that stage My article for the Royal Society of chemistry's Education in chemistry magazine has generated a fair bit of discussion and thank you to everybody that is going to ask me about that. Is entitled a young and in charge so it certainly doesn't refer to me but it talks about career Pathways career progression for new teachers and enclose a link to that on the show notes. As anybody else would like to discuss that then feel free to do so via the usual places. I also now have a YouTube channel or at least I believe that's what the young people call it and I'll be adding more content to this as the week's go on, but at the moment it features the interviews and the The introductions to the podcasts and the full audio to be find that easier to access then you can get that from my website, which is known as matter doc called dot U k-- next week. We have dim Allison peacock on the work of the chartered college. So that's a fantastic interview with look forward to listening to that one and a future guests. Also include Jill Barry and Lisa father's so once again, thank you for listening to nail us data in association with a teacher development Trust. And see you next time. It's not just talking to teachers talking to teachers about academic research and evidence-based practice with continuing professional development at pn8 1977 on Twitter. Just talking to teachers.
This week I am Joined by teacher, author and all round education guru Doug Lemov. In this podcast we talk about the massive impact Teach Like  A Champion 2.0 has had on the teaching profession . Doug talks about Uncommon Schools and the art of teaching and its tools. He goes into detail about some of the techniques discussed in the books and how teachers have used them. We also talk about 'Reading Reconsidered' and it's influence on  national pedagogy and  the teaching of reading. We go into detail about the cultural capital of a literary canon, the importance of explicitly teaching vocabulary and the implementation of school wide reading programmes  We also get an exclusive on the upcoming TLAC 3.0! Here are the discussion points in the podcast  Could you tell listeners about your own personal journey in education? Could you explain the concept of Uncommon Schools and the fieldwork you undertook in the production of both TLAC and Reading reconsidered? In the introduction to TLAC , you talk about the 'art of teaching and it's tools' what do you mean by that? How is this different or possibly complimentary to the evidence based teaching movement? TLAC 2.0 has been phenomenally successful in the UK, how would you advise schools to best use the book? I find the field guide an excellent accompaniment especially when working with new teachers . Reading has been a big focus for all the schools I work with in Blackpool. We have used your work extensively along with the expertise of Alex Quigley (Closing the Vocabulary Gap) to address this . Our literacy lead Becky Jones has introduced a literary canon across our school and we now have a fixed reading period daily with pupils working through this canon. Why do you think the canon has declined and how important is book choice? Having selected a canon, what approaches to reading do you advocate in part 2 of reading reconsidered ? The fundamentals How can we build vocabulary during reading? How important is implementation in developing reading systems and what are the key phases in this process? Shameless plugs  My article for RSC 'Young and in charge'   https://eic.rsc.org/feature/young-and-in-charge/3010792.article  My latest blog for Teacher Toolkit  https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/2019/09/22/trainee-teachers/ All previous interviews are available via my website www.naylorsnatter.co.uk   Next week Dame Alison Peacock  ---   Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/naylorsnatter/message 