Sitemap - 2025 - David Didau: The Learning Spy
Occam's Razor: to cut or not to cut?
The economics of effort: why we don't like thinking hard
Is there an "engagement crisis" in schools?
Why good people get poor results: the systems that sabotage our best intentions
Cognitive load, conceptual fog: when ideology masquerades as evidence
In defence of Cognitive Load Theory
Stop misjudging people: the hard truth about how bias works
Stop misjudging people: the hard truth about how bias works
The real barriers to engagement: why schools must rethink leadership, not curriculum
Breathing exercises won’t fix a broken system
Careless people: how schools become places no one wants to work in
Not everything that hurts is trauma
Culture isn’t a rocket ship: the trouble with compliance and deficit thinking
ChatGPT can plan lessons but it can’t think for you
The cost of borrowed thought: a response to 'Your Brain on ChatGPT'
Mock Exams, regression to the mean, and the mirage of progress
Does assessment fail the test?
What the biggest education experiment ever really tells us
You’ve been thinking about plot all wrong
The Learning Spy Monthly Round-Up #3
If it’s worth reading, it’s probably worth re-reading
It's Your Time You're Wasting: We need to talk about talk
Is the curriculum to blame for plummeting attendance?
The Dyslexia "miracle school" is no model for the masses
The drowned world: why floods haunt our imagination
It's Your Time You're Wasting: Uniform Thinking
Dog whistles and the principle of charity
It’s Your Time You're Wasting: It's Artificial, but is it Intelligent?
Thinking critically about rhetorical questions
Teaching in the Matrix: What the simulation argument reveals about education
Does setting disadvantage the most disadvantaged students?
It's Your Time You're Wasting: Is our education system making us an "island of strangers"?
Dash it all! Why the em dash can’t be trusted
Memory is messy - revision refines
Keeping reading alive: what can families do?
Cognitive science isn’t confused, it’s just not doing philosophy
It's Your Time You're Wasting: Coaching or ker-CHING?
The Good Cookbook: Why Paul Meehl still matters
The Learning Spy Monthly Round-Up #2
Ninety percent of everything is crap
On bullshit, clarity and complexity
How to launch initiatives that actually work
Visible Learning, hidden error
Cognitive levers: using syntax to shape thought
Serious reading: how to read with attention and insight
It’s your time you're wasting: The Special Needs crisis
Why do we need schools? Part 4
Why do we need schools? Part 3
Why do we need schools? Part 2
Why do we need schools? Part 1
Looping learning: why real school improvement is recursive
The purpose of POSIWID is what it does
Using assessment to improve the curriculum
It's Your Time You're wasting: Pedagogy vs subject knowledge
What Barbara Bleiman gets right about the decline of English teaching (and what she gets wrong)
How do we know if we're any good?
The Learning Spy Monthly Round-up #1
Applying systems thinking to school leadership Part 2
Talking about talk with Tom Sherrington
Applying systems thinking to school leadership Part 1
Why I can't use 'cold call' anymore
What is group work and why does it matter?
What is group work and why does it matter?
Why bother with 'turn & talk'?
"It's all about relationships"
How do I know all students are mastering the skills I want them to learn?
What should be the balance between teacher-led and student-led lesson activities?
How do I know all students are making sense of what has been taught?
How do I know if all students are paying attention?
How can we ensure all children experience success? (video)
A response to the Curriculum & Assessment Review's interim report
What approaches work best with children with special educational needs?
The dangers of optimism: The best case fallacy
How can we teach so that all students experience success?
Subject knowledge Part 1: The dangers of 'educational seduction'
Subject Knowledge Part 2: Are teachers 'cursed' with knowledge?