The Friday Mindset - Issue #67

Happy Friday folks.

We've dropped the coffin-lid on long-dead September. October is a distant memory. November's here, bringing it's traditional... balmy sunshine and sweet breezes. Children frolic in garden paddling pools. Kids buy ice-cream on the way home from school. Hipsters break-out their on-brand sunglasses once more. That's right, climate change has knackered the chances of ever getting a snow day again. Not that snow days mean a lie-in for the likes of us anyway....

Right, let's jump in. We've got some good stuff to share this week:

Something to try...

We were struck by Cal Newport's explanation of phone-use and its damage to concentration on his podcast recently. So much so that we clipped together a very short video of him explaining it, to use in class. We've already incorporated this into our training and student sessions. If you'd like to use the clip it's here:

Phones and concentration

We think it might go well with 25 Minute Sprints (from The GCSE Mindset); our message will be that we're all sometimes distracted by our phones, but that we can train our brains to work without distraction for short periods. Students could build up slowly:

  • Start with a 10-15 minute study session with their phone switched off, or placed out of reach.

  • Try this repeatedly until it becomes less uncomfortable.

  • Step-up to 20 minutes when they're feeling stronger, again with the phone out of reach.

  • Try two 25 minute sprints in an hour, with a 10 minute break between them. Use the phone in the break, not in the sprints.

  • ...and build from there.

Hope that's all helpful.

Something we're reading...

We're looking at testing and its impact on performance - again we know but we're obsessed! - and have come across Frank Leeming's work (Professor of Psychology, University of Memphis.)

Leeming's work builds on one study's findings that repeated practice testing improves exam results. We know this of course from Dunlosky's work, but what interested Leeming was the potential of low-stakes regular practice tests in his own classes.

That's where the idea of an 'exam-a-day' comes from. (We've seen this in action at A level here in the UK: a Maths department using what they call the 'daily dose' - one exam-standard maths question per day, the teacher checks once a week for completion; a Biology department using Biology Bites - similarly short snack-like exam Qs to be completed one a day.)

It's a very short piece - only 3 pages, so worth a quick read.

Frank Leeming, University of Memphis

Our latest offer...

One last shout-out for our newest course.

In the summer we ran a session for Network for Learning that went really well, so they’ve asked us to do it again. It’s called Building Towards Exam Success and it features 15 VESPA activities - most of them new - as a curriculum of sessions to build up to exams.

It’s great for years 11, 12 and 13 in particular. It’s an online, two-and-a-half hour session running on November 30th, and you can get all the details here.

Oh and one more thing - the session we ran this week on motivation seemed to go well. However, we sent out twice as many invitations as we had attendees. Did something crop up and scupper your chances of attending? No problem. If there's enough of you, we'll run it again - just let us know at the usual address.

And heads-up - there'll be a book giveaway next week!

And that's it for now, folks. Permission to swan off into the unseasonally hot afternoon - don't forget the suncream and the broad-brimmed hat. Have a good one.

All the best to you and yours,

Steve and Martin

p.s. We're always on Wetransfer as we ping files over to attendees at our training sessions. Did you know they have an occasional series of personal manifestos?

They always make interesting reading, and they make good style models for students developing their own study manifestos. Here's a recent example.