We’ve had over 10,000 visitors to our blog since we launched it in September 2015. Thank you! Of the 25 blog posts we’ve published so far, the following have been the most popular. We hope you enjoy these posts and subscribe to our blog to receive even more great posts on education throughout 2016. Why […]
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Working as a trainer for Cambridge International Examinations is a privilege. I’ve learnt a huge amount from working with teachers around the world and I always return refreshed with new ideas to incorporate into my own teaching practice. I had never realised how much of a privilege this really is until in October 2015 when […]
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I recently had the pleasure of speaking at the Schools Now! Conference in Abu Dhabi. The conference focused on the challenges that schools face in meeting the expectations of students, parents, examining bodies and employers in the 21st century. My talk focused on the skills that students need for success in the world of work […]
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When Harry Potter actress, Emma Watson, claimed that she suffered from ‘Imposter Syndrome’, she was ridiculed by many. Yet feelings of inadequacy are very real and suffered by many professionals, including teachers. It is a syndrome which affects women far more than men. Since teaching is a female dominated profession, it raises significant questions on […]
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My favourite Christmas gift this year was from my Father-in-Law. Knowing my professional interest in assessment, he bought me the ‘F in Exams’ desk calendar. For those not familiar with the concept, this gives a daily example of an amusing candidate response to a test question. For example, the question that asked candidates, ‘Where was […]
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I look forward to our Cambridge Schools Conferences. Bringing together principals and teachers from our global community of schools always makes for a stimulating few days of educational debate and discussion. The theme of our conferences in 2016 is ‘Leading learning’ and the first of these events took place in South Africa on 27-29 April. […]
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A few years ago, I was at an event run by a UK training provider when I found myself reflecting on digital use around the room. Almost every delegate had one or two electronic devices (such as a laptop, phone or tablet), and they were busy using them whilst the speaker was talking. Some delegates […]
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A colleague and I were recently discussing my twin daughters’ development and I mentioned how fascinating it was to watch them grow and learn. I explained that they had very different learning styles. Kimaya likes to use her hands to explore and often sits quietly trying to fit puzzles or building blocks together. She likes […]
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The first entry in the Oxford English Dictionary defines intelligence as; ”The faculty of understanding; intellect. Also as a count noun: a mental manifestation of this faculty, a capacity to understand.’’ Although this neatly explains what the word means, it doesn’t somehow fully define what intelligence is. Now, I know that a lot of very […]
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In early June 2016, I accompanied a delegation of eight Members of Parliament from the UK, representing the All Party Parliamentary Group on China, when they visited a Cambridge curriculum programme based at the Shishi High School in the city of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province. Visiting the oldest school in the world The MPs […]
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In my role at Cambridge International Examinations, I give advice on the ‘digitalisation’ of assessment. I’ve been in post for over a year now, and I’m still not quite sure what ‘digitalisation’ means. Some colleagues have interpreted this to mean ‘anything involving a computer’. Some see it as operational changes, such as on-screen marking or […]
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We live in a world where video games manage to engage millions of people across the globe for many hours a week. As Jane McGonigal notes in her Ted Talk, ‘Gaming can make a better world’, the mechanics these games use clearly work, so why not use them in education? Take the most popular mobile […]
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John Dewey [1859-1952] an influential philosopher, psychologist and educational thinker, published his book on Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education in 1916. One hundred years later what is the relevance of Dewey’s work in general, and this book in particular? John Dewey [along with Lev Vigotsky and Jean Piaget] is often […]
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Calculating the problem When I run workshops with teachers around the world I regularly ask them as an icebreaker what their least favourite subject was at school. Based on a straw poll of the 400 or so people I have surveyed in the last year, the most (or should that be least) popular subject by […]
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At Cambridge we support the development of learners and teachers who are confident, responsible, reflective, innovative and engaged: the Cambridge Learner and Teacher Attributes. One way we do this is to encourage teaching practices that actively engage students in their own learning. Some people refer to this as ‘active learning’, and this is what I’m […]
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In recent years there has been greater emphasis on the use of educational research to inform policy as well as classroom practice. One challenge for teachers is that some academic work is not that accessible or freely available, making it hard to know where to start. In working with teachers at all stages of their […]
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Every year, during the first weekend in September, the ESSARP Conference takes place in Buenos Aires, Argentina. ESSARP (English Speaking Scholastic Association of the River Plate) is our Associate in Argentina, and their conference is attended by a growing number of delegates from different countries each year. In 2016 there were over 600 delegates from all […]
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Behind every article in Cambridge Outlook, there are dozens of emails, phone calls, meetings and interviews. Much like the lessons going on in schools around the world every day, each issue of the magazine must have a plan. We carefully map out the content, where it’s going to be placed in the magazine, who’s going […]
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When I took up teaching Cambridge International AS & A Level English six years ago, I knew it was going to be a challenge. I had already taught Cambridge IGCSE but I still had a lot of work to do to familiarise myself with the new syllabus I was teaching. The challenges When moving from […]
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The beginning of a lesson must be perfect and precise. I have never observed a lesson that began badly or even began OK, which ended in an outstanding way, with progress being made by all students. To use an analogy, the start of a lesson is like opening the traps at a race. So much […]
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