Our preprint on the impact of reopening schools on reproduction number in England is now available online: https://t.co/CpfUGzAJ2S. With @Jarvis_Stats @amyg225 @kerrylmwong @KevinvZandvoort @sbfnk + John Edmunds. NOT YET PEER REVIEWED. 1/





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When the university starts sending out teaching evaluation reminders, I tell all my classes about bias in teaching evals, with links to the evidence. Here's a version of the email I send, in case anyone else wants to poach from it.
1/16
When I say "anyone": needless to say, the people who are benefitting from the bias (like me) are the ones who should helping to correct it. Men in math, this is your job! Of course, it should also be dealt with at the institutional level, not just ad hoc.
OK, on to my email:
2/16
"You may have received automated reminders about course evals this fall. I encourage you to fill the evals out. I'd be particularly grateful for written feedback about what worked for you in the class, what was difficult, & how you ultimately spent your time for this class.
3/16
However, I don't feel comfortable just sending you an email saying: "please take the time to evaluate me". I do think student evaluations of teachers can be valuable: I have made changes to my teaching style as a direct result of comments from student teaching evaluations.
4/16
But teaching evaluations have a weakness: they are not an unbiased estimator of teaching quality. There is strong evidence that teaching evals tend to favour men over women, and that teaching evals tend to favour white instructors over non-white instructors.
5/16
1/16
When a teaching award is based solely on teaching evals and then only men get it. pic.twitter.com/szIBkCvTe9
— Dr. Marissa Kawehi (@MarissaKawehi) February 12, 2021
When I say "anyone": needless to say, the people who are benefitting from the bias (like me) are the ones who should helping to correct it. Men in math, this is your job! Of course, it should also be dealt with at the institutional level, not just ad hoc.
OK, on to my email:
2/16
"You may have received automated reminders about course evals this fall. I encourage you to fill the evals out. I'd be particularly grateful for written feedback about what worked for you in the class, what was difficult, & how you ultimately spent your time for this class.
3/16
However, I don't feel comfortable just sending you an email saying: "please take the time to evaluate me". I do think student evaluations of teachers can be valuable: I have made changes to my teaching style as a direct result of comments from student teaching evaluations.
4/16
But teaching evaluations have a weakness: they are not an unbiased estimator of teaching quality. There is strong evidence that teaching evals tend to favour men over women, and that teaching evals tend to favour white instructors over non-white instructors.
5/16
Saturday Morning Graduate School Admissions/Funding Breakfast
• 1297 USA Scholarships
• 5 Hot Tips for current B.S, Master/PhD applicants
• Admission and FULL Funding Info to Sweden🇸🇪, Australia🇦🇺, France🇫🇷, Germany🇩🇪 and China🇹🇷
• 6 IGTV Videos
Follow @Okpala_IU
A Thread
Are you working hard to study full time (Bachelor, MS, MBA, PhD) in the United States of America🇺🇸?
Here are 1297 verified Scholarships for year 2021
Search here: https://t.co/3AHhW7RUfK
Follow @Okpala_IU for more
Watch other videos on IGTV:
5 Hot Tips for current Bachelor, Master/PhD applicants
1. Standardized Tests (TOEFL, GRE, GMAT)
Yes, the school may have waived it for admissions but providing it definitely increasing your chances of getting funded. If it strengthens your overall profile, that is excellent.
2. Do not trivialize Letters of Recommendations
Remember that your application packet (all supporting documents) is what is being looked at while you are being considered for admission and funding. A lot of schools read LoRs very carefully so ensure you get strong letters.
Read my notes on LoRs:
• 1297 USA Scholarships
• 5 Hot Tips for current B.S, Master/PhD applicants
• Admission and FULL Funding Info to Sweden🇸🇪, Australia🇦🇺, France🇫🇷, Germany🇩🇪 and China🇹🇷
• 6 IGTV Videos
Follow @Okpala_IU
A Thread
Are you working hard to study full time (Bachelor, MS, MBA, PhD) in the United States of America🇺🇸?
Here are 1297 verified Scholarships for year 2021
Search here: https://t.co/3AHhW7RUfK
Follow @Okpala_IU for more
Watch other videos on IGTV:
5 Hot Tips for current Bachelor, Master/PhD applicants
1. Standardized Tests (TOEFL, GRE, GMAT)
Yes, the school may have waived it for admissions but providing it definitely increasing your chances of getting funded. If it strengthens your overall profile, that is excellent.
2. Do not trivialize Letters of Recommendations
Remember that your application packet (all supporting documents) is what is being looked at while you are being considered for admission and funding. A lot of schools read LoRs very carefully so ensure you get strong letters.
Read my notes on LoRs:
If you are submitting a MS/PhD application for admission in the USA, this is for you.
— Ifeanyi Okpala (@Okpala_IU) June 23, 2020
Today, I am going to share one tip associated with the \u201cLetters of Recommendation\u201d required, which I think can make a lot of difference.
- Guiding your Recommenders on Information
Thread pic.twitter.com/uxPHB0W0Su
An appallingly tardy response to such an important element of reading - apologies. The growing recognition of fluency as the crucial developmental area for primary education is certainly encouraging helping us move away from the obsession with reading comprehension tests.
It is, as you suggest, a nuanced pedagogy with the tripartite algorithm of rate, accuracy and prosody at times conflating the landscape and often leading to an educational shrug of the shoulders, a convenient abdication of responsibility and a return to comprehension 'skills'.
Taking each element separately (but not hierarchically) may be helpful but always remembering that for fluency they occur simultaneously (not dissimilar to sentence structure, text structure and rhetoric in fluent writing).
Rate, or words-read-per-minute, is the easiest. Faster reading speeds are EVIDENCE of fluency development but attempting to 'teach' children(or anyone) to read faster is fallacious (Carver, 1985) and will result in processing deficit which in young readers will be catastrophic.
Reading rate is dependent upon eye-movements and cognitive processing development along with orthographic development (more on this later).
Sorry - a bit of a brain dump post - but I'd appreciate any responses and/or directions towards any applicable research.@Suchmo83 @Mr_AlmondED @TimRasinski1 @ReadingShanahan @mrspennyslater @TheReadingApe @PieCorbett @ReadingRockets @teach_well
— Mr Leyshon (@RyonWLeyshon) February 4, 2021
It is, as you suggest, a nuanced pedagogy with the tripartite algorithm of rate, accuracy and prosody at times conflating the landscape and often leading to an educational shrug of the shoulders, a convenient abdication of responsibility and a return to comprehension 'skills'.
Taking each element separately (but not hierarchically) may be helpful but always remembering that for fluency they occur simultaneously (not dissimilar to sentence structure, text structure and rhetoric in fluent writing).
Rate, or words-read-per-minute, is the easiest. Faster reading speeds are EVIDENCE of fluency development but attempting to 'teach' children(or anyone) to read faster is fallacious (Carver, 1985) and will result in processing deficit which in young readers will be catastrophic.
Reading rate is dependent upon eye-movements and cognitive processing development along with orthographic development (more on this later).