I have news about online teaching and reading workload, friends.

I have experimented with REDUCING the number of readings I assign for a class. This is hard in overview courses because you always feel like they should have "the lay of the land" and master all that there is.

THREAD: Remote Teaching
I’ve spoken to a few people recently about our remote teaching approach and thought I’d share some of our ideas here for anyone who many find them useful.
1. We use Google Classroom and post lessons which include videos, Google Forms and any other docs

2. Classrooms are set up so that lessons are saved as ‘Topics’ each week. The Topic is named as Term/Week/Date for easy navigation. This is consistent so that Classrooms all look similar to pupils to provide a sense of routine - just like you would in a lesson

3. We have a dummy Classroom which all teachers can access which includes Classrooms for all subjects - this gives us a ‘pupil view’ to make it easier to help if parents ask for support and means we can share lessons across subjects and direct to good models

4. We chose to collapse our timetable rather than continue with our own classes. Our suggested timetable is at least 5 hours per day but includes more Art, Music, PSHE than our usual timetable as we felt that was appropriate to support pupils at this time

5. In most subjects, one person looks after the whole year group. This includes making lessons, looking after the GC, dealing with Qs, & giving feedback for that year group. Subjects have a max. of 3 lessons per week/year group supplemented with Bedrock Vocab & other platforms.

What does it take to sustain screwiness in the way the world works? Mostly, it's just good people, trying their best to get us to a better place... within constraints which pretty much preclude us actually getting anywhere! A case in point with

These authors come across as hugely committed to something we might all agree upon: improving young people's experiences of physical education through better school-based-interventions. Sounds great? Agreed, & pretty much everything about their study models best practice 🥳

Sadly, established "best practice" involves further embedding the medicalisation of PE as if it should be about the potential contribution of physical activity to everything from quality of life, self-perception & cognition to the likelyhood of becoming healthy & active adults 🤯

We're reminded of the Chief Medical Officer's "recommended guidelines of 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day for healthy growth and development" 👇 This is a focus on what we can easily measure (generic) rather than on what we might value (individual).

We get recognition that PE "is not merely an opportunity for children to engage in PA" but that's linked to its role in "the development of knowledge & skills to foster their PA engagement throughout life" - so further focus on health outcomes. A long way from @meaningfulPE 🙄

I've been serving on grad admissions committees at MIT for 5 years - in EECS and Media Lab

If you want to get into a PhD at a place like MIT, here's a thread with some advice based on my observations

1/13

1. Grades do matter, especially in courses that are important for your chosen field

2. Research matters, even more than grades

3. Publications matter, but letters of recommendation matter even more

4. Your statement of purpose should be the cherry on top of the cake

2/13

When I say grades matter, it doesn't mean that you need 100/100 or A+ in every course. It does mean that you are expected to have strong competence (close to straight A/A+/A-) in technical courses relevant to your field of interest

3/13

While grades show competence, a PhD is about research. So, the more your application demonstrates research potential, the higher your chances for acceptance. It's not about the number of papers (if any), but about the quality of research you pursue

4/13

This is why the best evaluation of research potential often comes from letters of recommendation (LoRs)

Letters shed light on technical competence, creativity, work ethic, & personal interaction. All of which are important for a successful PhD

5/13