“Some interesting blogs from Alex here, a constructivist antidote to the CLT that normally fills my timeline!”

Extracts of our discussion

“Hi Steven what do you mean by CLT. Piaget and Vygotsky got a lot of bad rap by being falsely appropriated by wishy washy stuff. Concluding that teacher led is bad because nonsense etc etc. Let’s Think (CASE and CAME as teacher led interventions have about the soundest evidence base as anything in education and they are through and through Piaget Vygotsky)”

“The failure of Let’s Think Science’s EEF trial rather dented CASE’s credentials don’t you think?”

“No but that this is a very long story of bad EEF design. Far and long transfer ignored as outcomes, control of Treatment compared to control lack of training etc etc”

“This needs to be an open discussion about whether RCT is the only way anyway”

“Yeah but the pre existing evidence was mostly generated by the original authors, failure to replicate – Popper would have us walk away”

“I think that there is a huge amount of evidence compared to EEF. As a follower of Philosophy of Science I would tip Kuhn over Popper lets get discussing.”

Evidence

Is this replication or not? Original Authors or not?

Mary Oliver in Thinking Science Australia http://www.education.uwa.edu.au/tsa/research

In Chinese primary schools Philip  Adey and Weiping Hu developed a Learn to think curriculum they found far and long transfer in Maths and Chinese. https://www.abceducation.ch/blog/2017/02/22/learn-to-think-curriculum/

In Finland  Hautamäki, Kuusela and  Wikström (2002)  in one of the first Randomised Controlled Trials  ever done in Education, found large gains in Maths and Science.

Then there is all the CAME data especially in primary schools in Hammersmith, Fulham and Bournemouth U.K. Shayer and Adhami (20110), Ireland McCormack (2009),  Pakistan Iqbal and Shayer (2000) , Israel and in Tonga Finau et al (2016)  also replicated.

References

Finau, Teukava & Treagust, David & Won, Mihye & L. Chandrasegaran, A. (2016). Effects of a Mathematics Cognitive Acceleration Program on Student Achievement and Motivation. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education. . 10.1007/s10763-016-9763-5. 

Hautamäki, J., Kuusela, J., & Wikström, J. (2002). CASE and CAME in Finland: “The second wave”. Paper presented at 10th International Conference on thinking. Harrogate.

Hu, W., Adey, P., Jia, X., Liu, J., Zhang, L., Li, J., Dong, X., (2011)  Effects of a “Learn to Think” intervention programme on primary school students: Effects of “Learn to Think” intervention programme. British Journal of Educational Psychology 81, 531–557. doi:10.1348/2044-8279.002007

Iqbal,H and  Shayer, M (2000) Accelerating the Development of Formal Thinking in Pakistan Secondary School Students: Achievement Effects and Professional Development Issues

McCormack, Lorraine (2009) Cognitive acceleration across the primary-second level transition. PhD thesis, Dublin City University.

Shayer,M and Adhami,M (2010)Realising the cognitive potential of Children 5 to 7 with a mathematics focus:Effects of a two-year intervention, Piaget is dead, Vygotsky is still alive, or? Finnish Educational Research Associaition, Helsinki