It isn’t that often that you get to hear an experienced teacher lay out, from go to woe, their philosophy of teaching as well as exactly how they carry it out. And to my mind, this is what makes this episode of the Education Research Reading Room so special.

In this episode we speak to Craig Barton.

If you haven’t heard of Mr. Barton before then you’re in for a real treat. Craig is a mathematics teacher of over 14 years experience

Craig Barton is an experienced teacher of 14 years, currently working at Thornleigh Salesian College in Bolton.

Since 2009 I have been the Secondary Maths Adviser to TES (formerly the Times Educational Supplement), the largest professional network of teachers in the world, where does everything from content review and curation, to twitter account managing.

Craig is the co-creator of Diagnostic Questions. This is a free website hosting the world's largest collection of high-quality maths diagnostic multiple choice questions, and helps teachers and students all around the world identify, understand and resolve key misconceptions.

He has a wonderful personal website, mrbartonmaths.com, on which he has an incredible collection of research summaries, puzzles, jokes and, most interesting to me, his mr. barton maths podcast. When I started the Education Research Reading Room back in early 2017 it was prompted in large part because I couldn’t find any other long form educational podcasts that really got into the nitty gritty of teaching and learning. Little did I know that at that time Craig’s podcast had been going for just over a year, and it was very similar to the podcast that I wanted to create, and the podcast that the ERRR has become. If you love the ERRR and would love more of this type of listening content, my number 1 recommendation would be the Mr. Barton Maths podcast. Though it’s got ‘maths’ in the title there are many episodes that are relevant to all educators, I’d especially recommend the two episodes with Dylan Wiliam, which I’ll link to in the show notes to this episode. (see below)

In this discussion with Craig we dive into detail about his recently published book ‘How I Wish I’d Taught Maths’. We cover topics such as cognitive load theory, motivation for mathematics, explicit instruction, diagnostic questions and, a special treat for the Craig Barton fans, as well as all of us, some never before heard stories of the challenges Craig faced when he changed schools during the first few years of his career.

Now, this is ERRR episode 20a because, after 2 hours of discussion, Craig had to run off to record one of his own podcast episodes that he’d already booked in. Unfortunately we only got through about half the questions! I’ll be chatting to Craig again shortly and hope to have episode 20b out within a couple of weeks of this episode’s release.

On the topic of interviews, few months ago Craig had me onto the Mr. Barton Maths podcast where I was dutifully interrogated about how I taught mathematics in 2017, as well as on many of the concepts that I’ve found particularly revolutionary to my teaching in the past few years. I’ll be sure to link to that interview in the show notes too.

And finally, a reminder that I’m now putting out a weekly email entitled ‘Teacher Ollie’s Takeaways‘, in which I share a handful of insightful, interesting, and actionable articles that I’ve come across from twitter, blogs, and various other sources in the week just past. It comes out at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon, perfectly timed for your weekend reading pleasure. Last week included articles on curriculum design, rubrics and tacit knowledge, and the outcomes of the Bill and Melinda Gates’ foundation research on Teacher Evaluation. Very Juicy stuff.

I’ve also just published a blog post entitled: ‘Effect sizes, Robust, or Bogus?’, in which I reflect on my recent discussions with Adrian Simpson (critiquing the use of effect sizes in meta-analyses), and John Hattie (defending them). In this Robust, or Bogus post, I analyse the arguments and share what I now thing about whether effect sizes deserve the prominence they currently enjoy in educational research, or whether they’re a complete waste of time.

Links mentioned in the show

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If you're keen to help the ERRR podcast to stay independent and sustainable, please consider making a one-off or monthly donation through https://www.patreon.com/errr. Audio engineering, room hire, and audio-file web hosting cost Ollie upward of $70 per episode, and any donation (even as much as a cup of coffee), to help cover these costs is greatly appreciated : )

Listen to all past episodes of the ERRR podcast here.

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