From experience to meaning…

Let me start this post with a confession.

Some countries currently look to England as an education model.

I often talk and write about collective teacher (or rather, team) efficacy.

I have been blogging about (primarily) educational research for over a decade now.

I have written a couple of posts about Alpha School over the past year.

Has been a while since my last Funny on Sunday post featuring xkcd.

Next Tuesday, our new book on educational myths in Dutch will hit the shelves.

Why do some young people manage to do well in school despite difficult home situations, poverty, migration, or other forms of vulnerability?

On Monday, Tracey Burns visited Leerpunt, and a large part of her professional life so far has been devoted to looking at trends that influence education.

Correlation is not causality.

As I wrote yesterday, last week I spent time with several other researchers (and policymakers too, by the way) thinking about the worldwide decline in performance on PISA, PIRLS, TIMSS… Strikingly little attention was paid to teaching and instruction, by…

Last Friday, I was in Warsaw with a large group of researchers to bring together different findings on the global decline in learning outcomes.

Sometimes you read research that aligns beautifully with your vision.

Let’s be honest, young people are using AI chatbots en masse.

hIt is a complaint I sometimes make on this blog or on stage: quite a lot has already been written and researched about homework.

Investing in early childhood education through various programs happens in many places, but thanks to James Heckman, we know that sustaining — maintaining — such investments is important, because otherwise their effects can fade.

Yesterday I wrote about high expectations and a new study suggesting that those expectations may become visible in something very concrete: the tasks you give your students.

Today, a study immediately reminded me of a classic, frequently cited study.

I do like the videos by Sam Tucker.

Maybe you’ve forgotten about the little turtle, but ever since Logo by Seymour Papert, programming has found its way into curricula in many countries.

It is a hot topic in the media, and I have written about it several times before: the relationship between social media and young people’s mental health.

One of the major concerns surrounding generative AI in education relates to writing, or rather, to the assessment of writing.

Teacher shortages have become a persistent problem in many countries.

A character can be afraid, or angry, maybe sad.

It is the basis for discussions about overdiagnosis.

This is a pretty impressive study by Petr Svojanovský and colleagues, published in Learning and Instruction, where you shouldn’t get too hung up on the sample size.

Made me think also a bit of that Queen song… Check here for more Funny on Sunday.

Grade retention is a topic I have written about many times before.

Set an enthusiastic teacher in front of their class, the students will become enthusiastic too.

One of the most striking conclusions from PISA 2025 may be wrong.

How do you actually get research-based knowledge into the classroom?

Sometimes it is frustrating that PISA data can only show us correlations.

We often perceive competition as something bad in education.

I had some reservations about posting this Onion cartoon, as some people may find it offensive.

The first PISA 2025 results have been out for a while now.

This blog post is not another round in the well-known reading wars!

Some of the most popular guidance reports my own organisation Leerpunt has published discuss differentiation in education.

This research has been sitting in an open tab in my browser for a while.

It is an example I sometimes use in my lectures: suppose you give perfect feedback.

The process of selecting studies or topics for my blog is sometimes easy, sometimes difficult.

The most difficult thing in education is not transfer, although it comes close.

On Friday, my wife sent me this study.

Teaching sometimes can feel like doing stand-up.

Let me start with an easy confession: I hate meetings.

When you read a scientific article, research can sometimes seem like a remarkably emotionless process.

After all the PISA hype, here is a study that is only indirectly related to education!

I don’t like to rant.

Yesterday, I wrote about the new PISA 2025 results, and my post ended with a question to explore: what happens if, instead of looking at the United Kingdom (UK) as a whole, as reported in the OECD’s first Volume, we look at England, Scotland, Wales, and N…

As I post this, the embargo has been lifted, and articles about PISA 2025 are appearing on news websites around the world.

And no, this does not mean I will suddenly start writing about the big comparative study the OECD will publish today at 9.30 a.m.