Issue 5 – November 2023
Thringboard
A journal for teacher development and research
Contents
Welcome to the fifth edition of Thringboard
Science of Learning – the Great Teaching Toolkit by Zoe Hunter, Head of French; Head of E-Teaching and Learning
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Master’s in Teaching and Learning: thoughts from the first module by Richard O’Donoghue, Assistant Head: Sixth Form
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The Conti Method in MFL by Andrew Dowsett, Head of Modern Languages
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Conversation and the Three Truths of Coaching by Richard Hegarty, Housemaster of Highfield
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Entrepreneurship in education – nurturing curiosity and innovation by Kyi Muller, Assistant Head: Co-curricular and Sam Clark, Teacher of Classics
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This publication is a collaborative endeavour, comprising of articles contributed by a variety of common room colleagues. It aims to inform and inspire us to learn about each other’s professional learnings and encourage us to embark on our own professional development journeys too! Here, we showcase a rich assortment of articles, demonstrating not only the valuable learning that colleagues bring back from external courses, but also the internal expertise and training opportunities that thrive within our community. We gain an insight into the Great Teacher Toolkit: an online platform offering evidence-based and sustained options for teacher CPD, through Zoe’s article, detailing her experience of the first two modules of the Science of Learning course. Richard also writes on this theme, specifically discussing the construction of schema, based on his learning from the Master’s qualification that he is working towards. Thinking about approaches to learning in a Languages context, Andrew describes The Conti Method or “Extensive Processing Instruction” with its key principles alongside some limitations. To complement these articles, Richard and Kyi write about two of our internal training courses that we have offered already this academic year. Richard’s Coaching update is our reminder to evaluate the attitudes we bring to our conversations, and Kyi highlights the need for us to review how to best prepare our pupils for the rapidly changing future world through Entrepreneurship education. We hope that you find something that interests you in these pages, and look forward to hearing any feedback you have, particularly if there are any specific areas you would like to see in future issues. Happy reading! Miranda Melville-Coman Assistant Head: Teaching and Learning
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Science of Learning course - The Great Teaching Toolkit by Zoe Hunter The GTT Science of Learning course looks at the evidence of how we learn to get the most out of student understanding and progress. It is an online course structured into modules but requires collaboration with colleagues to inform practice within the specific context of the school, gathering evidence from this specific context and grounding the findings in key theories from cognitive neuroscience and the psychology of how we learn, why we learn and how it happens. Last year, Andrew Dowsett, Linda Soto, Isla Neilson, Devin Oliver and I had a learning-lead group, and through the study of these theories and collaborative reflection with these colleagues, we devised and implemented different strategies, reflecting then on their efficacy within and impact on our long-term practice. The next steps will look at curriculum design and embedding the science of learning theories we have explored into a scheme of work, looking to optimise the learning we already have planned.
most effective learning.” While the science of learning has made a considerable contribution to how we understand effective learning and teaching strategies, pedagogical practices have not traditionally been routed in research. Recently (the US National Research Council published its consensus on what the evidence says about learning only in 2000), advances have been made in understanding how and why we learn. We are moving towards evidencebased practice and action-research working in an alliance with teaching professionals at the heart of understanding the theory and how this theory translates into practice.
The Science of Learning course then takes the step to encourage colleagues to work together to understand how to put the theory into practice in the specific school context. While the evidence-based movement in education has brought forward a plethora of research informed strategies for teachers to use, it is teachers and educational leaders who are best placed to select and implement these strategies as best fits their students. Programme Overview The course is broken down into 4 units of work: Unit 1, a 10-week section, focusses on the process of learning – Unit 4 – Developing Colleagues’ Practice with the Science of Learning Unit 3 – Applying the Science of Learning to curriculum planning Unit 2 – Applying the Science of Learning to the classroom Unit 1 – Understanding the Science of Learning
What is the Science of Learning? According to Sawyer (2006), the science of learning is the “cognitive and social processes that result in the
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cognitive systems, functions, limitations, and factors affecting these systems; unit 2, a further 10-weeks, focusses on how these systems and functions relate to specific teaching strategies to build a mental model of the processes of learning, to start to design strategies, implement these strategies and formatively evaluate their impact; unit 3 is a six-week guided dialogue to develop implementation strategies for department, faculty and/ or whole-school intervention; and unit 4 spends four weeks drawing together an implementation plan for incremental, whole-school change. The format is to work with a group of fellow learning leads, with the addition of Learning Lead Network discussions available through the course platform online. Learnings and takeaways As a learning lead group, we have completed the first two units. We found that, in a busy environment such as this, we needed more time on each section, with the first unit taking us from the Michaelmas half term to the end of the Lent Term. Ideally, we would have started in the first week of the Michaelmas term, completing the first unit within this term, and then completed unit 2 in the Lent term, and this would be the recommended model for future groups. This would set up unit 3 and 4 for more success as would be more in keeping with the planning process for future schemes of work. The first unit was theoretically rich, with a focus on retrieval practice, intervals of review, effective independent practice, desirable difficulties and the gap between learner perception of effective learning and actual learning and retention. A vital point is that learning needs to facilitate both memorisation (retention) and the ability to retrieve this information, and to do this, learners must go through the uncomfortable process of trying to remember – an under practised skill in this day and age where you can google 4
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anything you can’t remember! The very act of trying to remember builds the pathways necessary for retrieval, thus avoiding the exam scenario of ‘I know I know it, but I can’t quite find it.’ Roediger III and Karpick’s ‘Testenhanced Learning: Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention’ (2006) is worth reading and compares learners who repeatedly read a text versus learners who read a text once and are repeatedly tested on it. The learners who read the text several times have more confidence in their learning, but showed far weaker retention and retrieval, while the students who are repeatedly tested after only one reading, while they were less confident that they knew the material, were more able to retain and retrieve the information. This, along with other studies shows a pattern that the most effective strategies (retrieval practice, spaced learning) lead to an underestimation of future performance, while less effective strategies (re-reading, no spacing) boost confidence and in turn lead to an overestimation of performance. This isn’t anything that we don’t know as teachers – we are aware that rereading notes without actively engaging with them isn’t effective revision for an exam, but it is certainly useful to review the reasons why this doesn’t work, and as a learning lead group, we all found our pupils more receptive to effective strategies when we could explain to them in simple terms why we have asked them to learn through them. As colleagues, we became more aware of cognitive overload, the importance of teaching pupils the process of learning itself, and the emphasis on teaching memorisation in class rather than assuming that pupils can memorise independently, especially as they move higher through the school and have more to retain. Attention span came to the forefront, and we rooted this in our understanding of attentional memory and its limitations when working memory is overloaded for too long. We have all since reduced the amount of information, both
written and oral, that we deliver in one go, and there is a fine balance between adding captivating extra information which may spur on a high achieving pupil but bamboozle another and ensuring that all pupils take away the key learning points by paring back the information presented. This development of metacognition – our own and that of the pupils – was the most useful part of the first unit, and we were all enthused when recognising evidence of effective strategies in our own practice and by introducing new strategies. The benefit of the course being delivered over time and in collaboration with colleagues, rather than a snapshot of professional development was the ability to embed strategies into our day-to-day practice and develop and reflect on our pedagogy together, assessing and optimising our teaching with new practice, reflection and re-elaboration of the new strategies. This reflection cycle was fully implemented in unit 2, encouraging us to review different theories, plan them into our practice, and compare and reflect with colleagues to develop strategies that are context specific. As a group, we are yet to complete units 3 and 4, looking at the implementation of strategies into curriculum planning, then developing colleagues’ practice by helping to implement strategies from the course. However, we have all found that we are developing resources with the key strategies embedded into our work and have all benefited from the first two units. These have furthered our understanding of the benefits and limitations of specific learning strategies and facilitated the implementation of these strategies in our own context, making reflections and adjustments to maximise their effects on pupil learning. Key though, has been the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues from different departments and dedicate regular time to in-depth discussions over the pedagogical choices we make.
Master’s in Teaching and Learning: thoughts from the first module By Richard O’Donoghue
I have recently finished the first module of the University of Buckingham’s online Master’s in Teaching and Learning. The focus of the module was on the science of learning. The aim was to implement the knowledge and understanding gained to an existing scheme of work to ‘optimise’ it for learners according to the current cognitive science. The main form of assessment was a critical review essay of that ‘optimisation’ plan. The basis for my plan was to improve pupil schema-building within the initial weeks of the Lower Fifth Development topic via strategies emphasising retrieval practice and participation ratio. During the module I found the concept of schema and schemabuilding of particular interest. Schema are the mental models we build to understand something. We create these via the connections made between new information and prior knowledge (Cline, 2022). Ultimately, our role is to help our pupils develop accurate and useful schema through our classroom practice. I researched the attempts to explain schemabuilding by educationalists and cognitive scientists, however, most outcomes felt too linear and ordered.
For example, Efrat Furst’s pyramid model helped me understand the idea of micro-schema connecting to other micro-schema and then ultimately creating macro-schema (Furst, 2022) – but it was too neat a process. We do not know what is happening inside the minds of our pupils and we ourselves probably could not pinpoint the exact pathway to understanding a complex concept that we now teach effortlessly. Schema-building is messy and ‘chaotic’ (Boxer, 2020).
an entirely different way to another’s. Just because you have learnt the geographical definition of ‘development’ – does it mean you understand it? Does understanding come when we look at a diagram summarising development or by studying the supporting examples? Or does it happen when we look at rural poverty because you saw this on a holiday to Kenya once and now it makes sense? As such, learning is more abstract than logical or hierarchical.
Reading ‘Organising Ideas’ (Caviglioli & Goodwin, 2021) introduced me to a diagram of psychologist Eleanor Rosch’s prototype theory (we place new information with the existing mental category it closest fits) which, for me, mapped on to the author’s interpretation of the physicist Frederick Reif’s network model of knowledge structures (effective use of knowledge is dependent on its organisation). This better represents my experience of what happens in the classroom: existing concepts (or prototypes) are mental reference points against which new concepts are compared. We all have different mental reference points given our unique experience of life thus far so one pupil’s ‘eureka’ moment may be prompted in
This conundrum of how best to help pupils navigate the abstract nature of understanding was therefore at the heart of my ‘optimisation’ plan. There is no magic pill, of course, but it made me focus on doing certain things better and more consistently. I decided to focus on helping pupils better develop a rock-solid foundation of knowledge (thus creating definitive anchor points around which new information could be compared, slotted into place and thus schema built) through regular retrieval practice and to gain a better grasp of the extent to which I was confident all my pupils understood an idea by increasing participation ratio (basically, ‘who participates and how often?’ (Lemov, 2021) via more consistent cold calling, think/pair/share Thringboard Issue 5 – November 2023
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The Conti Method in MFL By Andrew Dowsett and use of digital show-me boards via the online answer-fox platform. In conclusion, this first module has been enlightening, thoughtprovoking and made me explore a range of useful teaching strategies that were either new or I had forgotten. References: Boxer, A. (2020) I do really like it, except it is too ordered - isn’t learning more chaotic than that? more idiosyncratic? the learner picks up bits and pieces here and there that *eventually* form a coherent and cohesive whole, but that isn’t what it looks like in process? (via @EfratFurst), 13 July 2020 [Twitter]. Available at https://twitter.com/ adamboxer1/status/ 1282615188320133120 (Accessed 29 July 2023). Caviglioli O. and Goodwin, D. (2021) Organising Ideas, Woodbridge, John Catt Educational Ltd. Cline, P. (2022) ‘Schema-building: beyond Piaget and into the classroom’, Structural Learning, 4 July 2022 [Online]. Available at https://www.structurallearning.com/post/schemabuilding (Accessed 28 July 2023). Furst, E. (2022) ‘Learning in the brain’, Bridging Cognitive Science & Education, February 2022 [Online]. Available at https://sites. google.com/view/efratfurst/ learning-in-the-brain?authuser=0 (Accessed 28 July 2023). Lemov, D. (2021) Teach Like a Champion 3.0, Hoboken, JosseyBass.
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The so-called Conti Method (officially, neglected getting the basics right. EPI – Extended Processing Instruction) It is for the same reason that the way has triggered quite some debate in the we teach Modern Languages in the UK language teaching world over the past is now so different to the way we might few years. Having established itself in teach English as a Foreign Language many language departments’ schemes abroad. The National Curriculum has of work in maintained put some much emphasis schools, EPI is now jumping prematurely to gaining traction in the tasks involving ‘higher independent sector. Dr level thinking’ (analysis, Gianfranco Conti, author deduction, creation, of the Sentence Builders synthesis) that many series and The Language teachers have over the Gym, go-to resources for years abandoned basic any discerning language vocabulary and grammar teacher, has long drills at the early stages of Dr Gianfranco Conti criticized the way we a new language, largely to teach MFL here in the appease the observer, UK. He takes particular objection to and relegated the task consolidating the “PPP Approach”, a staple of MFL the basics to homework or PGCEs old and new, which suggest ‘independent learning’. The EPI lessons having three episodes: method takes us back to a highly Presentation (of new vocabulary), structured introduction of new Practice (in sentences, applying language involving plenty of grammatical knowledge), and opportunities for repetition in class, Personalisation (using the new investing time in training the eye and language to write/speak freely or the ear to notice what is actually going creatively). Dr Conti advocates on, and essentially teaching less, but throwing this completely out of the doing so well by spending longer on window and teaching in a way that has each language element. some similarities to the behaviourist approach, or audiolingual method – In June, a number of us from the écoutez et répétez until it goes in. faculty attended an induction into his method at Stamford School. Here are The science behind it adds up though. a few takeaways: There is something to be said about returning to some basic principles here - Establish non-negotiables. – at the initial stages of language Teachers should ask learning, pupils need to first see, hear themselves what pupils really and repeat language chunks multiple need to know to succeed, and times before being expected to focus the teaching and retrieval retrieve them automatically, or apply practice around that. grammar rules to transform them into something else. After all, it is through - Introduce new language at copious repetition that we learnt the sentence not word level. This foundations in our native language. done through using Sentence builders, rather than the You might be thinking that this sounds traditional single-word obvious? But over recent decades, flashcards. language teaching in the UK has become so battered, bruised and - Repetition at the early stages misshaped by so many one-size-fits-all of a new topic is king. Conti pedagogical principles (dare I say, suggests hundreds of activities fads?), that we have almost completely whereby pupils will see, hear
and say (by repeating) the non-negotiable language which has been introduced in a sentence builder. He talks of gamifying all activities to break the monotony. - Pupils should be flooded with comprehensible input. We should only be expecting pupils to retrieve and manipulate language independently after they have seen and heard it being used multiple times and in different ways. This comes at a cost – time. But it is worth the investment. - Self-efficacy leads to motivation. It’s not that breakfast club with croissants, or the annual trip to Madrid that makes pupils want to take languages for longer than they need to. It’s a belief in their ability to actually use the language independently. This only comes with a solid foundation in the basics.
EPI goes beyond a few principles though. There are proposed sequences of activities (“MARSEARS”), specific ways of introducing grammar, and of course, a very particular assessment schedule to account for both retrieval practice and preparing for GCSE. Are there limitations? Yes of course. One has to look at new methods with a critical eye. The Conti method works particularly well in French, for example, where the sound-spelling link poses quite a challenge for many learners. On the other hand, it is difficult to apply EPI to German as the volume of grammar, in particular, word order rules, are quite a barrier to learning through individual chunks which are then pieced together. The method is arguably most impactful in Year 7 and 8, two year groups we unfortunately don’t teach, but are the most important in terms of establishing a
solid linguistic foundation for GCSE. At GCSE and beyond pupils should develop more autonomy and perhaps move away from the crutch that EPI provides. Where does EPI fit into the Uppingham curriculum then? We have fully embraced the method in our Fourth Form and Lower Fifth French schemes of work, where we are perhaps most exposed to mopping up inconsistent and non-specialist teaching in preparatory schools. Though his CPD days and publication Breaking the Sound Barrier are supercharged with ready-made games and activities that can be applied to any language classroom at any level, regardless of topic. Whilst we might not become a fully ‘Contified’ Faculty, EPI has certainly given us lots to think (and talk) about.
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Conversation and the Three Truths of Coaching By Richard Hegarty At Uppingham we are consummate conversationalists, and we have a great deal of time devoted to talking. But I wonder if we talk at each other a little? This is an article about the attitude we bring to our conversations – whether in our meetings, our tutorials, or our lessons. Coaching is a method for making conversations productive. I would like to suggest that it is not the coaching skills that matter but the attitude we take; and coaching can help to inform that attitude. The Three Truths of Coaching are central to coaching but they are also a useful way of looking at our everyday interactions. Having “three truths” sounds quite Zen, like something that transcends! If you haven’t done a Graydin coaching course (or if you have, and “the truths” have slipped from your consciousness); the Three Truths of Coaching are: 1 The coachee is capable and whole; 2 The coachee has all the answers; 3 The coach’s role is to ask not tell.
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To clarify, the coachee is anyone you’re coaching, but we might even want to extend this beyond the coaching context and consider the coachee to be anyone you’re helping or teaching or just talking with. When people have completed a coaching course they are usually pretty excited; there are lots of practical skills and exercises, and people often finish day one saying: I’m definitely going to try this out on my tutees / line manager / partner/ offspring / mother. And of course that’s great. There is a real tendency to want to use coaching in everything, flinging fulfilment wheels at every class and doing a partnership agreement every time you meet someone – you have a block of post-it notes on your person at all times and you always think about “honouring your values”. Amidst all of this the Three Truths of Coaching are placed at the end of the first day of the two day course and they can easily go missing, but I think they’re really important, whether you have done any coaching or not. In fact I think these
truths should underpin a great deal of our attitude as teachers and boarding staff. So, the first truth asks us to start from a point that says: this person is whole, they don’t need to be fixed because they aren’t broken – I think this is exciting and respectful and optimistic. Now, there are cases where people really do have concerns that need to be fixed and they have broken something – literally, emotionally, mentally – and there are clear methods for addressing these instances, and they will usually be safeguarding concerns. But for the most part, our colleagues, pupils, tutees etc are all whole and they don’t need us to fix them because (second truth coming) the coachee has all the answers. Well, they don’t have ALL the answers, they can’t decipher Linear A and they probably can’t explain Finnegan’s Wake. But if they wanted to do those things they would have some answers as to how to get there. The second
truth of coaching is hard for us teachers; can we trust the coachee/ pupil/colleague (!) to find the answers? Often, we provide the answers for others, and usually our suggestions are well intentioned and built on years of experience at the chalk face of the profession. When a pupil asks us how to revise for their Spanish test, we really do know the answers. The pupil also really does know, and even IF they don’t, they know how to find out; but they won’t do what we suggest, they have to find the solution themselves. Have there been many times when we have suggested a revision method and our tutee has said: gosh Mr Hegarty that’s a corking idea, I’d never thought of that, I’m going to crack on and do that right away! Advice - well intentioned advice - doesn’t often work. Instead of giving the gift of advice, the third Truth asks us to trust the person and just ask questions.
The coaching course offers lots of helpful ways to ask questions, but good questions require careful listening, and using questions that begin with “what” or “how”. The listening part is hardest, of course! The principle of coaching asks us to not tell people what to do, no matter how sure we are. I think this is an approach that is respectful to the person and encourages them to take responsibility. Sometimes people really want advice, and sometimes they want it because they don’t want the responsibility of making the decision – if it all goes wrong, I can always say: my matron told me to do it! Coaching is all about empowering the person to make decisions for themselves; as we say on the course it is about planting seeds not giving gifts.
The Three Truths of coaching prompt us to think about our conversations and the attitude we bring to those conversations. Do we empower people in our conversations? Do we take the approach of giving the answers and telling people what to do? When we give the answers, do we really believe that the person is capable and whole? If you want to, you can forget about the coaching exercises: A to B, values, fulfilment wheels etc. The most important aspect of coaching is the attitude we take to our meetings, our classes, our conversations.
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Entrepreneurship education – nurturing curiosity and innovation By Kyi Muller and Sam Clark
The term entrepreneurship may conjure images of Elon Musk, Steve Jobs or even a Dragons’ Den where people pitch their ideas for investment in their big idea. This particular perception of entrepreneurship leans, however, on a rather narrow approach viewed solely through the lens of starting a business (Lackeus, 2015). A more appropriate description of entrepreneurship today involves much more than simply starting your own business, and the idea of infusing a more general understanding of entrepreneurship in its wider sense into education has spurred much enthusiasm in the last few decades (Baggen, Y., Lans, T., & Gulikers, J. (2022).
The move towards entrepreneurship education has predominately been driven by its promise of enabling pupils to acquire a range of skills and complex competencies that are potentially valuable in a pupil’s personal and future professional life (see Table 1). This includes, but is not limited to, teaching pupils how to think creatively and critically, how to identify and solve problems (Youniss et al., 2002), and how to take calculated risks. It also has the potential to assist pupils in developing a growth mindset (Bacigalupo et al., 2016), and can help pupils learn to be resilient and adaptable, thereby providing them with the knowledge and skills they need to live in a highly complex and rapidly changing world. Putting this idea into practice in a school setting has posed significant challenges. Lack of time and resources, teachers’ fear of commercialism, impeding educational structures, assessment difficulties and lack of definitional clarity are some of the challenges that practitioners have encountered when trying to infuse entrepreneurship into education (Lackeus, 2015). However, entrepreneurship approaches to learning and working have fast become one of the key skills in a pupil’s toolkit for life. This is predominately due to changes to post-secondary education sector and the work environment in every industry through the rise of 10
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automation, increasingly globalised networks and infrastructure, and a rapidly growing emphasis on skills such as critical thinking, teamwork and digital literacy (IrwinSzostack, 2023; Reis, 2011). In order to be able to ensure that our pupils leave Uppingham with a powerful combination of strong academic credentials and key skills for the new economy, the School is working towards upskilling its academic staff and providing a framework through which entrepreneurship can be delivered to pupils. We recently completed the first two-day Introduction to Entrepreneurship education course with 10 staff which aimed to start the process of providing teachers with a common language and understanding of what is meant by entrepreneurship. This course included an introduction to problem development, business model canvas and market research, and culminated in a pitch of the new business or product. The next phase will include further training opportunities for staff and a pilot programme, StartUPP, for pupils which is currently under development. The importance of entrepreneurship education at Uppingham goes far beyond that of the pupils’ immediate school experience and will enable the School to provide
more tangible links across curricula and to external companies and institutions, provide real life application and connect the School to a local and global community in a way it has not done in the past. Whilst we have only just started this journey, the future opportunities for our pupils are considerable and provide an exciting pathway for the School to continue to nurture and develop curious and innovative pupils. References: Bacigalupo, M., Kampylis, P., Punie, Y., & Van den Brande, G. (2016). EntreComp: The entrepreneurship competence framework. In JRC science for policy report (Issue June). https://doi.org/10.2791/593884. Baggen, Y., Lans, T., & Gulikers, J. (2022). Making entrepreneurship education available to all: Design principles for educational programs stimulating an entrepreneurial mindset. Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, 5(3), 347–374.
forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/04/24/todays-entrepreneursare-successful-because-they-thinkdifferently/?sh=318e979e68c6 (April 24, 2023) Lackeus, M. (2015) Entrepreneurship Education. What, Why, When, How. Entrepreneurship360 Background Paper. LEED (Local Economic and Employment Development) Division of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses. Crown Business. ISBN-10, 9780307887894. Youniss, J., Bales, S., Christmas‐Best, V., Diversi, M., Mclaughlin, M. & Silbereisen, R. 2002. Youth civic engagement in the twenty‐first century. Journal of research on adolescence, 12, 121148.
Irwin-Szostack, L. (2023) Today’s Entrepreneurs Are Successful Because They Think Differently. Forbes Small Business. https://www.forbes.com/sites/
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We hope that you have found something that has interested you in these pages, and welcome any feedback you have, particularly if there are any specific areas you would like to see in future issues. Are you an inspiring Thringboard author? Do you have something we could publish, now or in a future issue? If you are/have been working on some small-scale research or have an area of expertise that the CR should know about, please do get in touch and let me know! Coming soon… The content of the next issue of Thringboard will likely include: • An update from Learning Support • Updates on adaptive and inclusive teaching strategies • What good tutoring looks like • Further insights into Masters level study • The digital future