Some of my key ideas and work

This page contains brief summaries and links to further reading for some of my most successful ideas and work.

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training Research

Dr Kawashima in the classroom

In 2006 I bought myself a Nintendo DS and the game Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training came with it. My first attempt at the game gave me a brain age of 44. Being 38 at the time was enough to challenge my competitive streak and before I knew it I was playing it every day to unlock the other games and get my brain age down. Once I had done this I stood back and reflected on the intrinsic motivation to self-improve that this game had encouraged in me and I wondered whether it might have a similar impact on learners in the upper stages of a Scottish primary school, particularly in reference to mental maths ability.

In the period between 2007 and 2008 I carried out two research studies looking to see if this idea might work and if the impact it had on me would be the similar on learners in a primary school. Here is a number of weblinks, videos and research referemnces that tell the story of my work with Dr Kawashima's Brain Training:

1. This is the original video case study from the first small scale intervention that I did in a school in Dundee.

2. This is a video of me on BBC Breakfast discussing the randomised control trial that we were about to undertake in 2008.

3. This is a summary paper of the Dr Kawashima randomised controlled trial that we carried out in 2008

4. I was asked by my colleagues at BECTa to write the UK submission for a European Schoolnet publication looking at the use of games in learning across schools in Europe. The full paper can be accessed here and the summary paper here. Dr Kawashima material included.

5. An Insights summary paper that we wrote for BERA (British Educational Research Association)

Guitar Hero

Me with Guitar Hero Scottish Champion in 2008

When the game Guitar Hero first came out I bought it for the Consolarium. As I began to play it my ideas for its use in school immediately began to form and I knew that it had great potential to be an effective learning resource. Much of my practice as a teacher in relation to creating effective contexts for learning involved  developing  a collaborative story that my learners could become immersed in - so much that they would help drive and author the learning.  What teachers may refer to as a thematic or Storyline approach. I saw Guitar Hero as one of the most powerful tools I had ever seen to help make this happen.

When I first put it in school I worked with a teacher who got the idea, used the same collaborative story creation methodology and who also liked rock music! The idea caught on in a lot of schools and its popularity grew, ably promoted by my friend Ollie Bray who took the idea and used it to support a transition project that he was working on in his school cluster. This project won a European award.

We ended up holding two National Guitar Hero competitions in Scotland with the finals being carried out at the Scottish Learning Festival.

1. The original video case study of the first Guitar Hero project in a school.

2. A report from the first Guitar Hero National competition that we held at the Scottish Learning Festival in 2008.

3. In 2009 we held another Guitar Hero National compeition. This post shows the leaderboard that we set up for schools to all over Scotland enter the competition.

4. Gavinburn PS in West Dunbartonshire took the Guitar Hero idea and really made it their own. Led by the HT at the time Gillian Penny, the school turned the idea in to The Band in a Box project. This mother blog post (with links to nine posts) showcases just what a powerful context for learning it proved to be.

5. This link to Ollie Bray's blog details the successful and award winning application of the Guitar Hero in East Lothian schools.

 

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