Some scientific research is carried out on animals, usually where the procedures would be illegal or potentially dangerous if applied to humans. Obviously this raises very serious ethical
Sometimes educational research hits the headlines. Last November one piece even made the whole of the front page of one tabloid (Lambert, 2016). The broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom, had j
Montessorians don’t always agree about everything but one of the many things we are all agreed on is that rewards don’t work. Back in the Summer of 2011, my regular column in Montessori
Until recently, pre-school education was almost entirely private in the UK. The vast majority of provisions were playgroups, often run by volunteer mothers at minimal cost. Others follow
Parents using electronic toys inhibit their infants’ speech development; parental controlling behaviour leads to a life of reduced wellbeing; the ‘naughty step’ is not th
A Montessori Primary Diploma course will be starting shortly in Chiddingstone. It leads to the award of the MAEL diploma qualification. The course will be taught by John & Marianne C
Psychologists are obsessed with testing. Indeed our whole society seems to be infected. Go into any high street stationers and there are books on testing your, or your child’s, IQ or p
Can you teach a fish to walk? And no, this is not a rhetorical question, nor a silly one. Some researchers in Canada (Standen et al, 2014) have been trying to do just that – with s
Probably the most exciting development in psychology over the last few years is the growing awareness of the importance of executive functions in the brain. This is also an area of immense
Our associate centre in Lagos, Nigeria, (The Eden Montessori Teacher Education Centre) is starting a new course shortly. For details of the Centre please visit http://edenmontessori.com.n
Learning outcomes are often used as a way of making clear what a course expects from its learners. MAEL has just produced a position paper of this topic, outlining the background to the e
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be an educational researcher? We have a stereotype of a researcher as a university expert (maybe in a white coat) making startling discoveri
Sometimes scientific research leads to spectacular discoveries and then there is intense debate, instant fame and (much later) Nobel prizes all round. Much more often science proceeds by a
A symposium on assessment and marking was led by Dr Maria da Costa, lately of the Institute of Education of London University, at the Kent & Sussex Montessori Centre in S.E. England.
The director of MAEL is embarking on a major research project. It centres on the fact that there are many different ways of implementing the Montessori approach. As a result, it is hard to
Sometimes research gives clear cut answers to a research question. Someone makes a discovery, it is reviewed by their peers, published and leads to a fundamental re-alignment of our thin
John Clarkson was a member of the MACTE (Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education) on-site verification team which visited the teacher preparation programme at the Duhovka Inst
The cohort of students who completed their degree course with us in 2013 graduated at a ceremony in Norwich Cathedral in October. As with previous cohorts, there was a 100% pass rate, wit
The splendid buildings of Corvinus University sit on the banks of the Danube, on the Pest side of the river in Budapest, Hungary. This was the setting for the XIV Montessori Europe Congres
Keeping observational records on the iPad was the topic of a seminar, sponsored by MAEL and held at the Kent & Sussex Montessori Centre. David Gettman (author of the well-known textboo
The Kent & Sussex Montessori Centre’s new course started on Wednesday 18th September. The course is the Montessori Early Childhood Teaching Diploma, approximately half the group
The meeting between NTCL and the Montessori providers (see post of August 8th, 2013) took place in Sheffield. The following points were clarified: 1. number of misunderstandings of specifi
It is a commonplace of child psychology that, during the early years, there is a phase of especial facility in language acquisition, a phase that is never repeated. As everyone always say
The Montessori training providers in the UK have been invited to meet with the National College of Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) in Sheffield on August 29th. The NCTL is a government agency
