IOE Coffee Breaks reviews the contemporary debate on the school curriculum. The past decade has seen a strong push towards a ‘knowledge-led’ curriculum for schools in England, as reflected in reforms to the National Curriculum. Nevertheless, polarised discourse that pits ‘Gradgrind’ against child-centred learning continues, with each variously presented as the route to ‘twenty-first century skills’ such as creativity and problem-solving.

Full event information: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/events/2021/feb/virtual-event-knowledge-led-curriculum-turbulent-times

Join the conversation on Twitter at #IOECoffeeBreaks​

How’s work going for you? Do you feel like you’re working harder than ever before and have little to show for it? We delve into the quality of a number of professions today.

Dr Sam Sims is joined by Professor Francis Green to talk about his interest and academic journey covering labour economics, education economics and political economy.

Full show notes and links: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2021/mar/employment-prospects-job-quality-and-intensification-work-rftrw-s08e02 

If you'd like to ask our presenters or guests a question for future episodes, you can record a voice message: https://speakpipe.com/ioe or on social media: #IOEPodcast.

Take our 2-minute survey and help us make the best podcast possible: https://bit.ly/rtrw-survey.

Hear from Professor Carey Jewitt and doctoral researcher Lili Golmohammadi (UCL Institute of Education) on digital touch technologies and touchy vocab, student Alessia Qiu (Natural Sciences BSc) who joined UCL Volunteering to help a vulnerable group during the pandemic, and Dr Helge Wurdemann’s (UCL Engineering Sciences) robotic limbs that make the feeling of touch possible.

This episode is reposted from the #MadeAtUCL podcast Season 2, Episode 1. It is presented by Cassidy Martin and edited by Cerys Bradley.

Full show notes: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/made-at-ucl/podcasts/s2-ep1-touch

Transcript: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/made-at-ucl/podcasts/s2-ep1-touch#transcript

This season’s exploration of the world of work begins with a discussion about the transitions and trajectories available to teenagers.

Dr Lynne Rogers is the Co-Director of the Centre for Post-14 Education and Work and has long-standing interests in teacher and lecturer training and learning in further and higher education and other professional settings.

She joins Dr Keri Wong to share her own journey as a teacher and academic, as well as her views on curriculum offerings and assessments for young people of varying levels of attainment, and what lies ahead for them, particularly as we find a way out of the pandemic.

Full show notes and links: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2021/feb/pathways-employment-higher-and-further-education-young-people-rftrw-s08e01

If you'd like to ask our presenters or guests a question for future episodes, you can record a voice message: https://speakpipe.com/ioe or on social media: #IOEPodcast.

Take our 2-minute survey and help us make the best podcast possible: https://bit.ly/rtrw-survey.

Wherever you find culture, you find Caroline Marcus. She creates innovative programmes in museums and heritage settings, from the Royal Opera House to UCL.

While Caroline teaches MA students on the IOE’s Museums and Galleries in Education programme, she is also an advisor, producer, and programmer for many cultural organisations across the UK. The National Gallery London, The Jewish Museum and the Imperial War Museum are only a few of the places where Caroline worked and taught.

In her goal to support museums and galleries to welcome children and families, she consults organisations like Kids in Museums. She is also Chair of Trustees for GEM (Group for Education in Museums) that champions excellence in museum and heritage learning.

Our thanks to the For Art’s Sake team for allowing us to repost this episode from their podcast: forartsake.co.uk/caroline_marcus

More: forartsake.co.uk

We officially welcome our presenters Dr Keri Wong and Dr Sam Sims to the Research for the Real World podcast!  Hear a little bit about them as well as our guests for Season 8, who will be sharing insights about these aspects of the world of work:

Catch up on previous episodes: https://bit.ly/researchfortherealworld

If you'd like to ask our presenters or guests a question for future episodes or suggestions on what we should cover, you can record a voice message: speakpipe.com/ioe or write a post on social media: #IOEPodcast.

Take our 2-minute survey and help us make the best podcast possible: https://bit.ly/rftrw-survey.

Artwork: That's Heidi, Sam's dog and podcast mascot. 🐶

Girls’ access to education was already precarious in many parts of the world prior to COVID-19: around 130 million girls of school age were not in class. Many factors contributed to this picture, from cultural attitudes that don’t prioritise the education of girls, to the threat of gender-based violence in schools. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target to eliminate gender disparities in education by 2030 encapsulates the international aim to turn this picture around. 

We gathered IOE and invited experts to discuss how the pandemic has impacted efforts to improve girls' access to education, and establish what action is needed now.

Full event information: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/events/2021/feb/virtual-event-what-if-we-wanted-overcome-covid-19s-impact-girls-access-education

Discussing home-schooling and play, home-working, parenting - and how to juggle them all. With the latest announcement that schools won’t be reopening until at least the 8th March, Coronavirus: The Whole Story speaks to three UCL experts to explore how home-schooling is affecting children and parents, and some practical tips and tricks for listeners.

UCL experts:

More info: www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-minds/coronavirus

Transcript: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-minds/podcasts/coronavirus/transcript-episode-37

*This episode includes audio of a video shown during this event, some of which is not in English. You can access captions and subtitles with this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfGTiB11qNA

Ranjitsinh Disale has been bridging barriers for girls' education in rural India by innovating with QR coded textbooks. School attendance can be as low as 2% for girls in some parts of rural India, and those who are in school are prevented from learning as the curriculum is not in their primary language.  Ranjitsinh translated class textbooks into his pupils’ mother tongue and embedded them with the unique QR codes to give students access to audio poems, video lectures, stories, and assignments.

Ranjitsinh joined Professor Sue Rogers to chat about his innovations, and to answer questions from our education community.

The 2020 Global Teacher Prize lecture was recorded by the UCL Institute of Education on 27 January 2021. More information: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/events/2021/jan/virtual-event-afternoon-ranjitsinh-disale-2020-global-teacher-prize-winner

#WeAreIOE #UCLMinds

Image: Courtesy of the Varkey Foundation

Dr Jennie Golding joins the podcast to discuss how her experiences in mathematics education informs views on the ways the curriculum may change over time.

Dr Rob Webster hears from Dr Golding about the book series she has co-edited, “What Should Schools Teach? Disciplines, subjects and the pursuit of truth”, part of the “Knowledge and the Curriculum” series published by UCL Press.

Using mathematics as a reference point, Dr Golding points to how thinking around knowledge points to its complementarity of different areas of the curriculum.

The pair also discuss to what extent the features of a school curriculum are independent of time and context and the challenges it presents for teaching and learning in the future.

Full show notes and links: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2021/feb/future-knowledge-and-curriculum-rftrw-s07e03 

If you'd like to ask our presenters or guests a question for future episodes, you can record a voice message: https://speakpipe.com/ioe or on social media: #IOEPodcast.

Take our 2-minute survey and help us make the best podcast possible: https://bit.ly/rtrw-survey.