Dr Tom Perry’s foreword to Test-enhanced Learning has been sent to the publisher. Waiting for Dr Perry’s foreword, felt like I was a pupil waiting for my work to be marked. Such an ironic spoonful of sugar.
This short post is a professional and public note of thanks to Dr Tom Perry @TWPerry1 for his generous professional challenge, his encouragement and support when the terminology or translation was too difficult.
Ever since the release of the EEF report and my visit to his 2021 National ResearchEd presentation with Philippa Cordingley, our conversations have been something to look forward to, ending almost always with more questions than answers.
It is without a doubt, that “Test-enhanced learning” is a more cautious account of researchs’ promise than it originally set out to be – and that is solely due to Dr Perry’s expert interrogation of what I thought I understood the research was reliably telling me.
I suppose the risk is that the purity of the research becomes slightly distorted the further it goes into different areas of the school – you might go into Art and find something you said about retrieval practice looks completely different. And suddenly, you’re not 100% sure whether it is the same thing anymore!
Morris et al. (2020: 6)
As a result, that residual promise has been significantly increased and entrusted to teachers. Decisions have to be made by teachers, at the chalkface. Rather than telling, the book became about making the complex, the messy, just a little less so. The only determined point to be made, was reinforced by Dr Perry – that “assessment of, for, and as learning,” is an opportunity not to be missed.
Characteristically ‘Dr Perry’ ends with encouragement, in his usual and eloquent good humour.
Teachers becoming experts in testing should be as unremarkable as sculptors being handy with a chisel.
Dr Tom Perry – As yet unpublished foreword to Test-enhanced learning
Dr Perry – thank you.
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ces/staff/tomperry/ and Dr Perry’s home page and @TWPerry1