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Is neuroscience is going to blow this allow out of the water?
KEY
Green = Activated
Amber = Engaged
Red = Blocked
What concerns me is the belief that theories of learning, which academics have identified in eduation in the last 90 years, are either key drivers or infleuncers in the design of learning. Surely these are all observations after the event. Like trying to analyse a standup comedy routine using a set of plans and parameters – ‘Good Morning, Vietnam’ comes to mind. As, I suppose would ‘Dead Poets Society’ to bring in Robin Williams again. Was the Khan Academy a product of such analysis? No? An investment banker wanted to help his nephews out with their Math so he recorded some videos. Actually, I jsut realised my wife is doing this for a friend’s daughter who is learning French – creating bespoke French language pieces for her to practice on. I can’t even think what either of them are – behaviourist or social-constructive and experiential. I’m afraid, given what the academic ‘gurus of e-learning’ keep coming up with they are probably the least intuitive or inventive because their hands and minds are tied by this kind of thing. Just my opinion.
If I want to develop a platform or school that uses e-learning I’ll go find myself a ‘Robin Williams’ kind of educator – someone has a natural flair for it, who engender a following, who most importantly delivers extraordinary results.
Looking back at school I know that what motivated me was two fold – my own long term goal and the quality of an inspired and informed teacher who had tutoring, moderating and teaching in their blood.
There’s a reason why research and teaching don’t mix. I’ve asked some academics about this and they have told me that they haven’t gone into the commercial sector, nor do they teach … ‘because they hate people’.
Where in these theories is the person?
This relationship, the rapport that can form between tutor and student is what is lacking and it is why, in my opinion, the lifes of the Oxbridge Tutorial, that one to one, or one to two or three hour long session once a week is far, far, far from dead.
Neuroscience is going to blow this allow out of the water.
Already the shift is very much in favour of genetics and the way our unique brains are formed as we develop as a foetus. It is nature, not nuture, so frankly, we can have anything thrown at us in terms of life experience and how we learn and how we respond will remain individual. This is the perspective of my father in law whose secondary education was the being in the Polish resistance during the Second World War, his first university a prisoner of war camp. He had England or the US as choices having decided not to return to Poland. And found himself learning English in Gateshead. The story continues … so what kind of learning was occuring in the POW camp?
He bartered lessons in German for lessons in English.
Social-situated in extremis.
Not that it can be injected into a class, and even less so in online learning, but ‘fear’ doesn’t half help turn a short term memory into one that will stick. Playing Devil’s Advocate, can ‘e-learning’ only ever be ‘cotton wool’ the safest, tamest learning you will ever recieve? Try reading an essay out in a tutor group – there’s fear! Try getting up in a hall of 300 people to make your point in a debating chamber – terrying. An odd conclusion to reach at the end of this reflection on the exercise – but where is the ‘fear’?
And I mean the right kind of fear, not the threat of the cane or other such punishment, but the fear of letting you down, or your side down, or of humiliation … against the public reward if you get something right?
Pinned down in a collapsed cellar in Warsaw my father in law believed he would die. He was the only one alive. Everyone else had been flattened. By some chance he had been standing under a beam that had partially protected him. He made promises he’d keep if he lived. He was found. A smash to the head.
Does learning have more impact when there is something at stake?
Try introducing this element into an e-learning module.
The impossible hypothesis – people learn better and make decisions with firmer convictions, where their life is at stake?
Then again we turn to neuroscience and will conclude that some will, some won’t, that the response of the individual to a shared experience means that you get as many different outcomes as there are people.
Institutions think that grades divide students – that’s only the tiniest fraction of what makes each person in that class different. If the student isn’t suitably self aware to know how to play to their strengths and managed their weaknesses then the observant tutor and others who are part of the institution should be doing this on their behalf – as parents, friends and siblings might do. Even with medical intervention.
The ‘Flipped classroom’ for me is finding ways to work with the individual who happens to be in a class that is probably already sorted by age and culture, if not also social class and gender.
And therefore already inappropriate.
Maybe the classroom has had its time. A short-lived interlude in human development over the last 70,000 years.
Related articles
- The flipped classroom (learnandteachstatistics.wordpress.com)
- Learning Turned Upside Down: The Flipped Classroom (benjaminnevas.com)
- Taxonomy of Learning Theories (mymindbursts.com)
Mapping Pedagogy and Tools for Effective Learning Design
This is an activity in week 7 of Open University postgraduate module H809: Practice-bases research in e-learning which forms part of the Masters in Open & Distance Education. Shared here, as in my student blog, in order to invoke discussion. I’ve successfully completed the MAODE so this is something of a ‘bonus track’ (I graduate in April then look onwards). The activity is drawn from the Conole et al paper referenced below. Theories are catergorised and a model produced to help define the learning theories that can be identified.
KEY
Green = Activated
Amber = Engaged
Red = Blocked
What concerns me is the belief that theories of learning, which academics have identified in education in the last 90 years, are either key drivers or influencers in the design of learning.
Surely these are all observations after the event.
Like trying to analyse a stand-up comedy routine using a set of plans and parameters – ‘Good Morning, Vietnam‘ comes to mind. As, I suppose would ‘Dead Poets Society‘ to bring in Robin Williams again. Was the Khan Academy a product of such analysis? No? An investment banker wanted to help his nephews out with their Math so he recorded some videos. Actually, I just realised my wife is doing this for a friend’s daughter who is learning French – creating bespoke French language pieces for her to practice on. I can’t even think what either of them are – behaviourist or social-constructive and experiential. I’m afraid, given what the academic ‘gurus of e-learning’ keep coming up with they are probably the least intuitive or inventive because their hands and minds are tied by this kind of thing.
Just my forming and fluid opinion.
If I want to develop a platform or school that uses e-learning I’ll go find myself a ‘Robin Williams’ kind of educator – someone has a natural flair for it, who engender a following, who most importantly delivers extraordinary results.
Looking back at school I know that what motivated me was two fold – my own long term goal and the quality of an inspired and informed teacher who had tutoring, moderating and teaching in their blood.
There’s a reason why research and teaching don’t mix. I’ve asked some academics about this and they have told me that they haven’t gone into the commercial sector, nor do they teach … ‘because they hate people’.
Where in these theories is the person?
This relationship, the rapport that can form between tutor and student is what is lacking and it is why, in my opinion, the likes of the Oxbridge Tutorial, that one to one, or one to two or three hour long session once a week is far, far, far from dead.
Neuroscience is going to blow this allow out of the water.
Already the shift is very much in favour of genetics and the way our unique brains are formed as we develop as a foetus. It is nature, not nurture, so frankly, we can have anything thrown at us in terms of life experience and how we learn and how we respond will remain individual. This is the perspective of my father in law whose secondary education was the being in the Polish resistance during the Second World War, his first university a prisoner of war camp. He had England or the US as choices having decided not to return to Poland. And found himself learning English in Gateshead. The story continues … so what kind of learning was occurring in the POW camp?
He bartered lessons in German for lessons in English.
Social-situated in extremis.
Not that it can be injected into a class, and even less so in online learning, but ‘fear’ doesn’t half help turn a short term memory into one that will stick. Playing Devil’s Advocate, can ‘e-learning’ only ever be ‘cotton wool’ the safest, tamest learning you will ever receive? Try reading an essay out in a tutor group – there’s fear! Try getting up in a hall of 300 people to make your point in a debating chamber – terrifying.
An odd conclusion to reach at the end of this reflection on the exercise – but where is the ‘fear’?
And I mean the right kind of fear, not the threat of the cane or other such punishment, but the fear of letting you down, or your side down, or of humiliation … against the public reward if you get something right?
Pinned down in a collapsed cellar in Warsaw my father in law believed he would die. He was the only one alive. Everyone else had been flattened. By some chance he had been standing under a beam that had partially protected him. He made promises he’d keep if he lived. He was found. A smash to the head.
- Does learning have more impact when there is something at stake?
- Try introducing this element into an e-learning module.
- The impossible hypothesis – people learn better and make decisions with firmer convictions, where their life is at stake?
Then again we turn to neuroscience and will conclude that some will, some won’t, that the response of the individual to a shared experience means that you get as many different outcomes as there are people.
Institutions think that grades divide students – that’s only the tiniest fraction of what makes each person in that class different. If the student isn’t suitably self aware to know how to play to their strengths and managed their weaknesses then the observant tutor and others who are part of the institution should be doing this on their behalf – as parents, friends and siblings might do.
Even with medical intervention.
The ‘Flipped classroom‘ for me is finding ways to work with the individual who happens to be in a class that is probably already sorted by age and culture, if not also social class and gender.
And therefore already inappropriate.
Maybe the classroom has had its time. A short-lived interlude in human development over the last 70,000 years.
REFERENCE
Conole, G, Dyke, M, Oliver, M, & Seale, J (2004), ‘Mapping Pedagogy and Tools for Effective Learning Design’, Computers And Education, 43, 1-2, pp. 17-33, ERIC, EBSCOhost, viewed 25 March 2013.
Related articles
- Where do I stand academically? Where and what next? And the madness of being. (mymindbursts.com)
- Editors’ Choice: Decoding Digital Pedagogy, pt. 1 and pt. 2 (digitalhumanitiesnow.org)
- Reading – nothing quite beats it, does it? (mymindbursts.com)
- Decoding Digital Pedagogy, pt. 1: Beyond the LMS (hybridpedagogy.com)
- Digital Pedagogy and MOOCification (hastac.org)
The right leader or teacher will greatly enhance the learning experience and project outcomes
How a ‘contagion of positive emotions’ from and of the right leader or teacher will greatly enhance the learning experience and project outcomes.
The problem is, you need to be there to get the vibe. I dare say parenting therefore has a huge impact on the developing child – nurtured or knackered?
But what does this say about the role of distance learning?
A bit, not a lot. Tutorials from time to time may pay dividends. We should stop being such e-learning purists and meet face to face when and where we can … at least online, if not in the flesh.
And before I go anywhere, thanks to someone for the link to this which I received in my daily maelstrom of Linked In forum threads, emails, comments and what not.
Advances in neuroscience may help us understand the internal mechanisms that enable some people to be effective leaders, and some not. Boyatzis (2011)
The leadership role is moving away from a “results-orientation” towards a relationship orientation. Boyatzis (2011)
People who feel inspired and supported give their best, are open to new ideas and have a more social orientation to others. Boyatzis (2011)
The difference between resonant and dissonance in relationships was tested, for example the difference between an inspired and engaging leader, compared to one who makes demands and sets goals.
While undergoing an MRI scan people were asked to recall specific experiences with resonant leaders and with dissonant leaders. When thinking about ‘resonant’ leaders there was significant activation of 14 regions of interest in the brain while with dissonant leaders there was significant activation of 6 and but deactivation in 11 regions. i.e. people are turned off by certain kinds of leadership. Boyatzis (2011)
The conclusion is that being concerned about one’s relationships may enable others to perform better and more innovatively– and lead to better results i.e. be an inspired, motivating leader, not a dictatorial or demanding one.
How therefore if running a course online does the course chair or a tutor engender these kind of feelings in their students?
The other lesson from this is to appreciate how quickly impressions of others get formed or the neural mechanisms involved.
First impressions count
They impact on how one person responds to another for some time to come. We are emotional beings, however much we’d like to control our behaviour.
The other idea is of ‘emotional contagion’ or ‘emotional arousal’ being picked up in the neural systems activate endocrine systems; that imitation and mimicry are important i.e. you cannot lead at arm’s-length – you have to be there, as must be your team, and by implication, where learning is involved, you students. Boyatzis (2011)
What you pick up in the presence of others is:
- the context of an observed action or setting
- the action
- the intention of the other living being.
‘A sympathetic hemo-dynamic that creates the same ability for us to relate to another’s emotions and intention’ (Decety & Michalaks, 2010).
There are three implications of these observations Boyatzis (2011):
- the speed of activation
- the sequence of activation
- the endocrine/neural system interactions.
Our emotions are determining cognitive interpretation more than previously admitted.
Our unconscious emotional states arouse emotions in those with whom we interact before we or they know it. And it spreads from these interactions to others.
Research has suggested that negative emotions are stronger than positive emotions which may serve evolutionary functions but, paradoxically, it may limit learning. Boyatzis (2011)
i.e. where the teacher shows leadership that engenders a positive response the learning experience is increased (think of the fictional character played by Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society, think of Randy Pausch the late Carnegie Mellon Professor of Virtual reality) … whereas negative emotions.
From a student’s point of view if you have a teacher you do NOT like (or no one likes) this will have overly significant NEGATIVE impact on your learning experience.
So it matters WHO and HOW you are taught, not simply an interest or passion for a subject.
‘A contagion of positive emotions seems to arouse the Parasympathetic Nervous System, which stimulates adult neurogenesis (i.e., growth of new neurons) (Erickson et. al., 1998), a sense of well being, better immune system functioning, and cognitive, emotional, and perceptual openness’ (McEwen, 1998; Janig and Habler, 1999; Boyatzis, Jack, Cesaro, Passarelli, & Khawaja, 2010).
The sustainability of leadership effectiveness is directly a function of a person’s ability to adapt and activate neural plasticity. Boyatzis (2011)
The SNS (Sympathetic Nervous System) and PNS (Parasympathetic Nervous System ) are both needed for human functioning.
They each have an impact on neural plasticity. Arousal affects the growth of the size and shape of our brain. Neurogenesis allows the human to build new neurons. The endocrines aroused in the PNS allow the immune system to function at its best to help preserve existing tissue (Dickerson and Kemeny, 2004).
I FOUND THIS PROFOUND
Leaders bear the primary responsibility for knowing what they are feeling and therefore, managing the ‘contagion’ that they infect in others.
(Is a disease metaphor and its negative connotations the appropriate metaphor to use here?)
It requires a heightened emotional self-awareness.
This means having techniques to notice the feelings, label what they are and then signal yourself that you should do something to change your mood and state.
Merely saying to yourself that you will “put on a happy face” does not hide the fast and unconscious transmission of your real feelings to others around you.
Leaders should be coaches in helping to motivate and inspire those around them (Boyatzis, Smith & Blaize, 2006).
But not any old form of coaching will help.
Coaching others with compassion, that is, toward the Positive Emotional Attractor, appears to activate neural systems that help a person open themselves to new possibilities– to learn and adapt. Meanwhile, the more typical coaching of others to change in imposed ways (i.e., trying to get them to conform to the views of the boss) may create an arousal of the SNS and puts the person in a defensive posture. This moves a person toward the Negative Emotional Attractor and to being more closed to possibilities.
REFERENCE
Boyatzis, R. (2011) Neuroscience and Leadership: The Promise of Insights Leadership | January / February 2011
Boyatzis, R.E., Smith, M. and Blaize, N. (2006) “Developing sustainable leaders through coaching and compassion, Academy of Management Journal on Learning and Education. 5(1): 8-24.
Boyatzis, R. E., Jack, A., Cesaro, R., Passarelli, A. & Khawaja, M. (2010). Coaching with Compassion: An fMRI Study of Coaching to the Positive or Negative Emotional Attractor. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Montreal.
Decety, J. & Michalska, K.J. (2010). Neurodevelopmental change in circuits underlying empathy and sympathy from childhood to adulthood. Developmental Science. 13: 6, 886-899.
Dickerson, S.S. & Kemeny, M.E. (2004). Acute stressors and cortisol responses: A theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research. Psychological Bulletin.130(3): 355-391.
Janig, W. & Habler, H-J. (1999). Organization of the autonomic nervous system: Structure and function. In O. Appendzeller (ed.). Handbook of Clinical Neurology: The Autonomic Nervous System: Part I: Normal Function, 74: 1-52.
McEwen, B. S. (1998). Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators. New England Journal of Medicine. 338: 171-179.
Asynchronous Spaced Education becomes synchronous and game-like
I might have interviewed Dr Price Kerfoot of Spaced-Ed for H807, ‘Innovations in E-learning’ a year ago.
I finally caught up with him this afternoon two weeks into the Spaced-Ed transmogrification that is Qstream.
We used Skype. Clear barely broken sound. Sharp video in colour. It worked.
It was a fascinating discussion.
I should have asked to record and done so.
Next time. I’m sure the conversation has only just begun.
Though armed with a set of questions used in TMA02 of H807 non were necessary. I’d prepared them to follow a narrative flow, and that is what we did.
We have something in common, we were both at Balliol College, Oxford.
I was there as an undergraduate 1984, he was there five years later as a Rhodes Scholar taking a BA in Medicine. Dr B P Kerfoot is now an Associate Professor of Harvard Medical School. He is also a passionate educator and e-learning entrepreneur. I suspect we will continue to hear a great deal about him – he has a passion for education, reminding me of the late Randy Pausch, even the Robin Williams character from Dead Poets Society; there is an unstoppable, engaging warmth backed by a profound intellect.
The narrative
Price had finished his surgical training when he went into education, an odd elective he admits, but one that through circumstances and surely an innate interest has proved fruitful.
What is the problem?
I didn’t need to make this prompt. You strive to fix something when you see it isn’t working. Learning outcomes from first year medical students were poor. Why, in US terms, spend $1000 dollars on a course only to find a year later that the traditional methods of acquisition and retention of knowledge has failed.
No problem, no fix.
Price looked to web-based teaching to create learning modules. Two concepts were devised, the spacing of questions proved successful. This is from one of a dozen papers authored by Kerfoot and his team; each one, naturally, a worthy, academic, professional appraisal.
Two reports are cited as we talk, one on the effect on the hippocampus of rats, another on phosphate levels in fruit flies. As an OU student these reports are readily available.
There is physiological evidence that ‘spaced learning works’.
This matters:
a) you want something that works,
b) you want something that will justify the investment.
We give it away, academics in the US are commercially savvy.
Its as if in the UK academics (individuals and institutions) are like bachelors and spinsters, whereas in North America they are eager to marry.
More importantly the research has shown that the Spaced-ed approach improves patient outcomes the goal it was found that cancer screening of patients improved by 40% for the year spaced-education was introduced.
In 2006 the methodology was submitted by Harvard for a patent application. Entrepreneurs and venture capital companies were also approached.
It’s a shame the Spaced-Ed blog hasn’t been maintained, though you’ll get some further insights here.
What began as continual education in medicine has expanded. If you go to the Spaced-Ed website there are all kinds of courses you can take, typically 20-30 questions of the multi-choice type fed to your laptop, SmartPhone or iPad. Writing these multiple choice questions is an effort and requires skill to get right,, indeed I can admit to wanting to create what I thought would be a simple set of questions relating to teaching swimming … but the correct construction of the questions, let alone the creation of appropriate images has held me back. It isn’t as easy to get this right as it looks. You don’t want to feed your audience lame questions, nor do you want to overstretchthem. There is also some negative feelings about Multi-choice, perhaps we have all had negative experiences at school … I personally remember what we described as ‘multi-guess’ that was so often used in Chemistry classes. Though clearly effective, not enough people have been persuaded to pay for these sets of questions, even a dollar or so.
The challenge, has been to move on from asynchronous to synchronous, real time learning, including video and other rich media. The new platform promoted as Qform is an Facebook App and Twitter-like in its approach. People elect to follow a Qstream which goes out to everyone. You join in collectively, rather than alone, which creates a sense of participation and competition. If I understand this correctly, as I’m yet to give it a go, you pose a response to an open question that others read. You then vote on the various responses given. As Price, engaging as Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society enthused about the platform I thought about Skype and Elluminate, even forum threads. Indeed, I wonder if we could all organise to be online and go to one of these threaded conversations to turn an asynchronous environment into a synchronous one. Harvard is also the home of Rotisserie, which rotates a threaded conversation between online learners to ensure that everyone has a turn… and of course Facebook.
Gameification is the key. You respond in a way that other s like and you get points for it and your name appears on a leader board.
Rich content and a range of responses is what’s new. And its live And its competitive
And so Qstream delivers synchronicity and a sense of community Price also talked about how to make it possible for answers to questions to become searchable in Google – I guess with the inclusion of the right metadata. I didn’t need to say it to find I’m told the more controversial responses would generate the most responses. Now it’s starting to sound like the format of the Oxford Union Debating Society – I guess Price went along there at some stage too. By listening to two sides battle it out you form your own opinion.
One final statistic – 85% of those studying urology in North America (that’s the US and Canada) are using Dr B Price Kerfoot’s 23 question Spaced-ed multi-choice Q&A.
The competitors are Quora, Stackoverflow and FormSpring or some such … I’ll go take a look.
REFERENCES
REFERENCE
J Gen Intern Med 23(7):973–8
DOI: 10.1007/s11606-008-0533-0
© Society of General Internal Medicine 2008
All the films I’ve ever seen (D)
The Dam Busters 1954
Damage 1992
Jeremey Irons vs Rupert Graves
Dances with Wolves 1990
In which Kevin Kostner got it right as performer and director
Dangerous Liaisons 1988
From Christopher Hampton’s play
Danny Champion of the World 1989
Jeremy Irons with his son Samuel in Roald Dahl’s book.
Danton 1982
Gerard Depardieu – I liked it!
The Dark Crystal 1982
My older brother adored it for some reason and got his hands on a programme. One for the kids. Shows what can be done with puppets.
Dave 1993
With Kevin Kline
David Copperfield 1934
Never bettered. With W.C. Fields as the definitive Mr Micawber.
Dawn 1928
In 1914 Brussels, Nurse Edith Cavel helps 210 English solders to escape before the Germans catch and execute her. (Maybe available at the IWM?)
The Dawn Patrol 1930 (remade 1938)
WWI Flying.
1938 Version with Errol Flyn and David Niven … supposedly on video.
The Day after Tomorrow 2004
Roland Emmerich gets it right again.
With Denis Quaid.
Day for Night 1973
Francois Truffaut. One I should see. For several years I read everything I could on Truffaut: biographies, letters and scripts.
The Day of the Jackal 1973
Edward Fox in his best film.
Days of Glory 1944
Gregory Peck as a Russian Peasant! On mid-afternoon BBC2 recently
Days of Thunder 1990
A Tom Cruise flop.
The Dead 1987
John Huston’s last
Dead Calm 1988
Nicole Kidman, Same Neill and Billy Zane. Simple and effective horror on a yacht.
Dead End 2003
A car accident horror film.
Dead of Night 1945
Dead Poets Society 1989
Robin Williams directed by Peter Weir
Dead Ringers 1988
Jeremy Irons in two roles in this weird horror from David Cronenberg.
Death Becomes Her 1992
Meryl Streept and Goldie Hawn.
Death in Venice 1971
Dirk Bogarde fancies a boy in Venince
Death on the Nile 1978
Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot. Often on TV.
Death Race 2000 1975
My car made brother loved this cult car race movie.
Death Wish +2/3/4
Michael Winner directs Charles Bronson.
Deep Impact 1998
This one with Robert Duval rather than Bruce Willis.
The Deer Hunter 1978
A classic with Robert De Niro and Christopher Walkern.
Delicatessen 1990
Brilliance from Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Deliverance 1972
John Borman gets it right with Burt Reynoldm Jon Voigt and Ned Beatty.
Demetrius and the Gladiators 1954
Victor Mature gets the Robe. Often shown around Christmas.
Demolition Man 1993
It works and introduces the lovely Sandra Bullock.
The Desert Fox 1950
James Mason as Rommel.
Desperately Seeking Susan 1985
A lively cast caught up in a silly situation. With Madonna, Aidan Quinn and Rosanna Arquette.
Diamonds are Forever 1971
Sean Connery as Bond.
The Diary of Ann Frank 1959
Dick Tracy 1990
Starts and directed by Warren Beaty
Die Another Day 2002
Piers Brosnan as Bond.
Die Hard 1988
Bruce Willis saves the day
Die Hard 2 1990
Died Hard with a Vengeance 1995
Against Jeremy Irons
Dinosaur 2000
Disney antics. Cost $ 127m to make. Made $318m
Dirty Dancing 1987
A great dating film. You always wanted to get laid afterwards. Patrick Swayze does it with Jennifer Grey.
The Dirty Dozen 1967
Lee Marvin et al.
Dirty Harry 1971
Clint Eastwood
Dirty Work 1933
Laurel and Hardy cause havoc
Disclosure 1994
Demi Moore seduces Michael Douglas … but he’s having nothing of it. Michael Crichton nonsense.
The Dish 2000
With Sam Neill
Diva 1981
Jean –Jacques Beineix at his best. Loved Richard Bohringer as Gorodech. For a long time my favourite movie of all time.
Divided We Fall 2000
Saw this while attending EAVE in 2001
Doc Hollywood 1991
With the diminutive Michael J Fox
Doctor at Large 1957
Dirk Bogarde
Dr Dolittle 1967
Rex Harrison in a film we saw on a rare family outing before the parents split up. Parked in the multi-storey behind the Odean on Northuberland Street, ate at the ‘Milk Maid’ around the corner … may have queued and sat in the Circle (never the stalls).
Doctor in Distress 1963
Dirk Bogarde and James Robertson Justice in a GB classic.
Doctor in Love 1960
This one memorable for the presence of Leslie Phillips
Doctor in the House 1954
The first in the series with Dirk Bogard and Kenneth More and James Robertson Justice. Sequels (some of which I may have caught on telly: At Seam, At Large, In Clover, In Trouble.)
Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde 1931
A scary classic
Doctor No 1960
Sean Connery in the first Bond movie of this lengthy, unstoppable series.
Dr Strangelove 1963
Peter Sellers in the brilliant hands of Stanley Kubrick.
Dr Who and the Darleks 1965
With Peter Cushing. Awful. Ricketty sets and black and white TV were better.
Doctor Zhivago 1965
Omar Sharif and Julie Christie directed by David Lean
Dogma 1999
A strange one wiht Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.
Donnie Brasco 1997
Al Pacino and Johnny Depp. One to see.
Donnie Darko 2001
Weirdfilm, great song from ‘Tears for Fears.’
Don’t Look Now 1973
Scary stuff, but great sex between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie.
One of Nicolas Roeg’s best.
The Double Life of Veronique 1991
Brilliance from Krzysztof Kiieslowski with Irene Jacob. Wonderful music from Zbigniew Preisner
Downfall 2004
Bruno Ganz as Hitler in his final days.
Downhill Racer 1969
Robert Redford skies.
Downtime 1997
Caspar Berry, Bharat Nalluri and Richard Johns make their first feature film … and succeed.
Dracula 1958
Peter Cushing as Val Helsing
Dracula. Dead and Loving it 1995
A hoot with Leslie Nielsen
Dracula Prince of Darkness 1966
Christopher Lee’s turn
Dragonheart 1996
Dennis Quaid and Sean Connery (as the Dragon)
Dreamchild 1985
Dreamscape 1984
Dennis Quaid and Max von Sydow.
Drop Dead Fred 1991
Phoebe Cates is driven mad (and so are we) by Rik Mayall
Drowning by Number 1998
Peter Greenaway with compelling music from Michael Nyman.
The Duellists 1977
Ridley’s Scott’s first movie outing.
