The Foundations of Teaching for Learning programme is designed for teachers and educators of all abilities and backgrounds; from those who are new to the classroom and looking for development, to experienced teachers ready to reboot their skills for modern education. With dynamic lessons taught by established and respected professionals from across the Commonwealth, this eight course programme will see you develop and strengthen your skills in teaching, professionalism, assessment, and more. As you carry on through the programme, you will find yourself strengthening not only your professional skills, but your connection with colleagues across the globe. A professional development opportunity not to be missed. This course will emphasise what you can do to act professionally. This includes developing your own philosophy of teaching and making sure that you continue to improve your knowledge and skills. It also considers what it means to be part of a community of professionals, working with others to improve what happens in your school, community and profession. Enhance your course by joining the Commonwealth teaching community on our website, Facebook and Twitter.
Evidence on effective teaching (2)
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Foundations of Teaching for Learning: Being a Professional
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Developing a personal philosophy of teaching
Building on the last three weeks, we will now consider the importance of developing a personal philosophy of teaching. We will look at the impact that teaching and schools can have on student learning and development, and on student lives more generally. We will examine research that demonstrates how and why views on the impact of teaching have changed over time, and consider some of the big challenges we face in ensuring that every student has access to quality teaching. We will also examine the concept of socio-economic status and its influence on student achievement. An important issue we will emphasize this week is the need for all teaching strategies and approaches to have a strong evidence base grounded in research. We will utilize effect size research to consider those strategies which have lesser and greater effects on student learning. We encourage you to reflect upon your values, beliefs, and current philosophy of teaching.
Rencontrer les enseignants
Professor Stephen DinhamChair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching
University of Melbourne, Australia
Professor John MacBeathProfessor Emeritus
University of Cambridge, UK
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Now, what about multiple intelligences?
This comes from the work of Howard Gardner and Project Zero at Harvard.
And this work originally arose because of an interest in things such as brain injury.
The notion here is that there's a range of intelligence types and
once again, if we could match our teaching to the particular intelligence that
the student is strong in, if you like, we could enhance their learning.
Howard Gardner himself is quite dismissive of this, and in fact has
raised quite strong concerns about how his work has been misused in education.
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There's also an associated YouTube clip
which goes into more detail, you might like to share this with colleagues.
Another concept of interest is that of constructivism. Now, there's good news and
there's bad news on constructivism.
Constructivism is how we make sense of the world on a daily basis,
how we experience new knowledge, experiences, and
we make adjustments in our minds basically about our understandings of things.
Constructivism is a legitimate theory of learning.
The problem is, constructivism is not a legitimate theory of teaching.
You can't teach in a constructivist way.
You teach as best as you can and
constructivism takes place in the minds of the people that you are teaching.
One of the problems with constructivism is the word itself, which implies it
is some sort of physical activity, and some people have taken this to mean.
Students will learn better if they use their hands,
if they make models for example.
And then we talk about social constructivism where students may well
work together on these sorts of projects.
Unfortunately, the review of the literature is not supportive.
Leaving students to their own devices to construct their own learning,
through things like unguided inquiry, have been found to be very,
very weak influences on student achievement.
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I'm now going to give you an example of something which can have a very
powerful effect on student learning.
Self-report grades have an effect size of over 1,
in fact approaching 1.5.
So, how can we use this particular technique and,
why isn't it used more widely?
Here's a number of steps that I have found to be very,
very effective in bringing together some of what we've just talked about,
with entity thinking, or an incremental view of intelligence, categorisation,
and so forth.
The first step is to carefully explain to students an assignment or
learning activity, including key terms and directions.
This is a very important place to start,
because if students do not have a clear idea as to what they
are being asked to do,
it almost guarantees they won't be successful.
Once students have a clear idea of what they are needing to do in terms of those
key terms and directions, we can give them what's called an assessment rubric.
A rubric is simply a list of criteria that are seen to
be important to complete the task.
And for each of these criteria which might include something like
include a glossary of terms include an illustration or some examples.
It could include things such as neatness for example, or working with others.
Once we've determined our criteria, an important point is to
demonstrate to students what good,
acceptable and quite possible unacceptable performance looks like.
This is very important in giving students an idea of the standard that we
are expecting.
Again, a problem with a lot of inquiry based learning or constructivist approaches, if you like,
is that students don't really have a good idea of the standard that's expected or
what good performance actually looks like.
Once you've used this technique for some time you can actually construct or
devise these criteria in conjunction with the students.
The third step now is that once students have a clear idea of
what they have to do, they understand the criteria that's going to be used
to assess their work and to guide their work,
and that's most important,
they can complete the activity.
Some people think rubrics are mainly about assessment,
but they can also be about learning.
Now, here's the key point,
once students have completed the activity, using the rubrics and
the examples as a guide,
and they've critiqued themselves as they've gone through or possibly with a fellow student
as to whether they've meet the standards required to assess their work using rubric.
And as I've mentioned, sometimes students can assess each other's work and
give each other feed back.
Now, the next important point here is that the teacher then
assesses the student's work using the rubric.
Now, it's most important at this point, that the teacher does not introduce
another criterion or variable that wasn't included in the original rubric.
For example, a teacher who said,
"I'm going to reduce your mark by 20%, because your work's untidy."
If tardiness was not an original criteria, for this assignment, or "I'm going
to reduce your mark by 30% because you were noisy when you completed the task."
Again, that would be non-congruent to the original feedback required.
The follow up key point here is that the teacher and
the student then compare their assessments and
it's very important here that the teacher is prepared to be flexible.
So, on the first criterion for example, the student may give themselves a B,
but the teacher might well say no in actual fact I
think you're an A on that particular criterion.
On the other hand, the teacher may discuss with the student the reasons why
they're actually a C rather than a B, and
hopefully the student will accept that reason behind that.
In this way, students gain deeper insight into why they're doing things,
the standard that's expected and they become self critical through judging their own work.
Now, would you use this activity, or this technique for every single lesson?
No, you wouldn't.
But it's an important training exercise in getting people to
think deeply about their work.
But I will guarantee one thing for you,
if you begin to use this technique on a regular basis,
the next time you do an activity, the students will ask you.
Can we assess our own work?
Can we use self-report grades on this particular activity?
Something else which has a large effect on student learning is
something called direct teaching.
Now, this is misunderstood quite widely.
Some people see direct teaching as either teaching from a textbook or
a teacher spending a lot of time speaking or lecturing students but in actual fact,
direct teaching is where the teacher orchestrates the learning of the student.
This connects with our previous work on self-report grades,
incremental views of learning and so forth.
The teacher has a clear understanding of what he or
she wishes to achieve in the lesson.
And has planned that lesson accordingly.
The teacher demonstrates to students, what is required.
The students attempt the task and gain constructive feedback on their efforts.
The teacher then, reassesses the effectiveness of the teaching,
reinforces, provides further examples, and ties the lesson together with closure.
This is not didactic teaching or simply talking to students.
This is not work from a textbook.
This is a teacher actively orchestrating the learning in the manner of
a conductor but also being flexible when needed,
when the teacher, for
example, is receiving feedback from students that they're not getting through
what it is they are attempting to do with the students.
An important aspect of effective teaching is feedback,
that is feedback from the teacher to the student.
In life, and in very many pastimes, and
hobbies, and occupations we learn by watching others,
by the advice of others,
by attempting to demonstrate ourselves what it is we're trying to do
and getting helpful feedback on that process.
It's very, very hard, for example, to learn to play a musical instrument or
to learn a sport such as golf without any feedback, whatsoever.
If students don't receive regular constructive feedback,
they can be frustrated.
They may not understand the standard that's required.
They may become disillusioned.
They may view themselves as being incapable of
mastering the particular task
and that's where entity thinking, again, takes over.
Feedback has a large effect size.
Hattie found a measured effect size of 0.73.
In my experience over a number of years with research in this area,
I've found that students need answers to four questions to move there learning forward.
The first is they need to know what they can do.
Not forever, because that's dangerous, entity thinking, but
what can they do at this present time, in say, year eight mathematics, for example.
What is it they can't do at this present time?
Where are the areas where they're challenged, for
example, they're having difficulty?
Now, frequently that is of the two things that we know as ticks and crosses,
and that's as much feedback as people get on their performance.
It's not helpful.
The third question need an answer to is,
how does my work compare with that of others in the standards expected?
This is more useful.
But again, we need to make sure that we're not giving people a view of
themselves that's either overly inflated.
In other words, we're trying to boost their self esteem.
Or we're giving them a view that their abilities are limited.
But the most important question of all is question four.
How can I do better?
And frequently, the feedback that we give to students does not
include this important developmental role or function.
What I suggest you do is have a professional discussion with
your colleagues about your current approaches to feedback.
Keeping in mind, feedback does not have to be only marks and grades.
In fact, we know from research that if we put a mark or
a grade on a student's piece of work, that's the first thing they go to,
and it either reinforces or not their own view of their ability.
If we want them to read our feedback, our written feedback for
example, it's actually better not to have a mark or grade on the paper.
In any case, here are some steps I suggest that you undertake with your colleagues.
The first is to actually consider your current approaches to feedback.
What forms of feedback are provided to students on their learning?
Verbal?
Grades?
Marks?
One to one discussions?
Here, some observation of each other's teaching can be quite useful.
What about our assessment methods?
What about the methods we're using to gain an understanding of
what our students can do?
Are they clear?
Valid? In other words,
they measure what they're supposed to measure.
Reliable?
In other words, we can measure what we're trying to measure consistently.
Is there a link between assessment and feedback?
In other words, is the feedback congruent, as I've mentioned previously.
An important point is
whether students understand the feedback that they're getting.
If it's a mark or grade that may not help them very much.
If it's a comment that includes some jargon,
students may find it difficult to understand that feedback.
Is the feedback students receive in your school, for example, infrequent? Unfocused?
Unfocused feedback would be something like "Work harder."
Is it unhelpful?
Is it inconsistent?
Is it largely negative?
Let me give you an example of inconsistent feedback.
I observed this one in a primary classroom.
A student had written several pages on a particular topic,
handed the work into her teacher, and the teacher provided this feedback,
"Six and a half out of ten - not enough detail."
The next time the student completed some work and
submitted it to the teacher, the feedback was as follows,
"Six and a half out of ten - too much detail."
In other words, the feedback was inconsistent, but it was also unhelpful.
On the other hand, if our feedback is focused, for example,
on a particular aspect of mathematics or a particular aspect of grammar.
Comprehensive, in terms of assisting the student to do better.
Consistent and improvement oriented,
including that important fourth question of how can I do better?
There'll be a much improved chance that that student will be
able to produce better work in the future.
Another important point is the feedback the parents receive and
often there are problems with language or understanding.
But there's also an issue here, where the parent may be
getting a message about the student's progress which is
inconsistent with the message the student is getting.
One thing that many parents find unsettling,
is when the school contacts them to say,
"We're concerned about the progress of your child."
when the parents only received positive feedback up until
this point through things like school reports.
So, as a result of this process,
how then can we provide our students with improved feedback?
And in some cases this doesn't mean more assessment and
more marking and more notes and so forth.
Because some of the feedback that we're giving, at the moment,
is probably largely ineffective
and we can stop doing it.
We'll also need to know how we will assess the impact of our feedback.
And I've worked with schools, where for example, pre-tests and
post-tests have been used to measure the effects before and
after of a new approach to feedback.
But just an important point to consider,
improved feedback is not a substitute for good teaching.
We still need very, very good teaching.
Otherwise the feedback is largely irrelevant or may even be harmful.
So, let's sum up some of the key research findings from effect size research.
Where the teachers actively involved in student learning,
there is a large to moderate effect on student achievement.
This includes techniques such as reciprocal teaching,
where the teacher teaches a student who teaches another student.
Feedback we've already mentioned as being an important influence on
student learning.
Self-verbalisation is where we get the student to articulate or
explain what it is they are doing in a particular task.
For example, the various steps in a mathematical problem and
how they're approaching those.
By doing so, they think carefully about the steps involved and
we can also pick up where they're making a mistake.
Direct instruction with the teacher orchestrates the learning.
Mastery learning where we ask the student to increasingly engage with more
difficult work that we've carefully structured.
All of these things have large to moderate effects on
student achievement.
However, so called facilitory learning, where students are left to
their own devices to construct their own learning, or to discover or
to inquire without much assistance,
we know that the effects sizes here are fairly small.
Finally, literacy is absolutely important to student achievement.
Literacy is fundamental to student learning.
Every teacher needs to be a teacher of literacy.
In other words, from the beginnings of primary school right through to
high school, literacy needs to be a central part of the curriculum, because so
much of schooling is literacy based.
We know, for example that in the early years of high school,
some students really start to struggle.
And in fact their performance may well go backwards.
And the reason for this is they don't have the literacy skills or
tools they need to take their learning any further forward.
So, literacy is fundamental and it is every teacher's responsibility.
And this is why we need whole school approaches to literacy improvement.
In our next session we're going to consider the issue of your values,
beliefs, and your current philosophy of teaching and education.
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