Wednesday, February 4, 2015

What makes great teaching? Reading reflection #28daysofwriting Day 4

Review of the underpinning research
Robert Coe, Cesare Aloisi, Steve Higgins and Lee Elliot Major
October 2014

I thoroughly recommend this read! I stumbled upon it in my facebook feed in the NZ Teachers (Primary) group.  Reading it on the back of a day of PLD at our Te Toi Tupu hui, adds a new lens and focus.  I found it to be a very easy read, with a stunning summary.  I am viewing it with a facilitator lens, continually asking myself how I can best facilitate/coach/mentor in my schools this year. 

I am including snippets of the reading, but really do implore you to have a read for yourself, as I have a facilitator lens, and may not present in a view that suits you, the reader.

“A framework for professional learning
This review set out to address three apparently simple questions:
 What makes ’great teaching’?
 What kinds of frameworks or tools could help us to capture it?
 How could this promote better learning?”

“What makes ’great teaching’?”
The six components of great teaching:
1. (Pedagogical) content knowledge (Strong evidence of impact on student outcomes)
2. Quality of instruction (Strong evidence of impact on student outcomes)
3. Classroom climate (Moderate evidence of impact on student outcomes)
4. Classroom management (Moderate evidence of impact on student outcomes)
5. Teacher beliefs (Some evidence of impact on student outcomes)
6. Professional behaviours (Some evidence of impact on student outcomes)

How do these transpose for the six components of great facilitation? 

“What kinds of frameworks or tools could help us to capture great teaching?”

Assessing teacher quality through multiple measures
Six approaches to teacher assessment
            1. classroom observations by peers, principals or external evaluators
2. ‘value-added’ models (assessing gains in student achievement)
3. student ratings
4. principal (or headteacher) judgement
5. teacher self-reports
6. analysis of classroom artefacts and teacher portfolios
Classroom observations
Measuring student gains
Student ratings

How do I take these findings and interpret and implement them for my facilitative role?

“How could this promote better learning?”
“Six principles of teacher feedback
Sustained professional learning is most likely to result when:
1. the focus is kept clearly on improving student outcomes;
2. feedback is related to clear, specific and challenging goals for the recipient;
3. attention is on the learning rather than to the person or to comparisons with others;
4. teachers are encouraged to be continual independent learners;
5. feedback is mediated by a mentor in an environment of trust and support;
6. an environment of professional learning and support is promoted by the school’s leadership.”

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As we have journeyed over the past few days of PLD, the challenge is making the connections and strengthening our focus on the ‘black box’ the area between our support and student outcomes. 

It has been a privilege to work through a process of thinking, wondering, dreaming, defining, how we can best work in the ‘space’ within the ‘black box’.



Our ideas to date include:
·      Our way of working model
·      UDL
·      T@I
·      Mentoring

Our way of working model has been a team effort to really focus our way of supporting clusters of schools to promote best outcomes for all our learners.



A Universal Design for Learning (UDL) umbrella, overlaying everything we do.  Unpacking this to share what this will look like, feel like and be, for before our sessions, during our sessions and after our sessions, has been a powerful learning journey for our team. 





Teaching as Inquiry T@I is our vehicle for our contract.  Sharing of our T@Is across schools, clusters and beyond, allows for networking and collaboration to best meet needs and support journeys. 

Mentoring our e-leaders to grow capacity and capability within and across schools in an exciting opportunity

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Rosenshine (2010, 2012) ten principles are:

1. Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning


2. Present new material in small steps, with student practice after each step


3. Ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students


4. Provide models for problem solving and worked examples

5. Guide student practice

6. Check for student understanding

7. Obtain a high success rate 


8. Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks 


9. Require and monitor independent practice 


10. Engage students in weekly and monthly review 




Fixing versus Firing is a very interesting concept looking at the merit and place of formative and summative assessment.

Hattie & Timperley argue that effective feedback answers three questions (‘Where am I going?’, ‘How am I going?’ and ‘Where to next?’) and operates at four levels: the task (‘How well tasks are understood/performed’); process (‘the main process needed to understand/perform the task’); self-regulation; and self level (‘Personalevaluations and affect […] about the learner’). p 39

Principals can help by ‘developing a vision of how teaching might impact on student outcomes, managing the professional learning environment, promoting a culture of learning within the school, and developing the leadership of others in relation to curriculum or pedagogy.’ p40

As facilitators, we are charged with supporting principals to develop this vision for our clusters, whereby we are all journeying for the good of all our learners. 

Summary from Timperly 2008, to enhance teaching, professional learning:
 Must focus on and be measured against student outcomes;
 Encourage ‘self-regulation’ among teachers who need to embrace the
experience as independent learners and sustain the techniques;
 Require some input from school leaders;
 Involve, ideally, collaboration with peers;
 Be a genuine challenge.


A thoroughly enjoyable read that I commend to you all!

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