QAAET Conference- Teaching & Learning - Carole McBride

Teaching and

learning

Sunday, February 13, 2011 Quality Education & Training:

Towards a Better Future 1

Reviews of teacher effectiveness literature have identified a number of characteristics of effective teachers:

• They teach the class as a whole; • They present information or skills clearly and

animatedly; • They keep the teaching sessions task-oriented; • They are non-evaluative and keep instruction relaxed; • They have high expectations for achievement (give

more homework, pace lessons faster and create alertness);

• They relate comfortably to students (reducing behaviour problems)

Quality Education & Training:

Towards a Better Future

Research stresses similar aspects:

• Emphasise academic goals;

• Make goals explicit and expect students to be able to master the curriculum;

• Organise and sequence the curriculum carefully;

• Use clear explanations and illustrate what students are to learn;

• Ask direct and specific questions to monitor students’ progress and check

• their understanding;

• Provide students with ample opportunities to practise;

• Give prompts and feedback to ensure success;

• Correct mistakes and allow students to use a skill until it is over-learned

• and automatic;

• Review work regularly and hold students accountable for their work.



These stress teacher communication, assessment and feedback practices such as:

• Informing children through explaining, instructing and modelling;

• Reinforcing knowledge through repeating and reminding;

• Supporting learning through bringing different strands of knowledge together.

• The importance of different assessment strategies are also outlined:

• Assessment through interaction with children, such as questioning and testing;

• Assessment through closely observing children;

• Considering the evidence to understand progress and the learning of individual children



A model developed, which links three factors (professional characteristics, teaching skills and classroom climate) to progress.

The teacher’s role in creating an ‘excellent classroom climate’ is

stressed. • In primary schools, outstanding teachers scored more highly in

terms of behaviours related to high expectations, time and resource management, assessment and homework.

• At the secondary level the biggest differences were in high expectations, planning and homework.

• Three factors as identified as important in shaping learning opportunities in the classroom:

• Lack of disruption • Encouragement to engage • High expectations



Features of More Effective Teaching:

• Clear and coherent lesson in a supportive learning climate

• Engaging students with assignments and activities

• Positive classroom management

• Purposive learning

• Quality questioning and feedback for students

• These features can be seen as necessary and key characteristics of effective, high quality teaching across different sectors, subjects and contexts.

• Sammons & Ko 2008



Teaching

• Subject knowledge

• Lesson planning

• Classroom organisation

• Differentiation

• Use of resources

• Assessment

• Use of homework

Learning

• Engagement and motivation

• Interaction between students

• Collaboration and co-operation

• Enquiry and research

• Problem-solving

• Application to real life



• Why typical recommendations following review/evaluation/inspection are not enough to move schools forward

• (Inspection doesn’t improve schools – it diagnoses the problems)

• Sometimes schools do not know what they don’t know – they don’t know what ‘good’ looks like or how to get there…………….



What is the practical implication of ‘support students in developing problem-solving and critical thinking’….???

• Provide explicit instruction in strategies which can help solve different types of problems

• Coach and encourage students to use these strategies

• Invite students to explain the different strategies and steps they have used



‘Impactful’ teaching

• – teaching that makes a difference – lesson by lesson, week by week, year by year

• What is it that schools need to do to ensure that teaching makes a difference?

• The obvious as reflected in inspection/review criteria

• but significantly…….. Supporting students in

‘learning to learn’



Context: PPP Project December 2009. 33 teachers from 13 primary schools and kindergartens in Abu Dhabi

One-day professional development workshop on

learning how to conduct an action research project in an educational setting

Training included: • Designing research questions; • An introduction to qualitative and quantitative

research methodologies; • An overview of data analysis; • A brief discussion on research ethics.



Publication of each project including:

• The background to the research topic each chose and the reason they chose it;

• The methodology that they selected;

• The findings from their project;

• Conclusions and reflections on what was learnt and what might happen next.



‘Undertaking this action research project has been

a challenging but worthwhile experience. It has

allowed the school team to explore and discuss

the impact of their pedagogical practices. As

teachers it is very easy to get into the daily

routine of planning, delivering and assessing

without truly thinking about the effect we as

practitioners have on the children we teach.’

(Al Yassat Kindergarten, Abu Dhabi).’



Learning to learn has been defined as:

‘… a process of discovery about learning.

It involves a set of principles and skills which, if understood and used, help learners to learn more effectively and so become learners for life. At its heart is the belief that learning is learnable.’

(Lucas & Greany, 2000, p5)

Metacognition – the process of reflecting on one’s own learning – is central to learning to learn.



Learning to learn is about individuals understanding how they learn and developing their capacity to learn. It involves developing a range of skills and dispositions – amongst them:

self-organisation, communication, teamwork,

reflectiveness and self-awareness Learners taking responsibility for their

learning and participating actively in designing it.



These approaches aim to ensure learners are:

• Ready to learn in any context and at any age

• Able to tailor their approaches to learning to different contexts, appropriate to their individual needs and strengths

• Confident about learning something new

• Able to undertake independent learning

• Able to learn from others and undertake effective collaborative learning.



Cognition - describes the process of thinking, including an individual’s habitual mode of problem solving, perceiving and remembering(Cassidy, 2004).

Metacognition refers to the ability to regulate cognitive processes, as typified by Flavell’s (1979) ‘thinking about thinking’.

Conceptualisation of metacognition that is used in many studies (for example, Noushad

2008, Vukman 2005 and Higgins 2003).



• Being ready for learning • Being able to set and achieve goals • Knowing how to learn best • Harnessing creativity • Being able to reflect, adapt and change.

Metacognition underlies the last of these but is

also crucial to most of the others: Setting and being aware of how to achieve

goals, knowing how to learn best (which depends on the ability to reflect on one’s own aptitudes and preferences) and appropriate preparation all imply the self-awareness, higher order processing and planning that metacognition involves.



Embeds metacognition within the disposition of ‘reflection’, alongside other dispositions to improve learning:

• Resilience – being ready, able and willing to lock onto learning

• Resourcefulness – being ready, willing and able to learn in different ways

• Reflectiveness – being ready, willing and able to become more strategic about learning

• Reciprocity – being ready, willing and able to learn alone and with others.

Higgins (2007) and colleagues offer variations on this, in which Responsibility is added



When developing learning to learn approaches also take into account:

• Learning environment

• Individuals’ knowledge of a vocabulary to articulate their reflections on the learning process

These models and frameworks demonstrate that a holistic approach is required to develop effective learning to learn behaviour



• A literature review of effective practice in

England and abroad - Evangeline

Amalathas

• CfBT Education Trust /‘Campaign for

Learning’



‘Government must acknowledge the key importance of effective teaching and learning throughout all learning phases in order both to motivate learners to continue learning throughout their lives and to equip them with the skills to do so. The importance of flexible, transferable ‘soft’ skills as well as vocational skills cannot be overestimated in the current economic climate’.



• Uses research findings to identify the most

consistent indicators of school effectiveness

and their implications

• Provides practical direction, in a series of

Study Units, on how the research findings

can be translated into successful practice

• Forms the basis of a core professional

development programme for school

leaders and teachers



• Introduction and Guide for senior staff • Leadership • School self-evaluation and improvement

planning • Human resource management • Teaching and learning • Pupil behaviour and engagement • Engagement with parents • Promoting pupils’ personal development • Financial management



• A clear presentation of the main ideas

• The key processes required for successful performance

• Detailed method statements for each key process

• Questions and issues for reflection

• Materials from schools that exemplify aspects of the key processes

• A summary of related research

• A bank of web-based additional resource materials



• Putting teaching and learning at the heart

of the matter

• Supporting teachers to equip themselves

and their students with the necessary skills

for effective teaching and learning

• Developing the school as one in which the

‘5 R’s of learning’ are central to its culture



Documents

QAAET Conference- Teaching & Learning - Carole McBride