The importance of (learning and) teaching to the Institute of Education

Dylan Wiliam

A brief history of HE funding…Integration of funding pre-1992 and post-1992 universitiesResearch

Quality based mechanism (RAE) QR supports a maximum of 50% of academic staff salary

Teaching Quality-independent mechanism (tolerance bands) Fee caps too low for discrimination between providers Commodification of teaching

Future developmentsQuality-related student contributions to tuition costsNeed to achieve, and demonstrate, increased quality

The ‘death of distance’ for distance learning studentsbut also for students attending full-time

To secure its future, the Institute needs to become as demonstrably excellent for its teaching as it is for its research

Enrolment on modules in 2008

2006 2008

Mean: 15 18

Median 12 16

Mode 11 15

Policy minimum: 23 students per module

Teaching: a scarily complex activity

(Denvir & Brown, 1986)

…and we are largely on our own…Two extremesTeachers doing the learning for the learnersTeachers “facilitating learning”

Key conceptTeachers do not create learningLearners create learningBut all teachers can do is teach (learning vs. teaching)

Teaching is the engineering of effective learning environmentsPsychology underdetermines pedagogyTeaching is fundamentally a creative activityCreativity is very widely distributed, but often suppressed

The test of successful education is not the amount of knowledge that a pupil takes away from school, but his appetite to know and his capacity to learn. If the school sends out children with the desire for knowledge and some idea how to acquire it, it will have done its work. Too many leave school with the appetite killed and the mind loaded with undigested lumps of information. The good schoolmaster is known by the number of valuable subjects which he declines to teach.

(Sir Richard Livingstone, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1941)

Curriculum: a selection from cultureBalancedRigorousVertically integratedFocused

Principles of curriculum design

Signature pedagogies

In Law

In Medicine

Effective learning environmentsCreate student engagementpedagogies of engagement

Well-regulatedpedagogies of contingency

Develop habits of mindpedagogies of formation

Pedagogies of engagementIntelligence is partly inheritedSo what?

Intelligence is partly environmentalEnvironment creates intelligence Intelligence creates environment

Dual-pathway theory (Boekaerts) Well-being Growth

Learning environments InclusiveVariedEfficient

Active learning roles?The TIMSS video studies of middle-school mathematics classrooms looked at the proportion of teacher words to student words in randomly selected examples of classroom practiceUSA 8Japan 13Hong Kong 16

Hinge-point questionOn average, across all the award-bearing teaching at the Institute,how many teacher words are there per student word?

A. More student words than teacher words

B. About equal numbers of teacher words and student words

C. Three times as many teacher words as student words

D. Five times as many teacher words as student words

E. More than five times as many teacher words as student words

Motivation: cause or effect?

competence

challenge

Flow

apathyboredom

relaxation

arousal

anxiety

worry control

high

low

low high

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)

Pedagogies of contingencyLearning is unpredictableLearners do not learn what we teach It is only through assessment that we can connect what we do as teachers

to its outcomes (“like so many bottles thrown out into the sea”; Perrenoud 1998)

Assessment is therefore the bridge between teaching and learning, and thus the central process of teaching (as opposed to lecturing)

A large, and growing literature providing evidence of the beneficial effects of formative assessment

An assessment functions formatively when evidence about student achievement elicited by the assessment is interpreted and used to make decisions about the next steps in instruction that are likely to be better, or better founded, than the decisions that would have been made in the absence of that evidence.

Formative assessment therefore involves the creation of, and capitalization upon, moments of contingency (short, medium and long cycle) in instruction with a view to regulating learning (proactive, interactive, and retroactive).

Formative assessment

Dealing with diversityIgnore it (“one-size-fits-all”)

Individualize instruction (“made-to-measure”)

PersonalizationMass customization (rather than mass production or individualization)Diversity becomes a valuable instructional resource

Hinge-point questionAn experimental study of a new method of teaching reading reports that a result was significant (p<0.05). This means that:

A. The experimental group out-performed the control group by 5%

B. There is a 5% chance that the experimental group did not out-perform the control group

C. There is a 5% chance that there is no difference between the experimental group and the treatment group

D. There is only a 5% chance that the observed result would have happened if the experimental and control groups had the same achievement

Hinge-point questionWhich of the following is the most important difference between the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky?

A. Piaget places greater importance on the role of conservation in cognitive development.

B. Vygotsky places greater importance on the role of cultural artifacts in cognitive development.

C. Vygotsky did not believe in distinct stages of cognitive development.

D. Piaget was a social constructivist while Vygotsky placed greater emphasis on cultural-historical activity theory

Other supports for contingencyAll-student response systemsABCD cards“Exit-pass” questions

Hinge-point questionSummarize the key principles of the following schools of psychology on the appropriate coloured card Associationism (blue) Information processing (orange)Constructivism (red)Situated approaches (green)

Pedagogies of formationInstilling disciplinary habits of mindHistoryPhilosophyStatistics

Instilling critical perspectivesValues

Improving our practice

The limitations of consciousness

Sensory system

Total bandwidth (in bits/second)

Conscious bandwidth (in bits/second)

Eyes 10,000,000 40

Ears 100,000 30

Skin 1,000,000 5

Taste 1,000 1

Smell 100,000 1

(Nørretranders, 1998)

Knowledge ‘transfer’ and creation

aaa

Dialogue

Learning by doing

Socializationsympathised knowledge Externalizationconceptual knowledge

Internalizationoperational knowledge Combinationsystemic knowledge

Tacit knowledge Explicit knowledgeto

from

Tacit knowledge

Explicit knowledge

Sharing experience Networking

After Nonaka & Tageuchi, 1995

Senning Transitional Switch

Early death rateSenning 12%Transitional 25% Bull, et al (2000). BMJ, 320, 1168-1173.

Improvements in pediatric cardiac surgery

Life expectancy:Senning: 46.6 yearsSwitch: 62.6 years

Impact on life expectancy

No excuse for making the same mistakes over and over again

But no excuse for not making mistakes

“Make new mistakes” (Esther Dyson)

SummaryExcellence in teaching is vital to the future success of the InstituteEvery single one of us needs to improve as a teacherNot because we are not good enoughBut because we can be betterThe Institute needs to play a leading role in developing signature pedagogies for Education and related Social Science

Closing thoughts“In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and highest responsibility anyone could have.”

Lee Iacocca

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”

Marianne Williamson, A return to love