Schooling Improvement: What do we know?
Helen Timperley
Professor of Education
The University of Auckland
New Zealand
Teachers Make the Difference –
but they can’t do it on their own
Source: OECD (2010). PISA 2009 Results (Vol. II), Figure II.3.3, page 58
Source: OECD (2010). PISA 2009 Results (Vol. II), Figure II.3.4, page 59
Today’s FocusTeachers make the difference• Teacher learning as developing adaptive
expertise• Inquiry and knowledge-building as formative
assessment• What this means / doesn’t mean
- but they can’t do it on their own• Weaving evidence, inquiry and standards to
build better schools
Adaptive and Routine Experts
Adaptive experts:• Flexibly retrieve, organise
and apply professional knowledge
• Recognise when old problems persist or new problems arise and seek new information
Routine experts:• Apply a core set of skills
with increasing fluency and efficiency
• Based on notions of novice to experts
The Challenge: Shift from thinking about routine to
adaptive expertise
What knowledge
and skills do our students
need? What knowledge and skills do we
as teachers need?
What has been the
impact of our changed actions? Deepen
professional knowledge and
refine skillsEngage
students in new learning
experiences
Teacher inquiry and knowledge-building cycleto promote valued student outcomes
Framing some Formative Assessment Questions
• Where am I going
• How am I going
• Where to next
Where am I going
• For teachers this means:– For their students
• What vision of what they should know, do and be?
• Specifics of that context e.g. Numeracy
– For themselves• As a professional• In that context e.g. An effective numeracy
teacher
The Challenge• How explicit are these kinds of vision for your
students and yourselves– E.g. If you use the inquiry cycle – do you relate it
to a bigger picture vision of the kind of professional you want to be?
– Do you refer to students as underachieving or those whose learning needs are not being met?
• What problems might arise from leaving these bigger picture ideas under the surface?
How am I going
• Teachers two levels in a formative assessment framework– Themselves - Their students
What knowledge
and skills do our students
need? What knowledge and skills do we
as teachers need?
What has been the
impact of our changed actions? Deepen
professional knowledge and
refine skillsEngage
students in new learning
experiences
Teacher inquiry and knowledge-building cycleto promote valued student outcomes
Some Challenges• Beliefs about the purposes of assessment
– Students’ capabilities or teaching effectiveness?
• Current levels of satisfaction with how well students are learning
• Difficulty of assessing teachers’ knowledge and skills – self-perception unreliable
• It’s an emotional exercise
Principal and two teachers’ talking about a group of Samoan Year 4
students [meeting in May]
Principal: When you saw the writing results for the group what was your first reaction? How did you interpret that data?
Teacher: It reinforces what I had seen in their first writing assessment - there was little structure in the surface features … so it was in my opinion very low but predictable.
• What is the teacher’s theory of action?• How could the principal/facilitator challenge it?
Linking the IdeasAdaptive experts
• Assessment is about the effectiveness of teaching
• Investigating teaching effectiveness is essential to improvement
• The inquiry cycle provides a framework
• Emotionally exciting – sometimes uncomfortable
Routine experts
• Assessment is about how well students learn
• Investigating teaching effectiveness undermines professionalism
• Inquiry cycle is a series of steps to endure
• Emotionally threatening
How do you deal with the emotional stuff in your school?
• Work with the willing and leave the unwilling alone?
• Skip the bits that might push someone’s buttons?• Don’t push the boundaries too hard?
OR SYSTEMATICALLY DEVELOP ADAPTIVE EXPERTISE
• Unpack the level at which your ideas are in competition with theirs and why they are feeling threatened?
• Debate the competing ideas?
Where to Next
Students
Teachers
Deepen knowledge
Learning experiences
Impact
Where to Next • Based on analysis of first two parts of cycle
– Driven by teachers “need to know”, not someone else’s “desire to tell” you
• Grounded in evidence about teaching and learning in the particular situation
• Systematically builds theoretically informed knowledge and practice– Parr & Timperley (2010) r=.685, p<.01
• Fundamental difference from reflective practice
What it means and doesn’t mean
What it means
• Start with student outcomes
• Integrate assessment, curriculum and how to teach it
• Integrate theory (why) and practice
• Assessment is about teaching effectiveness
What it doesn’t mean
• Start with a new idea about teaching
• Have separate courses on the three areas
• Just focus on the practice
• Assessment is about students’ capabilities
What it means and doesn’t mean
What it means
• You need multiple opportunities to learn and apply new knowledge
• Approaches are responsive to your learning needs
• Those who work with you have expertise and understand you as a learner
What is doesn’t mean
• Going to one-off workshops and forgetting it all the next day
• Approaches based on the “one size fits all” principle
• Those who work with you expect you to immediately understand and get it right
Where to Next
Students
Teachers
Deepen knowledge
Learning experiences
Impact
Students’ needs To meet the sixth form challenge –independence reflection
T eac hers ’ inquiry H ow do we help s tudents to meet the s ixth form challenge and resolve the paradoxes?
C hec king outc omes S tudent voice; evidence of learning to meet s ixth form challenge; A -level pas ses .
S tudent opportunities C lassroom observations
K nowledg e / s kills Indicators of s tudent
learning; s trategies for resolving paradoxes
If we are to make a difference• The national problem becomes a school problem and
a focus in your classrooms
• Your schooling improvement focus is to teach those students under-served in our schools in a supportive school environment that develops your adaptive expertise
• Then your “need to know” drives the learning agenda to meet the needs of all the students in your schools