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