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Sustaining formative assessment with teacher learning communities

Dylan Wiliam

Sixth Form Colleges Forum 16-19 Summer Conference, 24 June 2010

www.dylanwiliam.net

Raising achievement matters…For individuals Increased lifetime salary (13% for a degree) Improved health (half the number of disabled years)Longer life (1.7 years of life per extra year of schooling

For societyLower criminal justice costsLower health-care costs Increased economic growth (Hanushek & Wößman, 2010)

Present value to UK of raising PISA scores by 25 points: £4trn Present value of ensuring all students score 400 on PISA: £5trn

because the world of work is changing

Autor, Levy & Murnane, 2003

Beyond Leitch (Patel et al., 2009)

In fact low skill jobs are vanishing…

Over the last eight years, the UK economy has shed 400 no-qualification jobs every day

Beyond Leitch (Patel et al., 2009)

…and recessions accelerate the trend…

The world’s leading manufacturersCountry Manufacturing value 2008 ($bn)

National total ($bn) Per person ($)

United States 1831 5926

China 1794 1342

Japan 1045 8197

Germany 767 9384

Italy 381 6322

United Kingdom 323 5206

France 306 4680

Russian Federation 256 1805

Brazil 237 1232

Republic of Korea 231 4636

Which jobs are off-shoreable?

Where’s the solution?Structure

Smaller/larger high schools K-8 schools/”All-through” schools

Alignment Curriculum reform National strategies

Governance Specialist Schools/Academies Private schools (Kunskapsskolan; Vittra; Pysslingen; Ultra)

Technology Computers Interactive white-boards

Workforce reforms Classroom assistants

Educational productivity 1996-2008

Source: Office for National Statistics

School effectivenessThree generations of school effectiveness researchRaw results approaches

Different schools get different results Conclusion: Schools make a difference

Demographic-based approaches Demographic factors account for most of the variation Conclusion: Schools don’t make a difference

Value-added approaches School-level differences in value-added are relatively small Classroom-level differences in value-added are large Conclusion: An effective school is a school full of effective classrooms

Between-school differences are smallProportion of 16-year olds gaining 5 GCSE grades at grade C or higher 7% of the variability in the proportion achieving this is nothing to do with the

school, so93% of the variability in the proportion achieving this is nothing to do with

the school

So, if 15 students in a class get 5 A*-C in the average school:17 students will do so at a “good” school (1sd above mean)13 students will do so at a “bad” school (1sd below mean)

Between-teacher differences are largeTake a group of 50 teachersStudents taught by the most effective teacher in that group of 50 teachers

learn in six months what those taught by the average teacher learn in a yearStudents taught by the least effective teacher in that group of 50 teachers

will take two years to achieve the same learning (Hanushek, 2006)

And furthermore: In the classrooms of the most effective teachers, students from

disadvantaged backgrounds learn at the same rate as those from advantaged backgrounds (Hamre & Pianta, 2005)

Improving teacher quality takes time…A classic labour force issue with 2 (non-exclusive) solutionsReplace existing teachers with better onesHelp existing teachers become even more effectiveReplace existing teachers with better ones? Increasing the quality of entrants to exclude the lowest performing 30%

of teachers would in result in one extra student passing a test per class every three years…

So we have to help the teachers we have improveThe “love the one you’re with” strategy

Getting serious about professional developmentLeft to their own devices, teachers will improve, but slowlyThe average improvement in student value-added by a teacher over 20 years

is one-tenth of the difference between a good teacher and a weak teacher on the first day of their teaching career.

Because we have been doing the wrong kind of professional development100 “Baker days”Professional “updating”Recertification

Bigger improvements are possibleProvided we focus rigorously on the things that matterEven when they’re hard to do

Teachers do improve, but slowly…

Leigh, A. (2007). Estimating teacher effectiveness from two-year changes in student test scores.

-0.4

-0.3

-0.2

-0.1

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0 5 10 15 20 25

Years in service

Extra months per year of learning

Literacy

Numeracy

.

People like neuroscienceDescriptions of 18 psychological phenomenaExamples: mutual exclusivity, attentional blinkDesigned to be comprehensible without scientific trainingEach phenomenon was given four possible explanationsBasic (without neuroscience)

Good explanation (provided by the researchers) Bad explanation (e.g., circular reasoning)

Enhanced (with neuroscience explanation) Good explanation Bad explanation

Added neuroscience did not change the logic of the explanationParticipants randomly given one of the four explanationsAsked to rate this on a 7-point scale (-3 to +3).

Sample explanations Good explanation Bad explanation

Without neuroscience

The researchers claim that this ‘curse’ happens because subjects have trouble switching their point of view to consider what someone else might know, mistakenly projecting their own knowledge onto others.

The researchers claim that this ‘curse’ happens because subjects make more mistakes when they have to judge the knowledge of others. People are much better at judging what they themselves know.

With neuroscience

Brain scans indicate that this ‘curse’ happens because of the frontal lobe brain circuitry known to be involved in self-knowledge. Subjects have trouble switching their point of view to consider what someone else might know, mistakenly projecting their own knowledge onto others.

Brain scans indicate that this ‘curse’ happens because of the frontal lobe brain circuitry known to be involved in self-knowledge. subjects make more mistakes when they have to judge the knowledge of others. People are much better at judging what they themselves know.

Seductive allureWithout neuroscience With neuroscience

Explanation Good Bad Good Bad

Novices (n=81) +0.9 –0.7 +0.9 +0.2

Students (n=22) +0.1 –1.1 +0.7 +0.2

Experts (n=48) +0.5 –1.1 –0.2 –0.8

Weisberg et al., 2008

Brains recognizing wordsGroup-level activations for recognition of words versus a baseline condition (Miller, et al., 2002)

Dissociation in the brain representation of Arabic numbers between native Chinese speakers and native English speakers (Tang et al., 2008)

Differences in activation intensity between native Chinese speakers and native English speakers in the perisylvian language region (A) and the premotor association area (B) of the brain (Tang et al., 2008).

Cost/effect comparisons

Intervention Extra months of learning per year

Cost/classroom/yr

Class-size reduction (by 30%) 4 £20k

Increase teacher content knowledge from weak to strong

2 ?

Formative assessment/Assessment for learning

8 £2k

The formative assessment hi-jack…Long-cycle Span: across units, terms Length: four weeks to one year Impact: Student monitoring; curriculum alignmentMedium-cycle Span: within and between teaching units Length: one to four weeks Impact: Improved, student-involved, assessment; teacher cognition about learningShort-cycle Span: within and between lessons Length:

day-by-day: 24 to 48 hours minute-by-minute: 5 seconds to 2 hours

Impact: classroom practice; student engagement

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Sustaining the adoption of formative assessment with teacher learning communities

A model for teacher learningContent, then process

Content (what we want teachers to change)Evidence Ideas (strategies and techniques)Process (how to go about change)ChoiceFlexibilitySmall stepsAccountabilitySupport

ChoiceBelbin inventory (Management teams: why they succeed or fail)Eight team roles (defined as “A tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate

with others in a particular way.”) Company worker; Innovator; Shaper; Chairperson; Resource investigator;

Monitor/evaluator; Completer/finisher; Team workerKey ideas

Each role has strengths and allowable weaknesses People rarely sustain “out of role” behavior, especially under stress

Each teacher’s personal approach to teaching is similarSome teachers’ weaknesses require immediate attentionFor most, however, students benefit more by developing teachers’ strengths

FlexibilityTwo opposing factors in any school reformNeed for flexibility to adapt to local constraints and affordances

Implies there is appropriate flexibility built into the reformNeed to maintain fidelity to the theory of action of the reform, to minimise

“lethal mutations” So you have to have a clearly articulated theory of action

Different innovations have different approaches to flexibilitySome reforms are too loose (e.g., the ‘Effective schools’ movement)Others are too tight (e.g., Montessori Schools)The “tight but loose” formulation… combines an obsessive adherence to central design principles (the “tight” part) with accommodations to the needs, resources, constraints, and affordances that occur in any school or district (the “loose” part), but only where these do not conflict with the theory of action of the intervention.

Small stepsAccording to Berliner (1994), expertsexcel mainly in their own domain.often develop automaticity for the repetitive operations that are needed to

accomplish their goals.are more sensitive to the task demands and social situation when solving

problems.are more opportunistic and flexible in their teaching than novices.represent problems in qualitatively different ways than novices.have fast and accurate pattern recognition capabilities. Novices cannot

always make sense of what they experience.perceive meaningful patterns in the domain in which they are experienced.begin to solve problems slower but bring richer and more personal sources

of information to bear on the problem that they are trying to solve.

Example: CPR (Klein & Klein, 1981)Six video extracts of a person delivering cardio-pulmonary resuscitation

(CPR) 5 of the video extracts are students 1 of the video extracts is an expert

Videos shown to three groups: students, experts, instructors

Success rate in identifying the expert: Experts: 90% Students: 50% Instructors: 30%

Looking at the wrong knowledge…The most powerful teacher knowledge is not explicitThat’s why telling teachers what to do doesn’t workWhat we know is more than we can sayAnd that is why most CPD has been relatively ineffective

Improving practice involves changing habits, not adding knowledgeThat’s why it’s hard

And the hardest bit is not getting new ideas into people’s heads It’s getting the old one’s out

That’s why it takes time

But it doesn’t happen naturally If it did, the most experienced teachers would be the most productive, and that’s

not true (Hanushek, 2005)

Hand hygiene in hospitals (Pittet, 2001)

Study Focus Compliance rate

Preston, Larson & Stamm (1981) Open ward 16%

ICU 30%

Albert & Condie (1981) ICU 28% to 41%

Larson (1983) All wards 45%

Donowitz (1987) Pediatric ICU 30%

Graham (1990) ICU 32%

Dubbert (1990) ICU 81%

Pettinger & Nettleman (1991) Surgical ICU 51%

Larson et al. (1992) Neonatal ICU 29%

Doebbeling et al. (1992) ICU 40%

Zimakoff et al. (1992) ICU 40%

Meengs et al. (1994) ER (Casualty) 32%

Pittet, Mourouga & Perneger (1999) All wards 48%

ICU 36%

We need to create time and space for teachers to reflect on their practice in a structured way, and to learn from mistakes(Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 1999)

“Always make new mistakes”Esther Dyson

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho

Sensory capacity (Nørretranders, 1998)

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

SupportTeacher learning is just like any other learning in a highly complex area In the same way that teachers cannot do the learning for their learners,

leaders cannot do the learning for their teachers

What is needed from teachersA commitment to the continuous improvement of practice; andA focus on those things that make a difference to students

What is needed from leadersA commitment to engineer effective learning environments for teachers :

creating expectations for the continuous improvement of practice keeping the focus on the things that make a difference to students providing the time, space, dispensation and support for innovation supporting risk-taking

Making a commitment…Action planningForces teachers to make their ideas concrete and creates a recordMakes the teacher accountable for doing what they promisedRequires each teacher to focus on a small number of changesRequires the teacher to identify what they will give up or reduce

A good action planDoes not try to change everything at onceSpells out specific changes in teaching practiceRelates to the five “key strategies” of AfL Is achievable within a reasonable period of time Identifies something that the teacher will no longer do or will do less of

…and being held to itI think specifically what was helpful was the ridiculous NCR forms. I thought that was the dumbest thing, but I’m sitting with my friends and on the NCR form I write down what I am going to do next month.

Well, it turns out to be a sort of “I’m telling my friends I’m going to do this” and I really actually did it and it was because of that. It was because I wrote it down

I was surprised at how strong an incentive that was to do actually do something different … that idea of writing down what you are going to do and then because when they come by the next month you better take out that piece of paper and say”Did I do that?” … just the idea of sitting in a group, working out something, and making a commitment… I was impressed about how that actually made me do stuff. (Tim, Spruce Central High School)

Teacher learning communitiesPlan that the TLC will run for two years

Identify 10 to 12 interested colleagues Composition

Similar assignments (e.g. early years, math/sci) Mixed-subject/mixed-phase Hybrid

Secure institutional support for: Monthly meetings (75 - 120 minutes each, inside or outside school time) Time between meetings (2 hrs per month in school time)

Collaborative planning Peer observation

Any necessary waivers from school policies

A ‘signature pedagogy’ for teacher learningEvery monthly TLC meeting should follows the same structure and sequence of activities

Activity 1: Introduction (5 minutes)

Activity 2: Starter activity (5 minutes)

Activity 3: Feedback (25-50 minutes)

Activity 4: New learning about formative assessment (20-40 minutes)

Activity 5: Personal action planning (15 minutes)

Activity 6: Review of learning (5 minutes)

Every TLC needs a leaderThe job of the TLC leader(s)

To remind participants about the next meeting To book a room for the meeting To ensure that all necessary resources (including refreshments!) are

available at meetings To ensure that the agenda is followed To maintain a collegial and supportive environment

But most important of all… not to be the formative assessment “expert”

Peer observationRun to the agenda of the observed, not the observerObserved teacher specifies focus of observation

e.g., teacher wants to increase wait-timeObserved teacher specifies what counts as evidence

provides observer with a stop-watch to log wait-timesObserved teacher owns any notes made during the observation

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