Beyond the black-belt

There is a saying in martial arts that when a student makes it to black-belt, the real learning begins. We should be seeing teaching through the same lens. When teachers enter the classroom for the first time, the learning begins and it must never stop.

Professional learning and feedback go hand in hand to improve teacher effectiveness.

Research shows that ongoing professional learning is critical to improving teacher effectiveness but so too is the role of teacher evaluation. Without evaluation, professional learning cannot be individualised to improve teacher practice.

Last year, the Grattan Institute published its report into teacher appraisal, Better Teacher Appraisal and Feedback: Improving Performance, which shows that a system of teacher evaluation can increase effectiveness by 20 to 30 percent. The problem in the past has been the ad hoc nature of teacher evaluation – often infrequent or failing to provide teachers with valuable feedback and/or strategies to improve student learning gains.  By integrating teacher evaluation into every aspect of teaching and learning, we create a culture of success for teachers, which leads to success for students.

Linda Darling-Hammond discusses the role of teacher evaluation in an article in the November 2012 edition of Kappan and states that systems must ensure “teacher evaluation is connected to – not isolated from – preparation and induction programs, daily professional practice, and a productive instructional context.”

Darling Hammond outlines five key features of a teacher effectiveness strategy:

1. Common state-wide standards for teaching related to meaningful student learning and shared across the system (what should teachers know and do to be able to support the learning of every student)
2. Performance based assessments based on these standards (linking teacher effectiveness to student learning gains)
3. Local evaluation systems aligned to the same standards for on the job teaching based on practice and student learning (creating a continuum of competency for professional learning at every stage of teachers’ careers)
4. Support structures to ensure trained evaluators can mentor teachers
5. Aligned professional learning opportunities

These points illustrate the need for the teaching profession to work collaboratively to develop a common language around learning, a common understanding of what good practice looks like and a common process for measuring it.

Jason Culbertson’s article, Putting the value in teacher evaluation, also reflects on a teacher evaluation system called TAP which is currently being used in 380 schools around the US.  The TAP evaluation system includes a number of classroom observations every year by experienced evaluators. This is followed by conferencing in which the evaluator and teacher examine an observed strength, weakness and an individualised plan for improvement.

According to Culbertson, the most important result from this process is the common language developed around what effective teaching looks like. The standards provide teachers with a very clear understanding of what “performance looks like at various levels of expertise in a range of classroom practices and skills” which led to the most accomplished teachers ‘recalibrating their expectations’.

What appeals to me about the TAP method is that strategies are not only selected by ‘master teachers’ based on analysis of student data but are road-tested and refined in classrooms before teachers introduce it into their own classrooms.  In this way, teachers are not dropped into the deep end to ‘sink or swim’ but are given a solid foundation on which to trial, collaboratively reflect and if necessary, refine strategies to improve student learning.

It is easy to assume that teachers should instinctively know how to improve their practice or that they begin their career armed with all the knowledge and skills required.  But as Darling-Hammond and others point out – teachers just like students, need clear objectives, constructive feedback and opportunities to succeed.

There’s something about data

In thinking about the way we use data in the classrooms, I came across an interesting blog post in the Harvard Business Review.

In challenging businesses to loosen their reliance on data, Roger Martin writes:

We have a deep seated desire to quantify the world around us so that we can understand it and control it.  We must…consider the possibility that if we can’t measure something, it might be the very most important aspect of the problem.

Data should be seen as complementary to the relationship between student and teacher.  At its very heart, learning is a relational process and quality learning depends on the strength and depth of the relationship since it involves building trust based on mutual respect.  How do you measure these sorts of domains?  How do you report on these?  If we only rely on quantitative data, we are doing a grave disservice to the learning and teaching process.

I believe data gives us the best indicator of where students are struggling; it will never replace the responsibility of teachers in asking why and how based on the mutual respect.

Part of the problem with teachers and principals using data effectively is that like many in the business world, they have a natural inclination to resist  the use of quantitative data to inform practice because they understand the issues above.  However, it should never be an either/or – there has to be room for all forms and sets of data not just the most accessible or easily comprehensible.

Our focus is to help principals understand the data so they can challenge their own learning communities to ask why and how.

Asking more simple questions

All too often, we spend too  much time swimming in our own billabong when there is a river nearby that runs into a vast ocean of diversity, capacity and inspiration.

My thanks to Frank Crawford for bringing to my attention these links from Learning and Teaching Scotland.

These examples demonstrate the power of feedback in the continual school improvement cycle.

What we often miss is the role of parent engagement and feedback.  The Scottish and UK experience provides a good blueprint for engaging parents in the learning agenda and school design process.

What makes an excellent school?

What is good learning and teaching?

From PD to PL

Is there a fundamental difference between professional development and professional learning?  Can teachers be doing PD and teaching at the same time?

If we define professional development as a one-off activity that takes place outside of classrooms, the answer is no.

Professional development is a remnant of the 20th century when perfecting routines and tasks (productivity) were important than collaboration and innovation (creativity).

As part of the rollout of the national curriculum, the Federal Education Minister conceded the need for professional development to ensure teachers are ’tooled up to teach the national curriculum’.

I believe that tooling teachers does not necessarily transform teachers.  Effective teachers are life-long learners.  They become as Bransford et al says adaptive experts who can give up ‘old routines and transform prior beliefs and practices.’

In moving from professional development to professional learning, teachers will inevitably take greater responsibility for their own and their students’ learning. School leaders take greater responsibilty for teacher-learning and systems provide the necessary support and conditions to enable this to happen systematically.

Evaluating performance, seeking feedback and asking questions of students and colleagues happens on the job – as part of the process of improving teaching.

Isn’t it time governments, media and teacher unions recognised the difference between professional development and professional learning?

The science of learning

How many of us have fond memories of Year 9 science?   I suspect most of us don’t unless we had a natural aptitude for the subject.

The reality is it probably had something to do with the way the subject was taught – a one size fits all approach to science that was far removed from our lives and yet integral to understanding  the world around us.

For John Hattie, a good teacher is able to turn on the challenge of physics, chemistry or Year 9 science for every student. 

Greg Whitby and Year 9.3 Science at Parramatta Marist

Last week, I was invited into a Year 9 science class and saw young men challenged and engaged in their learning.  Their teacher, Br Anthony is using a project-based learning (PBL). Click here to listen to Br Anthony on PBL.

I found it an engaging experience to watch two students (whom I later discovered have been struggling) stand in front of their peers and deliver a presentation on “Energy and Ecology”.

The subsequent class discussion of which I was a part, on global warming and alternate energy sources was lively and well-informed and it’s encouraging to know that these students see themselves as part of the solution!

I saw a science teacher who was passionate about his subject and committed to using PBL to engage and challenge students in a real-world context and showcasing their work.

Teaching is a science and good teaching is about the continual examination of the evidence of what you are doing and how it is impacting on learning outcomes. At its very core is a fundamental understanding of the learner. 

There are many more examples like this – we  just need to share them.

 

The ‘f’ word

Michael Fullan recently addressed 100+ of our aspiring leaders in the context of leading change and learning in their schools.

This was a marvellous experience for leading teachers to be exposed to someone of Fullan’s calibre – armed with research and case studies on what makes an effective school leader.

It is evident that one of our greatest challenges as a system is how we continue to recognise leading teachers, how we develop their leadership and more importantly connect them with similar cohorts to expand the depth of talent across the profession.

Part of the process of challenging and empowering teachers is ensuring that core messages around instructional practice, collaboration, effective use of data and feedback etc are being disseminated across all levels.  As one of the principals of Fullan’s ‘turnaround schools’ explained – you need to know the message is getting past the usual bottle-necks.  To ensure teachers are across the agenda requires constant…… ‘feedback’.

I know many leaders and educators are uncomfortable with the ‘f’ word but it is critical to how we lead and plan.  It begs the question of how we encourage principals in every school (large, small, primary, secondary) to seek honest feedback and evidence of their own school improvement strategies? Why do we too often feel uncomfortable getting and giving feedback?

For Fullan, building strong communities of practice comes from building communities of trust.  As a system, we need to continually measure the temperature of trust and progress if we are to see what is working and what needs to be done next. This is the way to overcome this “uncomfortableness.” Learning becomes the focus of the work not individual performance.

In raising the bar, we need to be rigorous in our approach to gathering feedback and presenting evidence.  It requires not only a common language of learning but as John Hattie recently said ‘a common indicator of progress that is applied across every school’.  This ‘common’ but sharply focussed lens provides schools, systems, parents, governments with an honest snapshot from which we can understand, monitor and promote good learning rather than judge school performance.

Taking this approach builds the credibility of the profession as well, and will place the profession in the centre of developing education policy – not at its margins

Tweetback

I’m amazed by the power of Twitter to turn one thought or comment into a million directions……

Reporting on how the Twitter phenomenon has changed the rules of engagement and social commentary, Steven Johnson writes (Time, June 2009):

We are living through the worst economic crises in generations…. and yet in the middle of this chaos…ordinary users are figuring out all the ingenious ways of putting these tools to use….here we are – millions of us – sitting around trying to invent new ways to talk to one another.

A few weeks ago I was at a conference in Perth where participants were engaged in a Twitter conversation within and outside of the conference regarding my keynote.

Last weekend, I was introduced to someone for the first time who told me they had been following me on Twitter for sometime.

How’s that for instant feedback!

As more people tap into the wisdom of the Twitter crowds, I am interested to see how it will be applied in learning spaces. Here are nine reasons why teachers should use twitter and twenty-two interesting ways to use Twitter in classrooms.

Twitter has the capacity to be a powerful tool for feedback (or Tweetback) particularly student to teacher feedback, which Hattie says is the most powerful form of feedback: teachers observing what students understand, where errors are made and when they are not engaged.

Parent feedback

As the league table debate simmers, I’ve been giving thought to how we build greater levels of understanding about student achievement between schools and communities; especially parent communities. This way we build a culture of trust and enquiry.

I believe that all too often our definition of a school community is predicated on the notion of teachers as expert and parents as carers. This places parents at the periphery of the school learning experience as if it were something quite distinct from the learning taking place within the home. Too often parents defer to the “expert” the teacher because they feel that he teacher always knows best.

Our goal has to bridge the gap between what we know about schooling based on contemporary theory and exemplar practice and what parents know about schooling.

For me, part of the process of school accountability and performance relies on feedback from students and parents.  Too often though we dismiss negative feedback – depriving ourselves of a valuable tool for seeking broader engagement, gaining trust and finding new and effective strategies for learning.

I have referred to schools in the UK that, like Reggio-Emilia exist and thrive as an eco-system, a global village where everyone whether it is the cook, parent or teacher has something value to contribute to education.

A quote to ponder from Carina Rinaldi, executive consultant for Reggio Children:

…the school-family is practised not only as an individual relationship between parent and teacher, and certainly not as a relationship of subordination in which the teacher tells the parent what he or she should do, what is right or mistaken.

Rather it is a common journey for building together – parents and teachers – values and ways of educating in contemporary society, inside and outside school.

We have a responsibility therefore to join the parents into the same learning journey that their kids are experiencing. We have exciting new ways to do so