Teachers Make The Difference

Quality of teaching has the most impact on students achievement.

To see how big the difference was, (Hanushek, 2006)  took a group of 50 teachers. They found that students 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 year. On the other hand students taught by the least effective teacher in that group of 50 teachers will take two years to achieve the same learning.

Another study around this time showed that in the classrooms of the most effective teachers students from disadvantaged backgrounds learn at the same rate as those from advantaged backgrounds, while students with behavioral difficulties learn at the same rate as those without behavioral difficulties (Hamre & Pianta, 2005).

According to Dylan Wiliam (2011)

The most powerful teacher knowledge is not explicit

• That’s why telling teachers what to do doesn’t work
• What we know is more than we can say
• And that is why professional development is not on it’s own, effective

Improving practice involves changing habits, not adding knowledge

• That’s why it’s hard

• And the hardest bit is not getting new ideas into people’s heads
• It’s getting the old ones 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)

Hargraves and Fullan (2012) define to the quality of teaching, and the quality of the teachers as professional capital. They refer to research that shows the US teacher judgement systems that concentrate on removing those at the bottom and rewarding those at the top hasn’t shifted the overall quality of teaching.

It seems we can make judgements on teachers, but that doesn’t necessarily improve teaching.

So how do we go about improving this professional capital when teaching is recognised as being unforgivingly complex?

Teaching Inquiry

We are embarking on our inquiries for the year and the collaborative inquiry group I'm working with a group who are looking into follow up maths tasks. We know there's more that can be done to cognitively engage students when they aren't working with the teacher. The question is What?

At Pt England we have been working towards using a more problem solving approach in our teaching groups. Our flexible groupings encourage sharing of thinking and argumentation. But most of the time students are working independently.

Are the follow up tasks cognitively engaging?

Are they worthwhile?

Is what they do helping to lift maths achievement?

We want to trial different types of learning activities to help reinforce maths concepts and extend thinking.

To engage in professional inquiry that makes a difference for students, teachers need to learn how to identify the pedagogical content knowledge and skills they need to assist their students to achieve the valued outcomes. The core question is, “What do I as teacher need to learn to promote the learning of my students?”
Timperley