Andrew Pollard

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Improving Teaching and Learning

• Andrew Pollard
• Institute of Education, University of London, UK
• Graduate School of Education, University of
  Bristol, UK

ELTDP Symposium, Kuching, 20th February, 2013
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• Contemporary challenges?
• International evidence
• Professionalism for the future
• TLRP
• Making sense through principles
• Making sense through conceptual tools
• Looking to the future?

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• Contemporary challenges?
• International evidence
• Professionalism for the future
• TLRP
• Making sense through principles
• Making sense through conceptual tools
• Looking to the future?

4
Contemporary challenges? Key aims

• Education plays a central role in any countrys
  pursuit of economic growth and national
  development.
• In todays global economy, a nations success
  depends fundamentally on the knowledge, skills
  and competencies of its people. It is no surprise
  that nations with higher education levels tend to
  enjoy greater economic prosperity.
• Education is also fundamental to nation building
  and unity. It provides individuals with the
  opportunity to improve their lives, become
  successful members of the community and active
  contributors to national development.
• Through interacting with individuals from a range
  of socio-economic, religious and ethnic
  backgrounds and learning to understand, accept
  and embrace differences a shared set of
  experiences and aspirations for Malaysias future
  can be built.
• (Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013-2025,
  preliminary report)

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Contemporary challenges? Present results

• The results from PISA 2009 were discouraging,
  with Malaysia ranking in the bottom third of 74
  participating countries, below the international
  and OECD average.
• Almost 60 of the 15-year-old Malaysian students
  failed to meet the minimum proficiency level in
  Mathematics, while 44 and 43 did not meet the
  minimum proficiency levels in Reading and Science
  respectively.
• A difference of 38 points on the PISA scale is
  equivalent to one year of schooling. A comparison
  of scores shows that 15-year-olds in Singapore,
  South Korea, Hong Kong, and Shanghai are
  performing as though they have had 3 or more
  years of schooling than 15-year-olds in Malaysia.
• (Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013-2025,
  preliminary report)

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Contemporary challenges? New ambitions

• Historically, the Malaysian education system,
  like others around the world, has emphasised the
  development of strong content knowledge in
  subjects such as science, mathematics, and
  language.
• There is increasing global recognition that it is
  no longer enough for a student to leave school
  with the 3 Rs.
• The emphasis is no longer just on the importance
  of knowledge, but also on developing higher order
  thinking skills.
• (Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013-2025,
  preliminary report)

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Contemporary challenges? Equitable outcomes

• An equally important objective for the system is
  to ensure that student outcomes are equitable.
  Unfortunately, to date, the outcomes have been
  uneven.
• States with a higher proportion of rural schools,
  like Sabah and Sarawak, on average, perform
  poorer than states with less rural schools.
• The gender gap is significant and increasing.
  Girls consistently outperform girls at every
  level with females comprising approximately 70
  of the cohort at university level.
• The largest equity gaps remain socio-economic in
  origin. The evidence consistently demonstrates
  that students from poor families are less likely
  to perform as well as students from middle-income
  or high-income homes.
• (Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013-2025,
  preliminary report)

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Contemporary challenges? National identity

• With many public and private schooling options at
  the primary and secondary levels, the Malaysian
  education system provides an unparalleled degree
  of choice for parents.
• Concern has grown over the increasing ethnic
  homogenisation of schools, and the reduced
  opportunities for interaction with individuals
  from wide a range of backgrounds that
  homogenisation may lead to.
• These interactions are important as they help
  individuals develop a shared set of experiences
  and aspirations for Malaysias future, through
  which a common national identity and unity are
  forged.
• (Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013-2025,
  preliminary report)

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Contemporary challenges? Investment return

• Malaysias consistently high levels of
  expenditure on education have resulted in almost
  universal access to primary education and
  significant improvements in access to secondary
  education. However, there remains room for
  improvement on the dimensions of quality, equity,
  and unity.
• Malaysias performance lags behind other
  countries that have similar or lower levels of
  expenditure per student, such as Thailand, Chile,
  and Armenia. This suggests that the system may
  not be allocating funds towards the factors that
  have the highest impact on student outcomes, such
  as the training and continuous up-skilling of
  teachers.
• (Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013-2025,
  preliminary report)

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Aspirations for Malaysian education by 2020

• Access 100 enrolment across all levels
• Quality top third in PISA, TIMMS, etc
• Equity 50 reduction in achievement gaps
• Unity shared values, embracing diversity
• Efficiency maximising outcomes within budget
• (Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013-2025,
  preliminary report)

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Contemporary challenges? Implementation

• Shift 1 Provide equal access to quality
  education of an international standard
• Shift 2 Ensure every child is proficient in
  Bahasa Malaysia and English Language
• Shift 4 Transform teaching into the profession
  of choice
• Shift 5 Ensure high-performing leaders in every
  school
• (Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013-2025,
  preliminary report)

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• Contemporary challenges?
• International evidence
• Professionalism for the future
• TLRP
• Making sense through principles
• Making sense through conceptual tools
• Looking to the future?

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• Teachers Matter
• Research on student learning demonstrates
• that most variation is attributable to
  differences in student abilities and attitudes,
  and family and community background.
• that teacher quality is the single most
  important school variable influencing student
  achievement.
• (OECD, 2005)

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(McKinsey Company, 2007)
The quality of an education system cannot exceed
the quality of its teachers. The only way to
improve outcomes is to improve instruction.
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Some influential international research

• Bransford, J. (Ed.) (1999) How People Learn.
  Brain, Mind, Experience and School. Washington
  DC National Academy Press.
• Hayes, D., Mills, M., Christie, P. and Linguard,
  R. (2006) Teachers and Schooling Making a
  Difference. Sydney Allen Unwin.
• James, M. and Pollard. A. (2006) Improving
  Teaching and Learning in Schools. London TLRP.
•  
• Levin, B. (2008) How to Change 5000 Schools.
  Cambridge Mass. Harvard Eduction Press.
• Hattie, J. (2009) Visible Learning. A Synthesis
  of Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. London
  Routledge.
• OECD (2011) The Nature of Learning. Using
  Research to Inspire Practice. Paris OECD.
• Sahlberg, P. (2012) Finnish Lessons What the
  World Can Learn from Educational Change in
  Finland? Boston Teachers College Press.

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• OECD (2011) The Nature of Learning.

Modern societies and economies have experienced a
profound transformation from reliance on an
industrial to a knowledge base. Global drivers
increasingly bring to the fore what some call
21st century competences. The quantity and
quality of learning thus become central, with the
accompanying concern that traditional educational
approaches are insufficient. Similar factors
help to explain the strong focus on measuring
learning outcomes (including the Programme for
International Student Assessment, PISA) over the
past couple of decades, which in turn generates
still greater attention on learning. To move
beyond the diagnosis of achievement levels and
shortcomings to desirable change then needs a
deeper understanding of how people learn most
effectively.
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• OECD (2011) The Nature of Learning

Learners are recognised as core participants.
Active engagement in developing understanding of
their own activity as learners is
encouraged. The learning environment is founded
on the social nature of learning and actively
encourages well-organised co-operative
learning. Learning professionals are highly
attuned to learner motivation and the key role of
emotions in achievement. There is acutely
sensitivity to individual differences among
learners, including their prior knowledge. There
is clarity of expectations and consistent
assessment strategies, including strong emphasis
on formative feedback to support
learning. Connectedness is promoted across
areas of knowledge and subjects as well as to the
community and the wider world.
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• Contemporary challenges?
• International evidence
• Professionalism for the future
• TLRP
• Making sense through principles
• Making sense through conceptual tools
• Looking to the future?

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What is professionalism for the future?

• The essence of professionalism is the exercise
  of skills, knowledge and judgement for the public
  good.
• But teacher expertise is poorly understood.

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• Pedagogy is the practice of teaching framed and
  informed by a shared and structured body of
  knowledge and combined with moral purpose.
• By progressively acquiring such knowledge and
  mastering pedagogical expertise through initial
  formation, continuing development and reflective
  experience teachers are entitled to be treated
  as professionals.
• Teachers should scrutinise and evaluate their
  practice to make rationally defensible
  professional judgements beyond pragmatic
  constraints and/or ideological concerns.

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• Routine Vs reflective action

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Problem
Issue
Reflect
Dilemmas
Collect evidence
Evidence
Judgement
Analyse evaluate
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Three judgements

• What aspects to investigate and why?
• What evidence to collect and how?
• How should the findings be analysed, interpreted
  and applied?

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How is evidence to be collected?

• Analyse (and improve) routine evidence on pupil
  learning outcomes
• Develop specific methods to provide evidence on
  particular issues
• Use occasional, but explicit, enquires as
  reflective learning experiences
• Work collaboratively with colleagues if possible
• STUDYING LOOKING- LISTENING- ASKING (C3)

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How are findings to be interpreted?
Problem
Issue
Reflect
Dilemmas
Collect evidence
Evidence
and interpretation
Judgement
Analyse evaluate
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• Contemporary challenges?
• International evidence
• Professionalism for the future
• TLRP
• Making sense through principles
• Making sense through conceptual tools
• Looking to the future?

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Main features of TLRP 2000-12

• 43m, 100 investments, 700 researchers
  projects up to 1.5m each, often with large teams
• All sectors of education (pre-school to elderly
  learners)
• UK-wide (England, Wales, Scotland, N. Ireland)
• Directors and Office Teams,
• with developed organisational infrastructures
• Capacity building for researchers and research
  users

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TLRPs overarching aim

• to lead to significant improvements in outcomes
  for learners ...
• ... at all ages and stages in all sectors and
  contexts of education and training, including
  informal learning settings, throughout the United
  Kingdom.

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TLRP PROJECTS
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
2010 2011
Early Years Education
Phase I
Primary Education
Phase II
Secondary Education
Across School Phases
Research training fellows
Further post 16 education
Scottish extensions
Higher Education
Workplace Education
Welsh extensions
Professional Learning
Lifelong Learning
Phase III
Northern Irish extensions
Associated projects
WP in HE
TEL
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Political, economic and cultural
contexts Informal and formal learning contexts
TLRP THEMES
Learners and learning through the lifecourse
Teachers, teaching and training
Curriculum and domain knowledge Interaction and
pedagogy information technology Assessment and
learning
Learning outcomes Educational issues International
comparisons
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• Contemporary challenges?
• International evidence
• Professionalism for the future
• TLRP
• Making sense through principles
• Making sense through conceptual tools
• Looking to the future?

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Why evidence-informed principles?

• affirms a holistic approach to teaching and
  learning or pedagogy
• represents cumulative evidence and experience
• supports contextualised judgement by teachers,
  tutors, practitioners and policy-makers

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1. EQUIPS LEARNERS FOR LIFE IN ITS BROADEST
SENSE
Effective teaching and learning ....
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SOME TLRP EVIDENCE

• Broad conception of outcomes to include, for
  instance, engagement with learning (Ainscow),
  learning how to learn (James).
• Learner identities studied longitudinally,
  related positively to self-confidence, resilience
  and outcomes but demonstrated significant
  processes of social differentiation (Pollard,
  Biesta).
• Promotion of thinking skills (McGuinness) shown
  to have a positive relationship with attainment
  and effort, although the effect needed time to
  build and was not uniform across all learner
  groups.
• Most projects show the importance of developing
  learning awareness, explicit learning practices,
  positive learning dispositions, and learning
  autonomy (Nunes, McGuinness, James, Blatchford,
  Hughes).

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Effective teaching and learning ....
2. ENGAGES WITH VALUED FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE 3.
RECOGNISES THE IMPORTANCE OF PRIOR EXPERIENCE
AND LEARNING
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SOME TLRP EVIDENCE

• In numeracy, understanding of rational numbers
  (proportion and ratio) is important but difficult
  for primary pupils to master. Relatively small
  teaching sequences can boost achievement (Nunes
  Howe).
• In literacy, spelling improved through explicit
  teaching about rules of morphology (units of
  meaning) (Nunes). Bilingualism, when embedded,
  enriched teaching and learning in FE
  (Martin-Jones).
• Teacher review of assumptions about prior
  knowledge and experience of certain groups of
  children often led to improvements (Ainscow -
  inclusive practice Hughes - home-school
  knowledge exchange Plowman - ICT in early years
  EPPE - pre-school settings).

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4. REQUIRES THE TEACHER TO SCAFFOLD
LEARNING 5. NEEDS ASSESSMENT TO BE CONGRUENT
WITH LEARNING
Effective teaching and learning ....
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SOME TLRP EVIDENCE

• Projects showed the importance of the way
  teachers plan and structure activities during
  lessons, negotiate goals, support classroom
  dialogue and provide feedback.
• Teacher roles in scaffolding learning with ICT
  were crucial (Plowman Sutherland). Use of ICT
  can produce gains in achievement (Bevan), but
  only with effective mediation (Kennewell).
• Testing that focuses on factual recall often
  overestimates students understanding of key
  concepts (Millar).
• Assessment for learning in the classroom is most
  effective when supported by whole-school
  collaboration and leadership (James)

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6. PROMOTES THE ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT OF THE
LEARNER 7. FOSTERS BOTH INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL
PROCESSES AS OUTCOMES 8. RECOGNISES THE
SIGNIFICANCE OF INFORMAL LEARNING
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SOME TLRP EVIDENCE

• Group work projects (Blatchford Christie) show
  the benefits of efforts to improve the quality of
  group work and childrens mastery of cooperation
  and collaboration. Pupils made significant
  academic gains (effect sizes up to 0.6) which
  were seen across schools in different social
  contexts.
• Consulting pupils enhances self esteem and agency
  and improves learning opportunities (Rudduck,
  Leitch). However some pupils have more
  communications competence and are heard more
  than others.
• Young people draw on school experience, and
  develop it at home, and bring home experience
  into school e.g. computer expertise (Sutherland).
  
• Home/school knowledge exchange activities impact
  positively on outcomes (Hughes). But this impact
  is mediated by social class, gender and
  attainment factors so there is need for
  sensitivity.

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9. DEPENDS ON TEACHER LEARNING 10. DEMANDS
CONSISTENT POLICY FRAMEWORKS WITH SUPPORT FOR
TEACHING AND LEARNING AS THEIR PRIMARY FOCUS
Effective teaching and learning ....
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SOME TLRP EVIDENCE

• Levels of professional commitment and resilience
  are crucial to teaching quality and learner
  outcomes (Day).
• Through reflective inquiry with colleagues,
  teachers develop knowledge and beliefs about
  learning - as well as skills (James, Dudley).
• Visits from teachers in other schools, or from
  other departments/classrooms are valued for
  questioning assumptions (Ainscow). When senior
  management support innovation, it becomes more
  sustainable (Hughes).
• Consistency between national, local, school and
  classroom policy in teaching and learning is not
  always apparent.
• If policy was more congruent with pedagogic
  principles and supportive of contexualised
  teacher judgement, then school and teacher
  effectiveness could be improved.

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Enhancing learning outcomes?

• TLRPs evidence-informed principles are intended
  as a contribution to a scientific foundation for
  policy and practice
• The emphasis needs to be on the quality of
  contextualised professional judgement

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How are findings to be interpreted?
Problem
Issue
Reflect
Dilemmas
Collect evidence
Evidence
Understanding of enduring educational
principles
Judgement
Analyse evaluate
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• Contemporary challenges?
• International evidence
• Professionalism for the future
• TLRP
• Making sense through principles
• Making sense through conceptual tools
• Looking to the future?

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What do we talk about?

• Curriculum Pedagogy Assessment
• So, what happens if we compare and contrast the
  concepts used to discuss curriculum, pedagogy and
  assessment?

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• Concepts in HMIs The Curriculum from 5 to 16
  (1985)
• Breadth
• Balance
• Relevance
• Differentiation
• Progression
• Continuity

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So, a key contention

• Maybe . that pedagogic concepts can be organised
  in terms of their function (the work that they
  do) and that, by making this logic explicit, we
  could create a more robust and sustainable
  conceptual framework for the professional
  expertise of teaching?

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Concepts are to do with
CURRICULUM PEDAGOGY ASSESSMENT
Aims
Contexts
Processes
Outcomes
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• 1. Societal aims To what vision of education
  does the provision aspire?
•  
• 2. Elements of learning What knowledge, concepts,
  skills and values are to be learned in formal
  education?
•  
• 3. Community context Is the educational
  experience valued and endorsed by civil society?
• 4. Institutional context Does the school promote
  a common vision to extend educational experiences
  and inspire learners?
•  
• 5. Process for social needs Does the educational
  experience build on social relationships,
  cultural understandings and learner identities?
• 6. Process for emotional needs Does the
  educational experience take due account of
  learner views, feelings and characteristics?
•  
• 7. Process for cognitive needs Does the
  educational experience match learners cognitive
  needs and provide appropriate challenge?
•  
• 8. Developmental outcomes Does the educational
  experience lead to development in knowledge,
  concepts, skills and values?
•  
• 9. Cumulative outcomes Does the educational
  experience equip learners for adult and working
  life and for an unknown future? 
•  

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Curricular concepts Pedagogic concepts Assessment concepts
1. Societys educational goals Breadth Principle Alignment
2. Elements of learning Balance Repertoire Validity
3. Community context Connection Warrant Dependability
4. Institutional context Coherence Culture Expectation
5. Processes for learners social needs Personalisation Relationships Inclusion
6. Process for learners emotional needs Relevance Engagement Authenticity
7. Processes for learners cognitive needs Differentiation Dialogue Feed-back
8. Outcomes for continuous improvement in learning Progression Reflection Development
9. Outcomes for certification and the lifecourse Effectiveness Empowerment Consequence
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Professionalism and Pedagogy a contemporary
opportunity TLRP with GTCE, 2010 www.tlrp.org
www.reflectiveteaching.co.uk
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How are findings to be interpreted?
Problem
Issue
Reflect
Dilemmas
Collect evidence
Evidence
Understanding through a conceptual framework and
language for discussion
Judgement
Analyse evaluate
55

• Contemporary challenges?
• International evidence
• Professionalism for the future
• TLRP
• Making sense through principles
• Making sense through conceptual tools
• Looking to the future?

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• Raising standards and opportunities
• Teacher professionalism and reflective practice
• Evidence-informed principles and conceptual
  understanding

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The most effective teachers

• Recognise the complexity of teaching and learning
• Never stop learning themselves
• Enjoy teaching
• Are supported in open learning professional
  communities

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• Contemporary challenges?
• International evidence
• Professionalism for the future
• TLRP
• Making sense through principles
• Making sense through conceptual tools
• Looking to the future?

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A valid educational rationale based on
evidence-informed principles?(p8)