Building sustainable learning communities

1
Building sustainablelearning communities

• Dylan Wiliam
• Institute of Education
• 30 November 2006

2
Overview of presentation

• Why raising achievement is important
• Why investing in teachers is the answer
• Why assessment for learning should be the focus
• How we can put this into practice

3
Raising achievement matters

• For individuals
• Increased lifetime salary
• Improved health
• For society
• Lower criminal justice costs
• Lower health-care costs
• Increased economic growth

4
Wheres the solution?

• Structure
• Small schools
• Big schools
• Alignment
• Curriculum reform
• Textbook replacement
• Governance
• Specialist schools
• Vouchers
• Technology

5
Its the classroom

• Variability at the classroom level is up to 4
  times greater than at school level
• Its not class size
• Its not the between-class grouping strategy
• Its not the within-class grouping strategy
• Its the teacher

6
Teacher quality

• A labour force issue with 2 solutions
• Replace existing teachers with better ones?
• No evidence that more pay brings in better
  teachers
• No evidence that there are better teachers out
  there deterred by certification requirements
• Improve the effectiveness of existing teachers
• The love the one youre with strategy
• It can be done
• We know how to do it, but at scale? Quickly?
  Sustainably?

7
Cost/effect comparisons
Intervention Effect (sd) Cost/yr/classroom
Class-size reduction (by 30) 0.1 20k
Increase teacher content knowledge by 1 sd 0.1 ?
Formative assessment/ Assessment for learning 0.20.3 2k
8
Five key strategies

• Clarifying and understanding learning intentions
  and criteria for success
• Engineering effective classroom discussions that
  elicit evidence of learning
• Providing feedback that moves learners forward
• Activating students as learning resources for
  each other
• Activating students as the owners of their own
  learning

9
and one big idea

• Use evidence about learning to adapt teaching to
  meet student needs

10
Putting it into practice
11
Why research hasnt changed teaching

• The nature of expertise in teaching
• Aristotles main intellectual virtues
• Episteme knowledge of universal truths
• Techne ability to make things
• Phronesis practical wisdom
• What works is not the right question
• Everything works somewhere
• Nothing works everywhere
• Whats interesting is under what conditions
  does this work?
• Teaching is mainly a matter of phronesis, not
  episteme

12
Teacher knowledge
After Nonaka Tageuchi, 1995
13
How do you grow expertise?

• NOT by telling people what to do.
• Expertise grows over time, with experience and
  lots of opportunities to think about those
  experiences
• But experience alone is not enoughif it were,
  then the most experienced teachers would be the
  best teacherswe know thats not true (Hanushek,
  2005 Day et al., 2006)
• People need to reflect on their experiences in
  systematic ways that build their accessible
  knowledge base, learn from mistakes, etc.
  (Bransford, Brown Cocking, 1999)

14
Thats what TLCs are for

• They grow expertise by providing a regular space,
  time, and structure for that kind of systematic
  reflecting on practice
• They facilitate sharing of untapped expertise
  residing in individual teachers
• They build the collective knowledge base in a
  school
• TLCs contradict teacher isolation, a major cause
  of teacher turnover
• TLCs reprofessionalize teaching by valuing
  teacher expertise
• TLCs deprivatize teaching so that teachers
  strengths and struggles become known
• TLCs offer a steady source of support for
  struggling teachers

15
Teacher learning takes time

• To put new knowledge to work, to make it
  meaningful and accessible when you need it,
  requires practice.
• A teacher doesnt come at this as a blank slate.
• Not only do teachers have their current habits
  and ways of teachingtheyve lived inside the old
  culture of classrooms all their lives every
  teacher started out as a student!
• New knowledge doesnt just have to get learned
  and practiced, it has to go up against
  long-established, familiar, comfortable ways of
  doing things that may not be as effective, but
  fit within everyones expectations of how a
  classroom should work.
• It takes time and practice to undo old habits and
  become graceful at new ones. Thus
• TLCs must be sustained over time

16
How to set up a TLC

• Plan for two years
• Identify 8 to 10 interested colleagues
• Should have similar assignments (e.g. early
  years, math/sci)
• Secure institutional support for
• Monthly meetings (2 hrs 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

17
A structure for TLC meetings

• Every monthly TLC meeting should follows the same
  structure and sequence of activities
• Activity 1 Introduction Housekeeping (5 mins)
• Activity 2 Hows It Going (50 minutes)
• Activity 3 New Learning about AfL (50 minutes)
• Activity 4 Personal Action Planning (10 minutes)
• Activity 5 Summary of Learning (5 minutes)

18
Activities 1-2 4-5 (Bookends)

• The process for these activities is the same at
  each TLC meeting.
• The content of these activities changes as
  assessment for learning is established and
  integrated into teachers daily routines.
• These activities are critical to teachers
  actually changing their practice to embrace
  assessment for learning.

19
Introduction housekeeping

• Time for participants to get their minds to the
  meeting
• The TLC leader presents the learning intentions
  for the meeting

20
Hows It Going?

• Every teacher gives a brief, informal report on
  his or her latest AfL efforts, while colleagues
  listen and respond appropriately, following a
  structured protocol.

21
What does this mean for TLCs?

• Routines need to be established, expectations
  shared, and structure maintained.
• Similar expectations regarding preparation and
  engagement.
• Come to the meeting knowing you will be sharing
  your own AfL experiences.
• Be prepared to offer constructive, thoughtfully
  conceived feedback to colleagues.
• Be prepared to challenge ideas that may be good
  classroom practice but are not necessarily
  tightly related to formative assessment.

22
Supporting Each Other

• Questions to guide the routine
• Thinking about what youve tried
• If you tried a technique from your action plan
• How did it go?
• Was it successful or unsuccessful? Why?
• If there is a technique that you planned to try,
  but have not
• Why havent you tried it yet?
• What modifications to the technique might make it
  more appealing for you to try out?
• What support would you need in order to try out
  this technique?

23
Supporting Each Other

• Questions to guide the routine
• Thinking about whats working
• If you tried a technique from your action plan
• How did it go?
• Was it successful or unsuccessful? Why?
• If there is a technique that you planned to try,
  but have not
• Why havent you tried it yet?
• What modifications to the technique might make it
  more appealing for you to try out?
• What support would you need in order to try out
  this technique?

24
Supporting Each Other

• Questions to guide the routine
• Thinking about difficulties
• If you or a colleague tried a technique, and it
  didnt seem to work,
• OR
• If you or a colleague have been reluctant to try
  a particular technique
• What do you think is getting in the way?
• What help do you need to make this work?
• How could this technique be modified to work for
  you?

25
How does Hows It Going? improve teaching and
learning?

• Repetition
• Supportive structure for getting better together
• While the structure is constant, the case
  studies will vary--meetings not tedious or stale
• Time to problem solve
• Accountability
• Keeps the Focus

26
New learning about AfL

• Magazine/journal articles
• Book study
• Official publications
• Personal experiences
• Video extracts

27
Personal Action Planning

• Each teacher updates his or her personal Action
  Plan and arranges to get needed support from
  colleagues
• Make ideas more concrete
• Provide a reference for future work
• Create accountability for trying new things
• Focus attention on a couple of areas
• Provide a reminder to give up some things

28
Summary of Learning

• The group checks to see where they are with
  regard to the learning intentions for the meeting
• If yes, great!
• If no, plan for addressing any gaps

29
The TLC leaders role

• To ensure the TLC meets regularly
• To ensure all needed materials are at meetings
• To ensure that each meeting is focused on AfL
• To create and maintain a productive and
  non-judgmental tone during meetings
• To ensure that every participant shares with
  regard to their implementation of AfL
• To encourage teachers to provide their colleagues
  with constructive and thoughtful feedback
• To encourage teachers to think about and discuss
  the implementation of new AfL learning and skills
• To ensure that every teacher has an action plan
  to guide their next steps
• But not to be the AfL expert

30
Peer observation

• Run to the agenda of the observee, not the
  observer
• Observee specifies focus of observation
• Observee specifies what counts as evidence
• e.g., teacher wants to increase wait-time
• provides observer with a stop-watch to log
  wait-times

31
Summary

• Raising achievement is important
• Raising achievement requires improving teacher
  quality
• Improving teacher quality requires teacher
  professional development
• To be effective, teacher professional development
  must address
• What teachers do in the classroom
• How teachers change what they do in the classroom
• AfL TLCs
• A point of (uniquely?) high leverage
• A Trojan Horse into wider issues of pedagogy,
  psychology, and curriculum