Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 71 views

    Learning Cultures Communities

    Uploaded by

    EFL Classroom 2.0
    This document discusses research on effective teaching and the gap between teachers' practical experience and formal research studies. It addresses three key questions: 1) Why formal research is needed in addition to practical experience, 2) What teachers need to know to replace implicit beliefs with an explicit understanding of how teaching impacts learning, and 3) How teaching and learning are related. The document evaluates different methods of research on teaching and argues that to provide useful knowledge to teachers, research needs direct, structured observation of teaching and independent assessment of student learning over time.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Learning Cultures Communities

    Uploaded by

    EFL Classroom 2.0
    71 views31 pages
    This document discusses research on effective teaching and the gap between teachers' practical experience and formal research studies. It addresses three key questions: 1) Why formal research is needed in addition to practical experience, 2) What teachers need to know to replace implicit beliefs with an explicit understanding of how teaching impacts learning, and 3) How teaching and learning are related. The document evaluates different methods of research on teaching and argues that to provide useful knowledge to teachers, research needs direct, structured observation of teaching and independent assessment of student learning over time.

    Copyright

    © Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    This document discusses research on effective teaching and the gap between teachers' practical experience and formal research studies. It addresses three key questions: 1) Why formal research is needed in addition to practical experience, 2) What teachers need to know to replace implicit beliefs with an explicit understanding of how teaching impacts learning, and 3) How teaching and learning are related. The document evaluates different methods of research on teaching and argues that to provide useful knowledge to teachers, research needs direct, structured observation of teaching and independent assessment of student learning over time.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    71 views31 pages

    Learning Cultures Communities

    Uploaded by

    EFL Classroom 2.0
    This document discusses research on effective teaching and the gap between teachers' practical experience and formal research studies. It addresses three key questions: 1) Why formal research is needed in addition to practical experience, 2) What teachers need to know to replace implicit beliefs with an explicit understanding of how teaching impacts learning, and 3) How teaching and learning are related. The document evaluates different methods of research on teaching and argues that to provide useful knowledge to teachers, research needs direct, structured observation of teaching and independent assessment of student learning over time.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 31

    Knowing what we know and need to

    know about effective teaching

    Graham Nuthall
    Education Department
    University of Canterbury

    Classrooms are complex places, and the best


    teachers are successful because they are thoughtful
    opportunists who create instructional practices to
    meet situational demands (Hoffman & Duffy,
    1999)
    Purpose:

    To look critically at research on teaching,


    • especially research on the relationship
    of teaching to learning.

    Not research on teachers themselves


    or how teachers experience
    & think about teaching
    Two sources of knowledge about effective
    teaching

    Teachers’ practical experiences

    Formal research studies

    But there is a gap between them

    Teachers treat it as a source of good ideas


    Researchers think teachers
    should apply its findings
    To evaluate methods of research on teaching

    We must first decide what kind of knowledge they should


    produce

    This requires answering three questions


    1. Why do we need formal research?
    Why is practical experience not enough?
    2. What do teachers need to know?
    What is the problem to be solved?
    3. What kind of relationship is possible
    between teaching & learning?
    • Why is practical experience not enough?

    Teachers cannot:
    a. monitor student learning continuously & consistently
    b. be aware of all student experience

    2. What do teachers need to know?


    Replace implicit, unexamined beliefs about learning

    With validated explicit understanding


    of how teaching relates to learning
    3. How is teaching related to learning?
    Oser & Baeriswyl model
    (Handbook of Research on Teaching 4th edition)

    Visible structure: instructional procedures for science concept

    Whole class: Small group: Individual: Individual: Individual: Whole class:


    teacher gives conducting answering conference
    worksheet writes review of
    instructions experiment with report results
    questions teacher

    Prior
    knowledge

    The base model: elements of learning a concept


    Problems with Oser & Baeriswyl model

    1. Individual student experience is a function of:


    a. The visible teacher-managed activities &
    accountability
    b. The semi-visible peer culture & relationships
    c. The semi-visible ways students manage their
    behaviour

    2. Links between visible structure & base model


    are created by students making sense of,
    & extracting information from,
    their experiences
    Question is now:

    To provide teachers with an understanding


    of how their activities affect student learning

    need to know how student experience


    is shaped by teacher activities

    & how students extract meaning


    & learn from those experiences
    Research on the best teachers

    CERI studies in 9 OECD countries


    Hopkins and Stern synthesized the results of 9 countries

    Excellent descriptions of cultural beliefs


    about good teachers
    How reliable is a teacher’s reputation?

    Ratings by principals & other experts do not relate to


    student learning
    (studies 1930s – 1990s)

    a. teaching interactively varies with content,


    context, students
    b. teacher effects on student learning vary
    with content, context, students
    When is an effective teacher effective?

    Confusion of effective teaching with effective teachers

    The cultural ideal of the effective teacher is unchanging

    But still need to know


    how teachers affect student learning
    in order to know what to look for
    The Correlational and Experimental Studies
    Studies relating teacher behaviour to student
    learning had two advantages
    1. Systematic observation (recording) of teaching
    -- teachers do not do what they say (believe) they do
    -- the gender studies

    2. Used independent assessment of student learning


    Christchurch study of effective teaching (Wright & Nuthall)

    22 teachers teaching 3 lessons on the black-backed gull


    6 clusters of teacher behaviours
    correlated with student achievement
    1. Asking clear questions that elicited answers
    2. Asking closed questions
    3. several students involved in each question
    4. praising student responses
    5. providing feedback after attempts at answers
    6. revising content at the end of lessons
    Problems with this research

    Teacher behaviour treated as contextless variables


    (the more the better)

    Treated all students as one modal student

    Tried to generalise the surface features of teaching


    (the visible structure)
    Design Experiments

    Know the basic principles learning


    need to design methods to implement principles

    The ThinkerTools Inquiry Curriculum


    (White & Frederiksen, University of Berkeley)

    Physics unit on “force & motion”


    Students design and carry out their own experiments
    using ThinkerTools software
    Reflective assessment process

    1. Understanding the science


    2. Understanding the inquiry
    3. Being inventive
    4. Being systematic
    5. Using tools and representations
    6. Reasoning carefully
    7. Communicating well
    8. Teamwork and collaboration
    Evaluation

    Trial of 10 week version in 12 7th – 9th grad classrooms


    Students reported their own experiments
    Tests of knowledge
    Inquiry test (design own experiment)
    Attitudes

    Very effective especially with heterogeneous groups


    and low achievers
    Interpretation

    “We believe this is due, in part, to the initial introduction of


    the Inquiry Cycle as a set of ordered activities that
    students can easily follow. A student’s deeper
    understanding of the significance of the activities comes
    from actually practicing them and reflecting on them
    over time.” (White & Frederiksen, 1998, p. 76).
    “The implicit overall goal is teaching about thought by
    providing conceptual categories that permit one to reflect
    on and talk about one’s thought processes in carrying out
    scientific inquiry” (White & Frederiksen, 1998, p. 79).
    What can teachers do with it?

    Download from web site manual, worksheets,


    computer programme
    http://thinkertools.berkeley.edu/tt/
    Evaluated the whole package without consideration
    for variations of teachers & students within classes
    How can a teacher know how to adapt?
    What is essential and what is peripheral?

    All the authors can do is speculate


    about how and why it works
    ThinkerTools Implementation:
    curriculum unit: Teacher behaviour,
    Teacher handbook, use of resources,
    software, etc. adaptations
    Student
    experiences Student
    & learning achievement

    Student
    demographics
    & culture
    Teacher action research
    and the development of craft knowledge

    Only teacher developed knowledge can be practical

    Knowledge that teachers develop from experience


    Is different from knowledge
    from formal academic research
    Hiebert, Gallimore & Stigler

    Teacher craft knowledge, built on individual case studies,


    can be integrated,
    can produce public professional knowledge.

    Fail to account for the limitations of teacher research


    Lack of
    a. systematic, student focused observation/recording,
    b. independent real-time assessment of learning
    c. awareness of other factors affecting
    student learning
    science unit on space, Year 5/6 class, self-selected activities

    PA T Percentoftestitem s
    A ge Percentile K now n Learn’d N otlrn’d
    Total

    A bby 10.6 14.5 37 48 15 85


    D ion 9.8 39.3 62 21 17
    83
    Joseph 11.3 74.0 94 2 4 96
    Lois 11.0 71.5 88 4 8 92

    How is it possible that the less able,


    know less, but learn more?
    The extent to which teacher action research produces
    generalisable knowledge about teaching-learning
    relationships

    depends on the extent to which it follows formal


    research procedures.
    Professional knowledge base most needed

    General knowledge about the ways classroom activities


    (including teaching)
    shape the development of student minds

    Not all, but the core of what they need to know

    Research methods should be evaluated for


    their contribution to this knowledge
    Not on their political, social or
    philosophical justifications.
    Kinds of methods and data needed

    1. Teaching effectiveness based on independent data


    from students
    2. Direct structured observations/recordings of students
    and teachers
    3. Recordings/observations must be continuous over the
    learning period
    (continued)
    4. Analysis that connects teaching activities and learning
    in real time
    5. Focus on multiple assessments of the learning of
    individual students
    6. Develop bottom-up evidence-based explanation and
    theory, not speculation about missing links
    Discard our acceptance of

    Indirect ambiguous data

    Speculation instead of evidence-based theory

    Endless discovery of the unique


    There is still a long way to go to establish

    Practical, generalisable, evidence-based


    professional knowledge

    To replace the tacit beliefs about teaching & learning


    that currently limit teachers’ ability
    to learn from experience.

    » Thank you

    You might also like