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This document, based on a presentation by Dylan Wiliam at the OECD CERI 40th anniversary conference, discusses the importance of investing in teachers and the role of assessment for learning (AfL) and teacher learning communities (TLCs) in improving teacher quality and student achievement. the research on school effectiveness and teacher quality, and the impact of AfL practices on student achievement. It also provides insights into the types of assessment for learning and the key strategies for implementing them in classrooms.
Typology: Study Guides, Projects, Research
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Overview of presentation
Why investing in teachers is important
Why assessment for learning should be the focus
Why teacher learning communities should be the mechanism
How we can put this into practice
Teacher quality
What causes classroom level differences? Weak influences class size between- and within-class grouping strategy Strong influence Teacher quality A labour force issue with 2 (non-exclusive) solutions Replace existing teachers with better ones? Important, but very slow, and of limited impact Improve the effectiveness of existing teachers The “love the one you‟re with” strategy It can be done Provided we focus rigorously on the things that matter Even when they‟re hard to do
Total “explained” difference 20-25%
Further professional qualifications (MA, NBPTS) <5%
Pedagogical content knowledge 10-15%
Advanced content matter knowledge <5%
The „dark matter‟ of teacher quality
Teachers make a difference
But what makes the difference in teachers?
In real classrooms, over extended periods, using distal measures of achievement, adoption of AfL practices increases student achievement by 0.3 standard deviations.
One standard deviation of increased teacher quality is associated with an increase of 0.2 sd of student achievement
Therefore the range of teacher quality (4 sd) is associated with 0.8 sd of student achievement.
AfL practices would therefore seem to be equivalent to half of the “unexplained” difference
Types of assessment for learning
Long-cycle Span: across units, terms Length: four weeks to one year Impact: Student monitoring; curriculum alignment Medium-cycle Span: within and between teaching units Length: one to four weeks Impact: Improved, student-involved, assessment; teacher cognition about learning Short-cycle Span: within and between lessons Length: day-by-day: 24 to 48 hours minute-by-minute: 5 seconds to 2 hours Impact: classroom practice; student engagement
Aspects of assessment for learning
Where the learner is going Where the learner is^ How to get there
Teacher (^) learning intentionsClarify and share
Engineering effective discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning
Providing feedback that moves learners forward
Peer
Understand and share learning intentions
Activating students as learning resources for one another
Learner (^) learning intentionsUnderstand^ Activating students as ownersof their own learning
Five “key strategies”…
Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions
curriculum philosophy
Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning
classroom discourse, interactive whole-class teaching
Providing feedback that moves learners forward
feedback
Activating students as learning resources for one another
collaborative learning, reciprocal teaching, peer-assessment
Activating students as owners of their own learning
metacognition, motivation, interest, attribution, self-assessment
(Wiliam & Thompson, 2007)
Keeping Learning on Track (KLT)
A pilot guides a plane or boat toward its destination by taking constant readings and making careful adjustments in response to wind, currents, weather, etc.
A KLT teacher does the same:
Plans a carefully chosen route ahead of time (in essence building the track)
Takes readings along the way
Changes course as conditions dictate
Teacher learning takes time
To put new knowledge to work, to make it meaningful and accessible when you need it, requires practice.
A teacher doesn‟t come at this as a blank slate.
Not only do teachers have their current habits and ways of teaching— they‟ve lived inside the old culture of classrooms all their lives: every teacher started out as a student!
New knowledge doesn‟t 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 everyone‟s expectations of how a classroom should work.
It takes time and practice to undo old habits and become graceful at new ones. Thus…
Professional development must be sustained over time
Designing for scale
“In-principle” scalability
A single model for the whole school
But which honours subject-specificities
Understanding what it means to scale (Coburn, 2003)
Depth
Sustainability
Spread
Shift in reform ownership
Consideration of the diversity of contexts of application
Clarity about components, and the theory of action
Two opposing factors in any school
reform Need for flexibility to adapt to local conditions, resources, etc
Implies there is appropriate flexibility built into the reform
Need to maintain fidelity to core principles, or theory of action of the reform, if it is to achieve desired outcomes Implies you have a well-thought-out theory of action
“Tight but loose”
… combines an obsessive adherence to central design principles (the “tight” part) with accommodations to the needs, resources, constraints, and particularities that occur in any school or district (the “loose” part), but only where these do not conflict with the theory of action of the intervention.
Some reforms are too loose (e.g., the „Effective schools‟ movement)
Others are too tight (e.g., Montessori Schools)
The “tight but loose” formulation