Like many people I'm curious about the
arrival of evidence based teaching? I suppose the question can be split up into
several sub-questions:
At
this time Hattie was 8 years into his teaching career. He was a Lecturer at The
University of New England.
This
was then followed 6 years later with:
But
upon whose foundations did Hattie build his work? Are we looking at a new area of
research?
It
is known that Hattie was influenced by the earlier work of the Dutch academic Bert
Creemers (CV). In 1974, Creemers wanted
to show that the differences in the behaviour of teachers who used the same
textbook resulted in different student outcomes, taking into consideration the
initial differences between students. But Creemers was looking for correlation.
His work was a work of confirmation that I would liken to a litmus test for
acids or alkalis. It was either one thing or another; there was a correlation
or there wasn’t.
What the above people all have in common is the desire to de-mystify the impact that various factors have on student achievement. Creemers looked at the teacher, Hattie looked at everything, Marzano and Petty looked inside the classroom.
From
my point of view, if I can find out how to be more effective as a teacher then
I am surely duty-bound to pursue that goal. There is no doubt that my development
as a teacher would have occurred naturally as I taught more and more pupils.
After nearly 10,000 lessons you know what your default-setting is as a teacher.
Without looking at improving my teaching practice I would probably have
developed a defensive teaching strategy as my default setting. I don’t know
what that would have looked like but I could speculate:
This is the second in a series of six blogs about Visible Learning.
Blog 1 - The beginning of Visible Learning
When
did evidence-based education start:
·
in the World?
·
in the UK?
·
for me?
Many people will assume that it all started with
John Hattie (New Zealand). Indeed Hattie has been involved in education as a researcher
for a number of years (CV). From his extensive list
of published works, this is the first that has a reference to his Magnum Opus,
published 30 years later in 2009.
Hattie, J.A. (1979, October). Meta-analysis: The
philosophy and methodology. Invited paper to Measurement and evaluation
seminar. University of Queensland, Brisbane.
Hattie, J.A. & Walberg, H.J. (1985, November). Interpreting
effect sizes in meta-analyses. Paper Presented at the AARE Conference,
‘Educational research: Then and now’, AARE, Hobart.
At
this point, Hattie is an Associate Professor at the University of New England.
Robert
Marzano (US) is often linked to the evidence-based education tag. His work uses
effect sizes but whilst Hattie looks at outside classroom influences on student
outcomes, Marzano is noted for looking at within classroom practice only. His
main work is from 1998.
We
also have Geoff Petty in the UK. He has authored books (from 2006) regarding
Evidence based Teaching which build on the work of Hattie and Marzano.
Therefore it is classroom based only.
What
is noteworthy is the introduction of effect sizes into the methodology. This is
based on work by J. Cohen in 1969.
So
the timeline goes:
What the above people all have in common is the desire to de-mystify the impact that various factors have on student achievement. Creemers looked at the teacher, Hattie looked at everything, Marzano and Petty looked inside the classroom.
1. I
would have developed classroom routines that “worked” (i.e. they would have got
ME to the end of the lesson!)
2. I
would have only one dimension to my teaching (i.e. I would have a survival
instinct that was "my way or the highway!".)
3. I
would be very reluctant to change after hours of reinforcing my survival routines.
With
regards to adjusting your teaching methods, there is a problem for some people.
It is called the “Not invented here”
disposition. This causes a serious time-delay between publication of research
and improved practice. I was informed that it can take up to 40 years for a
pedagogy to become fully integrated into education.
Consider
Philosophy for Children (P4C) – developed circa 1972 by Prof. Matthew Lipman.
Evidence
based education – developed circa 1974
Innovations
come and go in education. As yet I don’t understand how such internal flux has
been allowed to develop. Teachers blame governments for interfering in
education too frequently, but I have seen evidence of choppy waters being
instigated by the teachers themselves. Not all teachers, but the influential
teachers. Maybe they are Head teachers, maybe they are Heads of departments or
faculties. There are times when change causes great improvements for all (students, teachers, etc.) And there are times when change causes improvement for some (normally the person instigating the change.)
Change
itself should be warmly welcomed in education. One of the key “Mind frames” of
a teacher according to Hattie is to be a ‘Change Agent’. But this MUST involve
changing those things that make the biggest difference to our pupils’
achievements.
This
is where Visible Learning starts from. Stop inventing new ways to do things and
start to evaluate the many methodologies that we currently have at our
disposal. We live in exponential times. Let’s not allow this to apply to the
number of innovations that are on offer to us as teachers.
This is the second in a series of six blogs about Visible Learning.
Blog 1 - The beginning of Visible Learning
Comments
Post a Comment