Our Second Meeting

I met with the student researchers today for the second time. We briefly discussed what they thought about the literature review that I provided them with, although not all of them had completed it. We were able to talk about what they thought about feedback, and I was able to discuss some of my initial findings based on their pre-test questionnaire (more of which I will discuss in detail in a later post). One thing that we all found interesting was that all of them ranked grades as more useful than written comments, which goes against what the literature says is most effective. When I asked them to explain why they felt this way, they said grades provide them with a 'starting point' so that they can see exactly where they are, consult the criteria for the grade above, and make the appropriate changes. 

They also suggested that grades made it easier to compare themselves against other students, which I had assumed (and the literature also suggests) would cause negative feelings; often we're told to discourage students from comparing themselves to others. However, when I asked them to clarify what they meant by comparison, they were quite articulate in describing how they would go to someone with a higher grade for help and guidance, opposed to asking the teacher for an explanation. This is something that I found quite interesting, and would like to perhaps discuss again later.

I pushed them a bit further, and asked them about whether or not the grades ever made them feel bad about themselves. However, they (on the whole) didn't associate negative feelings with grades (which, again, the literature suggests they DO). Overall, the students were interested in exploring their own thoughts, and the thoughts of other students further, against what the literature on feedback says, which is promising regarding their engagement with the rest of the project.

I then showed them a draft of the questionnaire that I planned to use with Year 11 and Year 8 students to gauge their baseline feelings regarding feedback. They were extremely helpful in helping me to re-write some of the questions so that they were more student friendly. We also discussed whether some of the open questions were too 'difficult' for Year 8 students. My initial thoughts were to keep the questionnaire the same for both year groups, but I allowed the students to develop their own thoughts on the idea of having a different, more 'difficult', questionnaire for the older students and an easier one for the younger students. Eventually, they came to the conclusion (fairly unaided by myself) that we shouldn't underestimate the Year 8 students, and that their responses could be 'interesting'. I was very pleased that they came to this conclusion, because it showed that they were starting to think about the ethical implications of using two different questionnaires. 

We then discussed how we would distribute the questionnaire. The students suggested that I compile packs for form groups, which they would then deliver personally during our next meeting slot. They decided as a group that they would speak to individual form tutors first, to let them know what the questionnaire is for, in the hopes that this will encourage form tutors to chase up completion of the questionnaire. They decided to then speak to the entire form, stating that they have chosen random students to complete the questionnaire, and that it's really important that the questions be answered as truthfully as possible. We also discussed how ethical this was, with students suggesting that the students who received the questionnaire might feel singled out, while those who didn't might feel left out... I'm still debating whether or not I issue the questionnaire to ALL Year 11 and 8 students, but then I feel it would move too far away from my focus on PP students. We agreed as a group that it shouldn't be too unethical to single out the PP students, considering that's the aim of our study. They felt that a de-brief with the students, where they explain why they were chosen, might help solve the ethical dilemma. This may be something that we follow up with! 

Overall, it was a really productive meeting, and I've already gleaned some really interesting tidbits from what we've gathered and discussed so far. 

Meeting my student researchers

Hello! It's been awhile since I have posted. This is largely because I've been busy working on my Literature Review. The Christmas holidays also fell into that time period, so you can forgive me for being a bit distracted.

I wanted to post a quick update today to discuss my initial meeting with my student researchers. Initially I invited ten Pupil Premium students to help me with my research; six got back to me with the permission forms, so it was six I arranged to meet with today. Luckily, it worked out that it was 3 boys and 3 girls, so the sample should still be representative. However, one of the boys didn't turn up for the meeting today, resulting in only five students being present. I'm hopeful that he didn't get the message; it'd be a shame if he decided he didn't want to take part.

The meeting itself went quite well. I issued them with a pre-test questionnaire, asking them about what they know about feedback and the research process. My hope is to get them to fill in the same questionnaire at the end of the process, so that I can gauge whether or not they've benefited from being a part of the project.

Following the questionnaire, we discussed some of the key terms associated with research projects, including the Literature Review, ethical issues, types of research, etc. I must admit I rambled on a bit, but then I did allow them time to ask me questions at the end, and we had a good discussion of their expectations and the role they'd play in the research. I am hopeful that they'll still want to take part, and won't be put off my my rambling ways!

We're aiming to meet again on Thursday, so I will keep you posted on the developments.

Reading 'The motivational paradox of feedback: teacher and student perceptions'

I was alerted to the most recent volume of The Curriculum Journal (25:4) by my supervisor, as it was an Assessment for Learning special. I immediately set out to find and download it, and was not let down! Inside, I found a bunch of new articles that will be of use (or at least of interest) to me for my Thesis. The first one that I read, an article by Lisa Murtagh, titled 'The motivational paradox of feedback: teacher and student perceptions', was the most relevant to my own study. I was pleased to see that a number of the articles I read for my literature review, as well as the article I critically reviewed for Essay 2,  were cited by the author. This suggests to me that I have a pretty firm grasp of the literature, which is always a relief to hear.

Murtagh points out, as I have in my own analysis so far, that research into how children perceive feedback is 'somewhat scant' (p. 517). She specifically cites Hargreaves (2013), which is the paper I reviewed for Essay 2; as such, I have a very strong knowledge of the references that Murtagh makes, and an understanding of why she conducted her study. Her reasons are very similar to mine, so it's nice to see that research of this type is being conducted and published. That being said, the study that Murtagh undertakes concerns primary students again, which does little to fulfil the gap regarding secondary student perceptions. I'm not annoyed by this fact, as it proves yet again that I have identified a gap in the research - one that I hope to address.

The paper takes a different focus that I plan to take though, in that it focused on feedback and motivation. Specifically, she states that 'there is still a gap in the field about how feedback affects children's motivation to learn' (p. 519).

It goes on to discuss things like the different types of feedback; phatic, which is merely an acknowledgement of an exchange of information ('tick and flick'); evaluative, which provides some form of evaluation of pupils' work; and descriptive, which is defined as information communicated to the learner that is intended to modify the learners' thinking or behaviour (p. 518-519). The next bit of key terms used are performance goals versus learning goals. I particularly liked the clarity Murtagh gave to these last two terms; it's made me realise that I definitely know the most effective types of feedback, as learning goals are obviously the best to help reach goals and make progress.

One thing I noticed in the review, and I put this down to how critical I had to be for Essay 2, was that there was no mention of the ethical considerations given in the study. There is no mention about obtaining the consent of the parents or students involved in the interviews, nor how the two teachers agreed to participate. She mentions briefly why she chose the two teachers subjects, but no mention is given over which students were selected for individual or group interviews. That being said, I imagine that this version of the paper is the condensed version that was necessary to meet the publication requirements. Still, it would have been nice to see even a brief acknowledgement that the study was ethically sound.

One major thing that I will take away from the paper are the questions that she asked to the students during a focus group task. These were included in a table outlining her data collection methods, and included prompts like:

the teacher explains and model answers; the teacher talks to me about my work; the teacher writes on my work, telling me what I need to do to improve it; the teacher writes comments on my work in relation to the learning objective; the teacher writes on comment on my work; the teacher ticks my work; I know the criteria and mark my work myself; the teacher tells us the answers and we mark it ourselves; a friend marks my work with me (p. 523).

I think these questions would be useful for my baseline questionnaire. The results would be very interesting, especially because they could provide me with a snapshot of what the students think about their feedback.

One of the main conclusions that the report makes is that teachers often think they are using assessment in a way that provides students with targets for improvement, but actually, when you ask the students, and when you actually look at the feedback itself, it's clear that the teachers are not always providing descriptive feedback; often it was phatic or evaluative, with smilie faces and tick marks (p. 524).  In her own look at the feedback given in the two year 6 classes, Murtagh noticed that 'there was limited evidence of feedback that related specifically to the learning objective of the lesson (p. 524). This obviously poses a problem, because one of the first rules of giving effective feedback is that you need to make the goals and intensions clear from the start in order to ensure student success. If the work being marked doesn't even match the learning intentions, then what's the point of that piece of work?

Another point that Murtagh makes, and which came up in my own pilot interviews, is that teachers tend to give, and therefore students tend to focus on, spelling, punctuation or grammar targets. As mentioned above, these targets are not often linked to the learning goals. It's no wonder then that most students think that teachers mark their work for these types of surface features; if teachers aren't making the learning intentions clear, alongside specific success criteria, then students will inevitably assume that their work will be marked for more basic criteria.

She also reinforces the literature, alongside my pilot findings, that students do not like 'tick and flick' marking, and that instead they like receiving 'cues or reinforcements to learners in the form of instructional feedback and/or related to goals' (p. 533). Similarly, the idea that students need to have better training in how to conduct self and peer-assessment came up. She mentions how students need to learn how to 'trust' each other when it comes to doing peer-assessment (p. 535); this came up in my pilot interview with one student suggesting that they were uncomfortable with peer-assessment because they found that other students either marked too easily or didn't take the targets seriously, providing silly comments like 'write neater'.

I really enjoyed the fact that Murtagh appears to be on the 'side' of teachers; while she acknowledges that sometimes her two subject teachers didn't always 'get it right', she does suggest that their intentions were good and that it was a lack of training or time that kept them from doing things properly. She goes further to suggest that providing too much feedback, especially delivered as phatic or evaluative, will actually do the students a disservice; they will become too reliant on teacher feedback, becoming less able to self or peer-assess.

Murtagh also mentions that there is a 'disparity between descriptive feedback in written form compared with that provided orally' (p. 524). In fact, what I noticed from the interview and observation quotes was that the teachers often provided verbal feedback, both from themselves and peers, but very little of this feedback was stored in a way that the students could later use and reflect upon.  It would be interesting to explore how verbal and written feedback are used by students in lessons, so this might be a question that I pose to my research subjects.

Finally, the article was useful to me because it provided me with more backup for continuing down the road I'm going in. Towards the end of the paper, Murtagh suggests that 'research with children, rather than solely about them, is vital to promoting the importance of the 'child's voice' as well as providing a means of access to it' (p. 536). I highlighted this as a key quote, because I think it supports my own reasons for consulting pupils directly and making use of student-researchers. Overall, it was a very good read, and has provided me with a lot of supporting evidence for my own research project.

ResearchMeet Reflection

I'm going to be slightly rude and have this window open whilst listening to the various ResearchMeet presentations. My initial idea is to type up what people are saying, should I happen to find it interesting or relevant. Hopefully, if I have time, I can go back over my initial thoughts and clarify them. Apologies in advance if I've quoted anyone out of context or misinterpreted what people have said. Also, you'll have to excuse the briefness of my responses; people are talking for short periods of time before someone else goes up, which limits the amount of time I can reflect!

Anyways, here goes...

The first group of speakers were aiming to talk about the impact of MEd research on practice. The first presenter, a former MEd student, felt that taking part of the SUPER MEd allowed her to better access 'the third space' - essentially bridging teaching and research. This is definitely something that I can agree with, as I feel like I can better see the connection between educational research and the process of teaching.

The next speaker, Laura, is a current MEd student in the same cohort as myself. She felt that being part of the SUPER MEd allowed her to become: Stretched, Ubiquitous, Practitioner, Enthusiasm, Reflective. She felt that it was the best CPD that she's ever done, and I'm inclined to agree. It has totally changed how I see teaching, as it has Laura as well.

It was really nice to see other MEd students who are passionate about their thesis projects. We all seem to have pretty ambitious aims, hoping to be able to use our findings across the whole school. I think we all plan to take our findings and make use of them after we finish the actual thesis. I know I certainly don't want my thesis to be the end of my academic learning. Similarly, I sometimes I worry about the 'generalisability' of the research I plan to undertake, but at the end of the day if I can provide useful information to myself and my school, then that's all that should matter.

Another current MEd student really made me think about the use of setting within subjects. I'd really like to read his thesis, once he's done, because it sounds like a really interesting topic. As an English, history and media teacher myself (whom he identified as subjects most likely to be 'against' setting), I completely agree that sometimes setting isn't necessary. I teach mixed ability GCSE groups and set GCSE groups, and to be honest, I don't have to differentiate any differently for the set group versus the mixed ability group. Differentiation should take place in EVERY classroom, so having mixed ability groups doesn't necessarily mean more work for teachers, which I think some fear.

The next speaker was discussing cultures of research at Sharnbrook - specifically, how to inspire people to partake in research. He stated, rather correctly, that there will always be some people who are interested in taking part in research projects (such as myself), and others who don't find it at all alluring. The speaker then went on to talk about how they're trying to 'close the gap' between teachers who are interested and those who are not. At their school, it seems like they're using Lesson Study to reach this aim. He also mentioned the use of 'Top-down' research about homework (re: the use of it, etc.), although I must admit I'm not sure what he meant by that. Clearly there's some questions I need to ask him, perhaps an explanation of what that means. He ended by saying that it's a  'Slow and ponderous journey' to embed a research culture within a school. He's not wrong.

Impington has a really cool idea going, with their Imp-Act in-house journal. That's an idea that I think my school should really get on board with; teachers SHOULD read more academic articles, even if it is a condensed version. I know we have a 'Teaching and Learning' newsletter, but sometimes I find that a bit basic and repetitive. It's definitely something to chase up in the future. I know it's tooting my own horn a bit, but I think that something like this blog, where I review books and articles that I've read, is more what we need to produce for staff members. Overall, Impington sounded like a pretty enthusiastic school, when it comes to a research culture. I got the impression that the assistant head who was speaking first was quite 'buzzing' about what was (or will be) happening at their school.

I also enjoyed hearing about the Faculty's work in Kazakhstan, where they tried to share the SUPER idea with teaching communities in Kazakhstan in order to create research partnerships. Bottom up research in an action research format. Culturally, the teachers in Kazakhstan didn't want to talk to teach other - they wanted to listen to the researchers. This would mean they had a tricky task - to change that culture. No easy feat. When discussing what the TRCs brought to the programme - they stated that it was beneficial to the other teachers to see that it was 'normal' practitioners who were driving research within the school; they got to see real people who are doing the job of teaching and researching, which could hopefully inspire them to do the same. This is something that even teachers in the UK need to see, I would argue!

Another MEd student, Dave, spoke briefly about teaching on the edge of chaos. He included a very interesting quote, which stated that 'The effective teachers keeps the classroom on the edge of chaos' (Harjunen, 2012). I found this a very interesting concept! I applaud Dave for taking such a huge leap with his own classes. I would really be interested in reading his thesis as well, because it would be really cool to read about the outcomes of his 'chaotic' experiment.

The penultimate presenter gave a pretty sound piece of advice, in that she told us to ask our supervisor to challenge us. I think this is something I definitely have to do more often. I was disappointed with the outcome of my essay 2, and maybe it's because I didn't ask my supervisor to push me hard enough. That being said, I am a bit of a perfectionist.

So those were my initial thoughts. Enjoy.

Preparing for my ResearchMeet presentation

Right, so I'm off sick today (a terrible run of insomnia has gripped me over the past few weeks - I can usually last a few days without decent sleep, but once I get to about three or four days running I really need to stop and re-charge), so I've decided, after a brief cat-nap, to try and produce some planning for the presentation I have to give tomorrow at a ResearchMeet (if you've ever heard of a TeachMeet, it's kind of like that, but on a more research-based level). What follows here is a summary of some of the ideas I plan to discuss tomorrow. However, given that I only have five minutes to present, it's likely to be a condensed version of the rambling you find here. I find it helpful, when planning, to have a written dialogue of my ideas because I can more easily reduce a long stretch of text.

Right, so my topic is: Using Students as Researchers (SARs) to Help Conduct a Masters Thesis Study

First of all, I think I should identify my discomfort with the word 'Using' in the title above; I don't want to phrase my inclusion of students in the research project in this way because it suggests that I will be 'using' the students for my own gain. In a way, because I will hopefully obtain a Masters of Education as a result of my thesis, this cannot be avoided. I don't want the students to think that they are 'objects' to be studied; instead, I will work to ensure that they feel like active participants. Cook-Sather et al (2014) state that as long as teachers are 'willing to truly share - not give up, but share - power and responsibility' and 'if they stay in open and honest dialogue with students about the processes as well as the outcomes, then [the students] are not likely to think you are experimenting on them'. As such, I won't be 'Using' the students to help me conduct my research; instead, I will be 'inviting' students to join me in a joint-research partnership.

So why include students in the research process? Well, Cook-Sather et al. (2014) state that 'students have invaluable insight into curricular structures, assessment methods' and 'learning goals'. Ruddduck and Flutter (2004) state that 'pupils of all ages can show a remarkable capacity to discuss their learning in a considered way'. Similarly, they state that by giving students 'the opportunity to participate in a learning-focused dialogue [we] may help to improve [their] attitudes towards teachers and schools' (Rudduck & Flutter, 2004). By using SARs to access the thoughts of other students, my hope is to elicit better, more honest responses to how students perceive and make use of the written feedback they receive. I believe 100% in the positive contributions that students can make to the research process, not only as 'informants' but also as the researchers themselves.

In their own research, Cook-Sather et al. (2014) found that students found collaborative work with faculty 'made them realise that "it is up to the entire community to make learning spaces function, so that means students have just as much responsibility as"' teachers. In this regard, using SARs should help improve the metacognitive understanding of the students involved, helping them to better understand their own learning as well as the learning of those around them. Rudduck and Flutter (2004) similarly state that by 'giving young learners the opportunity to think and talk about aspects of teaching and learning' we can 'have a direct impact on [their] metacognitive development and on their understanding of how they learn'.

Lorna M. Earl (2013), in her text on Assessment as Learning (AaL), also suggests that teachers should emphasise the role of the student in creating and assessing their own learning, and that they should 'personally monitor what they are learning and use the feedback from this monitoring to make adjustments, adaptations and even major changes'. By engaging SARs in the research process, I hope to include their perspective in the ongoing dialogue surrounding 'effective' feedback.  My (very ambitious) hope is that students who take part in the project with me will become better students - ones who are better able to reflect on their own use of feedback.

In fact, Cook-Sather et al. (2014) state that 'When criteria for grading and other forms of summative assessment are negotiated, student learning and engagement deepen. Understanding grading and feedback criteria helps students meet expectations more effectively and comprehend more fully where (and why) they did not adequately demonstrate their learning'. While they are speaking about the results of a particular study, I like to think that this can be generalised to the students who will participate in my project; by allowing students to see the literature behind what makes 'effective feedback' and then comparing this to the responses they receive from the interviews, the hope is that they will develop a better understanding of how powerful feedback can be, and how they can better use it to their own advantage.

In terms of 'Why Pupil Premium students?' my aims are, again, quite ambitious. I hope that, by including PP students in the research process I will instil in them a) better learning skills, b) better research skills and c) a desire to continue their education post-16 and beyond. Studies have shown that students who are PP are less likely less likely to achieve well in school (Ofsted, 2012). They are also less likely to attend University (Ofsted, 2012). It is these gaps that I hope to help close by including PP students; including them in a University study will hopefully give them a (positive) experience of what higher education is all about, as well as to improve their metacognitive skills on a more immediate level.

To meet this end, I will train the students on basic research skills, such as how to conduct research-based interviews, how to collect and analyse data, as well as to perhaps (this bit I am not 100% sure on yet) write their own report of their findings. All of these tasks will provide them with a range of skills that they might not learn on their own. Hopefully, the students involved will build on their own academic skills, change their own attitudes towards feedback and learning, and improve their own sense of self-efficacy (Cook-Sather et al, 2014). As Cook-Sather et al. (2014) state, it's these types of skills that are 'considered to be of strategic importance' to universities; by having PP students work with these skills now, they may be inspired to take what they've learnt further, and have university level aspirations for themselves.

By including students in the research process, and specifically having them work with issues around feedback, my hope is that my team of student researchers will better understand, and perhaps be critical of, the feedback they receive, thus making better use of it (or, perhaps, even challenging moments when the feedback isn't enough to push them forward). Similarly, by providing the interview students with notebooks to record their thoughts of feedback throughout a given week, they may be inspired to actually take note of, and think about, issues around feedback that they hadn't thought of before. All of this leads to students who are more aware of how they learn, which the research suggests is a good step towards improving progress.

To summarise, drawing on Rudduck and Flutter (2004), my answer to 'why include students as researchers' is the following:

-to better develop students understanding and awareness of how feedback works within the school
- to help the students see feedback (and their subsequent learning) as a serious matter
- to promote the development of higher order thinking skills (metacognition)
- to raise the self-confidence, self esteem and academic aspirations of my student researchers
- to develop students 'technical language' for talking about feedback and learning

References

Cook-Sather, Alison; Bovil, Catherine and Felton, Peter (2014). Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching: A Guide for Faculty. Jossey-Bass

Earl, Lorna M. (2013) Assessment as Learning: Using Using Classroom Assessment to Maximise Student Learning. 

Ofsted (2012). 'Unseen children: access on achievement 20 years on: Evidence report'. Available online at http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/unseen-children-access-and-achievement-20-years 

Rudduck, Jean and Flutter, Julia. (2004) Consulting Pupils: What's in it for schools? RoutledgeFalmer

Looking at 'Unlocking Formative Assessment'

My latest purchase was, admittedly, a mistake. I had found Shirley Clarke was a name that came up in a lot of the references for books I've been reading, and decided to consult Amazon to see if some of her titles were available. The first one that I stumbled upon was called 'Unlocking Formative Assessment'. However, what I failed to notice was the rest of the title... 'Practical strategies for enhancing pupils' learning in the primary classroom'. When the book arrived, I definitely had a hand-to-forehead moment. However, I decided to give the book a chance and read it anyways; my thinking was that the strategies, though aimed at primary teaching, could surely be translated towards secondary teaching. In that regard, I was not wrong; the text does easily lend itself to use at the secondary level, even though much of the examples and references are primary.

It is important to note that the copy I read was published in 2001; this means that it's missing much of the updated information/research behind formative assessment, and was written at a time when teachers were just beginning to take an interested in using formative assessment in their daily practice. However, it provides many sound arguments and ideas, which I will outline below. 

The start of the text provides an interesting metaphor about the difference between summertime and formative assessment, which I feel is worth sharing here: 

If we think about our children as plants...summative assessment of the plants is the process of simply measuring them. The measurements might be interesting to compare and analyse, but, in themselves, they do not affect the growth of the plants. Formative assessment, on the other hand, is the garden equivalent of feeding and watering the plants - directly affecting their growth.         (2)

I like this metaphor, because it provides a really simplistic and relatable way to consider the different types of assessment; it really emphasises the power of formative assessment over summative. 

I found that the text, while mostly reinforcing what I already know about formative assessment, did provide me with a few challenging questions. First of all, Clarke spends a whole chapter on planning, making it very clear that the clarity of the learning intentions is of utmost importance. Now, while this isn't a new concept for me, the way that she presented her argument did cause me to consider how I might incorporate a question on the availability/usefulness of learning intentions in lessons into my own thesis study. If I want to know how students perceive and use feedback in lessons, surely this must link to their understanding of a) the learning intentions, b) their ability to achieve these intentions and c) the teachers ability to mark their work against such intentions. 

In terms of my own practice, she also made me question my use of learning intentions; I usually start my lessons by asking students to record the learning intention (or lesson objective) in their books next to the date; in this sense, the LO acts as a title more than anything. Clarke suggests that this isn't always the most useful way of sharing intentions, which I had never thought of before. I will definitely have a look at when and where I introduce my learning intentions, so that they become more explicitly linked to the activity. 

The text has also convinced me that I need to make use of student input more often, when creating success criteria. Using a question like 'How will we know we've achieved the lesson objective' or 'What will success look like?' would provide an excellent starter activity (21). 

Clarke reinforces what much of the literature says about grades being detrimental as well. She states that 'marking is often directly responsible for regression in many pupils' and that it tends to 'demoralise and overwhelm pupils' (53). I've always been a firm believer in the fact that grades are useless if you're trying to improve progress, so it's always nice to see the idea reinforced. 

I questioned my own practice again when Clarke mentioned how, when assessing work,  teachers often assess criteria that aren't explicitly part of the learning intention, causing confusion among students.  For example, let's imagine that I had a lesson on analysing how writers use adjectives and adverbs to create detailed descriptions. During the lesson, I had students write a paragraph where they analysed a passage for it's use of adjectives and adverbs, but in my feedback I picked apart their use of spelling, punctuation and grammar. When the students receive this feedback, the focus is no longer on whether or not they had analysed language, but instead on surface features. This type of marking suggests that we expect students 'to apply all the criteria they have been taught for every piece of writing' making all assessments 'a test' instead of a slow building of skills (54). In future, I will definitely try to mark against the learning intentions of that lesson, not drawing a huge amount of attention to other features. 

Allowing time for reflection and feedback is also a key part of effective marking, as stated in the text. Again, this is nothing new to me, but Clarke does provide a number of useful techniques for allowing students time and prompts to begin the reflection process which might be useful for teachers new to formative assessment. 

Overall, I think the text provides valuable insight and information, but for someone who has read more recent work on formative assessment, it seems a bit basic and repetative. Nevertheless, it is a useful book, and one that provides a good starting point if you're new to the topic of formative assessment and it's practical uses. 

My response to 'What Makes Great Teaching'

I'm sure many teachers have seen, or at least heard about, the recent publication by Robert Coe et al. (2014) entitled 'What makes great teaching? Review of the underpinning research'. I first heard about it during one of my Masters of Education sessions at the University of Cambridge's Faculty of Education. I was interested enough to download the document, and I'm going to type up my thoughts alongside reading it. As such, the writing that follows is a direct response to the review

To begin, the purpose of the review was to establish 'What makes 'great teaching'?; 'What kinds of frameworks or tools could help us capture it?'; and 'How could this promote better learning?' (2). What initially drew me to the review was its claims about being able to define 'great teaching'. I'm skeptical of anything that can be used to classify what is and isn't 'great teaching'. In fact, I feel that the word 'great' itself is already problematic, because it suggests a hierarchy of 'greatness', or 'right' versus 'wrong'. A better word might be 'effective', which the review appears to slip into using in the first paragraph, where they 'define effective teaching as that which leads to improved student achievement using outcomes that matter to their future success' (emphasis added by myself) (2).

Already I take issue with their definition. I'm not sure that we should define effective teachers on the achievement of their students, because this presents a multitude of issues. First of all, it relies on external results, of which teachers and students have little control. It also doesn't take into account the variety of learners that are out there, nor the situation or placement of schools, their students, and the learning environments. Besides, achievement can fluctuate wildly within classrooms and groups, from year to year, so I'm not sure how you could come to a consensus for any given teacher, given the wide variety of success they're likely to see regarding student achievement. I know a lot of teachers who get their students to 'get the results', but I'd hardly define them as 'great' teachers. Personally, I think it's much more complex than a measure of achievement, though I'd be hard pressed to offer a viable alternative. I'd like to find a way to link it more to 'learning', but until we find a way to better judge how well students learn (other than through external assessments), then we're stuck.

Upon reading further, I am pleased to see the authors acknowledge some of the arguments that I make above. They acknowledge that

A number of factors will influence students’ achievements, for example, pre-existing student characteristics (both of individual students and collectively), characteristics of the school and of the teacher (some of which may be alterable, others not), and of the context. In practice, the attribution of an ‘effect’ to an individual teacher or school is generally determined by what cannot be explained by factors that are judged to be outside the control of that individual (Raudenbush, 2004).  (9)

They then move on to define the 'six components of great teaching', which include 'content knowledge', 'quality of instruction', the 'classroom climate', 'classroom management', 'teacher beliefs' and 'professional behaviours' (2-3). To begin with, I understand why they'd place subject knowledge first, as you certainly wouldn't want someone with no knowledge of mathematics teaching your child Maths; however, it's also been proven in various studies that outstanding subject knowledge doesn't necessarily make for a 'great' teacher. As for the next five, I must admit that I don't take issue with their placement in the review, since much of what they entail links to a lot of the reading I've been conducting over the past year.

I find it interesting that the review proposes to use a 'formative teacher evaluation system - based on continuous assessment and feedback rather than a high-stakes test', since this is the way we currently grade the achievement of our students (3). Surely if we're assessing effective teaching in a formative way, one which uses 'different sources' and 'a variety of methods' we should assesses effective learning in the same way! But I digress...

The review goes on to say that teachers are assessed using classroom observations, value-added models (which link to student achievement) and student ratings, suggesting that principal judgement, teacher self-analysis and analysis of classroom artefacts were of marginal use (4). I can't help but thing back to some of the readings I've recently done on providing effective feedback to students; I think that work could be done on training teachers how to become better at self-assessing themselves - I think we're missing a trick here if we continue to allow others (usually outsiders) to assess us. The literature suggests that students make much better progress if they are trained in peer and self-assessment, so surely the same could be said for teachers themselves.

In fact, it appears that the review addresses part of this issue itself, when it refers to how teacher feedback could be used effectively; the authors suggest that the 'observation/feedback routine should be structured explicitly as a continuous professional learning opportunity that enables them to work on improving student outcomes' (5), which sound a lot like how formative assessment should be used in lessons to aid pupil progress. 

In fact, the six principles of teacher feedback that they outline have many similarities to some of the suggestions in the literature on how to make feedback to students more effective:

Sustained professional learning is most likely to result when:
1. the focus is kept clearly on improving student outcomes;
2. feedback is related to clear, specific and challenging goals for the recipient;
3. attention is on the learning rather than to the person or to comparisons with others;
4. teachers are encouraged to be continual independent learners;
5. feedback is mediated by a mentor in an environment of trust and support;
6. an environment of professional learning and support is promoted by theschool’s leadership. (5)

Admittedly, I can't argue much with these six principles. In fact, I would tend to agree that if schools adopted these strategies, they'd be more likely to see an improvement in teaching, because they're exactly the sort of things that, if teachers used them in their classrooms with students, would see an improvement in learning. 

The authors go on to explain that a focus on learning would be ideal, but acknowledge, as I have previously done above, that measuring learning is much harder. They describe how an evaluation of the 'necessary conditions for such learning to occur' could be a step forward. 

For example, we might argue that teachers need to feel trusted and valued, that their experiences and perspectives are acknowledged, that the culture of the schools in which they work should promote critical questioning and innovative approaches, with space and encouragement for discussion and sharing of ideas (8). 

I would agree that such an environment would undoubtedly encourage better, more effective teachers; I'd like to work in such a school environment, at any rate. 

The authors then go on to suggest that, while it's hard to rate teacher effectiveness using the three criteria that they have selected (and I agree with this point), it's still beneficial to use their methods as a starting point. They go on to suggest that they 'also stress the role of feedback from and discussion about the results of an assessment in professional learning, and the role of a clearly specified framework of performance indicators to focus teachers’ attention and effort on things that are important (10-11). Again, a lot of what they are proposing here isn't that far off from the things researchers propose about effective feedback to students. It makes sense that they should be similar, since, at the end of the day, we're all human and we're all (or should be) lifelong learners. 

Another comforting statement is seeing that they 'acknowledge that quality teaching is multidimensional: a profile of multiple, independent strengths and weaknesses may be more useful – and a better fit to reality – than a single, unidimensional measure' (11). This addresses one of the concerns that I had earlier, and is therefore good to see. I was initially concerned that the review would attempt to provide some kind of 'checklist' of skills, traits or teaching styles that made up 'effective' teaching. However, the authors go on to suggest that they hope to present examples of behaviours, approaches and practice that 'meet our criteria of being implementable and linked to gains in student outcomes' instead of  'a checklist of desirable behaviours' (13). 

What follows is a series of summaries about theories, techniques, strategies or routines that have been found, through other studies, to have had a positive impact on student achievement. Admittedly, this was not what I was expecting from the review, although I'm not sure why that is. I think I went in with a negative idea of what the review was going to imply, which perhaps clouded my judgement. I'm not going to go through these strategies here, but if you're interesting in knowing what they are, I'd suggest you access the review yourself as they do provide an interesting 'tool kit' of ideas. 

The next, more interesting part, is when the authors summarise 'bad practice'. They rationalise doing so by saying that sometimes it's good to challenge people's perceptions in a 'constructive way' (22). It is this section of the review that the media seems to have picked up on, because the first example that the authors give is on praise, which appeared in the news following the publication of the review. As I recall, it was widely reported in the press that praise was a bad thing, and that teachers shouldn't give praise any more. 

Unfortunately, I think (surprise, surprise) that the media has quoted out of context. I've read much of the same literature as the authors of the review, and know that many researchers do suggest that praise has little to no effect on achievement. However, I think this statement needs clarification. They don't mean that all praise should be stopped; instead, they mean that praise for the sake of praise - saying 'Good job' or 'Well done' - isn't effective. 

Further reading of the review has led me to believe that there is a massive gap in the research when it comes to observations of teachers, and, more specifically, how to make these observations more effective in terms of a) assessing teacher quality and b) providing feedback to move teachers forward. This is an area that I'd be interested in studying further, if I wasn't already tied down to my thesis research project. 

Overall, I think that the review is actually a pretty interesting piece of writing, which could have many positive effects if used correctly within schools. It is less of a tool of judgement, and more a suggestion of steps and procedures that schools should take to promote effective teaching in their schools. It's too bad that the media didn't lock on to the positive elements of the review, and instead tried to find something controversial, or negative, to share with the wider public.