Reclaiming our profession:
Getting teachers better
Robert Coe
Northern Rocks 2014
Saturday, 7th June
Leeds
Getting teachers better
 What does ‘better’ look like?
∂
 How do we get better?
 How will we know if we have?
2
What does ‘better’ look like?
If you want to be a better teacher,
 Do you know what aspect of your practice
you should work to improve?
 Do you know what you should do to improve
∂
it?
 Can you actually do this?
 How will you know if it has improved?
(‘should’ = ‘most likely to lead to benefit’)
4
∂
5
Danielson Framework
http://danielsongroup.org/framework/
1. Planning and preparation
a. Demonstrating Knowledge of
Content and Pedagogy
b. Demonstrating Knowledge of
Students
c. Setting Instructional Outcomes
d. Demonstrating Knowledge of
Resources
e. Designing Coherent Instruction
f. Designing Student Assessments
3. Instruction
a. Communicating with Students
b. Using Questioning and Discussion
Techniques
c. Engaging Students in Learning
d. Using Assessment in Instruction
e. Demonstrating Flexibility and
Responsiveness
∂
4. Professional responsibilities
a.
b.
c.
d.
Reflecting on Teaching
Maintaining Accurate Records
Communicating with Families
Participating in the Professional
Community
e. Growing and Developing
Professionally
f. Showing Professionalism
2. Classroom environment
a. Creating an Environment of Respect
and Rapport
b. Establishing a Culture for Learning
c. Managing Classroom Procedures
d. Managing Student Behavior
e. Organizing Physical Space
6
Teacher Professional Standards
should
 Be based on best evidence about pedagogy,
teacher effectiveness, learning theory
 Reflect diversity of teacher needs (one size
doesn’t fit all)
∂
 Include protocols for demonstrating when
they are met that are
– Clear and operationalisable
– Consistent across different raters, schools, etc
– Demonstrably predictive of valued pupil outcomes
7
What we want teachers to learn
(good pedagogy) may depend on …
Different career stages
– Initial
– Developing
– Expert
Different teaching/leadership
roles
Different subjects
– A level history
– Early reading
– Adult vocational numeracy
∂ Different phases
–
–
–
–
– Class teacher
– Subject leader
– Senior leadership
Different teaching aims
–
–
–
–
Cognitive/intellectual
Affective/emotional
Social
Behavioural
Early years
Primary
Secondary
FE
Different contexts
– Social mix
– Attainment levels
8
Evidence-based standards for
effective teaching?
 Evidence about relationships between teacher
skills, knowledge & behaviours and
‘effectiveness’
 Evidence about what can be changed (and how)
∂
 Based on ‘best’ theories of
– Pupil learning
– Pedagogy & teaching effectiveness
– Behaviour change (individual, institutional, systemic)
 Most important: does focusing on these
things lead to improvement?
9
Effect Size (months gain)
Impact vs cost
www.educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit
Most promising for
raising attainment
8
May be
worth it
Feedback
Meta-cognitive
Peer tutoring
Homework
(Secondary)
Collaborative
Early Years
1-1 tuition
∂
Behaviour
Small gp
Phonics
Parental
tuition
involvement
ICT
Social
Individualised Summer
schools
learning
Mentoring
Homework
(Primary)
Performance Aspirations
0
pay
£0 Ability grouping
Cost per pupil
Smaller
classes
After
school
Teaching
assistants
£1000
Small
effects /
high cost
Knowledge of research
Put these in order of effectiveness:
A. A one-to-one numeracy intervention (two 15-minute
sessions per week, delivered by teaching assistants) for
Year 2-6 pupils who are struggling with numeracy
(outcome: maths)
B. Nine weekly one-hour sessions where Y7 pupils below L4
read and discuss an age-appropriate book, with tools and
resources to encourage reading
for pleasure (outcome:
∂
reading)
C. A four-week summer school programme (between Y6 & 7)
for pupils who had been predicted to achieve KS2 below
Level 4b in English, focussed on poetry and writing
(outcome: writing).
D. Y6 & 7 teachers trained to deliver a programme to help low
attaining pupils plan, monitor and evaluate their writing
using memorable experiences, eg trips and visitors
(outcome: writing).
11
Learning theory
 In what ways does understanding depend on
knowledge? In what ways does knowledge
depend on understanding?
 Give an example of a∂ common
misunderstanding of a key concept you have
taught. How might you address it?
 How can teachers make it most likely that
students will remember what they have
learnt?
12
How do we get better?
13
Broader argument
 Teacher quality is what matters
 We need to focus on teacher learning
 Teachers learn just like other people
– Be clear what you want∂ them to learn
– Get good information about where they are at
– Give good feedback
 Cultural changes are required to
– Help teachers learn from each other
– Give teachers ownership of their learning
14
Five Strategies of Formative Assessment
(Wiliam 2011 Embedded formative assessment)
 Clarifying, sharing and understanding learning
intentions and success criteria
 Engineering effective classroom discussions,
activities and learning tasks that elicit evidence
of learning
∂
 Providing feedback that moves learners forward
 Activating learners as instructional resources for
each other
 Activating learners as the owners of their own
learning
15
Clarifying, sharing and understanding
learning intentions and success criteria
 Attempts to describe these are either
– Too broad to be well-defined
– Too narrow to capture real learning
∂
 Must be operationalised
with
– Examples of behaviours that do / do not exemplify
– Specific “tasks that elicit evidence of learning”
 Therefore need to assess teacher learning
– Does not imply evaluation/ranking/consequences
16
How do we get students to learn hard things?
Eg
 Place value
 Persuasive
writing
 Music
composition
 Balancing
chemical
equations
• Explain what they should do
• Demonstrate it
• Get them to do it (with
∂
gradually
reducing support)
• Provide feedback
• Get them to practise until it is
secure
• Assess their skill/
understanding
How do we get teachers to learn hard things?
Eg
 Using formative
assessment
 Assertive
discipline
 How to teach
algebra
• Explain what they should do
∂
What CPD helps learners?
 Intense: at least 30 contact hours, preferably 50+
 Sustained: over at least two terms
 Content focused: on teachers’ knowledge of
subject content & how students learn it
∂
 Active: opportunities to try it out & discuss
 Supported: external feedback and networks to
improve and sustain
 Evidence based: promotes strategies supported
by robust evaluation evidence
How will we know if we have?
20
Why monitor teaching quality?
 Strong evidence of (potential) benefit from
– Performance feedback (Coe, 2002)
– Target setting (Locke & Latham, 2006)
– Intelligent accountability (Wiliam 2010)




Individual teachers matter most
Everyone can improve∂
Teachers stop improving after 3-5 years
Judging real quality/effectiveness is very hard
– Multidimensional
– Not easily visible
– Confounded
21
Monitoring the quality of teaching

Progress in assessments
– Quality of assessment matters (cem.org/blog)
– Regular, high quality assessment across curriculum (InCAS,
INSIGHT)

Classroom observation
– Much harder than you think! (cem.org/blog)
– Multiple observations/ers, trained and QA’d

Student ratings
∂
– Extremely valuable, if done properly
(http://www.cem.org/latest/student-evaluation-of-teaching-canit-raise-attainment-in-secondary-schools)

Other
–
–
–
–
–
Parent ratings feedback
Student work scrutiny
Colleague perceptions (360)
Self assessment
Pedagogical content knowledge
22
Teacher Assessment
 How do you know that it has captured
understanding of key concepts?
– vs ‘check-list’ (eg ‘;’=L5, 3 tenses=L7)
 How do you know standards are
comparable?
∂
– Across teachers, schools, subjects
– Is progress good?
 How have you resolved tensions from
teacher judgments being used to judge
teachers?
23
School ‘improvement’ often isn’t
 School would have improved anyway
– Volunteers/enthusiasts improve: misattributed to intervention
– Chance variation (esp. if start low)
 Poor outcome measures
– Perceptions of those who worked hard at it
– No robust assessment of pupil
∂ learning
 Poor evaluation designs
– Weak evaluations more likely to show positive results
– Improved intake mistaken for impact of intervention
 Selective reporting
– Dredging for anything positive (within a study)
– Only success is publicised
(Coe, 2009, 2013)
Key elements of good evaluation
 Clear, well
defined, replicable
intervention
∂
 Good assessment
of appropriate
outcomes
 Well-matched
comparison group
Summary …
1. Teacher ‘quality’ needs to
be evidence-based
www.cem.org
2. Focus on characteristics
that help us improve
3. Teachers learn the same
way as other people
@ProfCoe
Robert.Coe@cem.dur.ac.uk
4. Monitoring and evaluation
are important, but hard