BOWDEN ROOM
Research-Led Approaches
to Increasing Pupil Learning
Research-Led Approaches
to Increasing Pupil Learning
Professor Robert Coe
Director of the Centre for Evaluation
and Monitoring at Durham University
Research-Led Approaches to
Increasing Pupil Learning
Robert Coe
North of England Education Conference 2014
Nottingham, 15 January
Outline
 How can we use school resources to get the
biggest increases in learning?
 What can research tell us about the likely
impact of different strategies?
∂ these strategies?
 How do we implement
 What else do we need do to make it likely
that attainment will rise?
Improving Education: A triumph of hope over experience
http://www.cem.org/attachments/publications/ImprovingEducation2013.pdf
5
Evidence about the
effectiveness of different
strategies
6
Toolkit of Strategies to Improve Learning
∂
The Sutton Trust-EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit
http://www.educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit/
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
Key messages
 Some things that are popular or widely
thought to be effective are probably not
worth doing
– Ability grouping (setting); After-school clubs;
∂
Teaching assistants; Smaller classes;
Performance pay; Raising aspirations
 Some things look ‘promising’
– Effective feedback; Meta-cognitive and self
regulation strategies; Peer tutoring/peer‐assisted
learning strategies; Homework
Clear, simple advice:
 Choose from the top left
 Go back to school and do it
∂
For every complex problem
there is an answer that is
clear, simple, and wrong
H.L. Mencken
10
Why not?
 We have been doing some of these things for a
long time, but have generally not seen
improvement
 Research evidence is problematic
– Sometimes the existing evidence is thin
∂ reflect real life
– Research studies may not
– Context and ‘support factors’ may matter
 Implementation is problematic
– We may think we are doing it, but are we doing it right?
– We do not know how to get large groups of teachers
and schools to implement these interventions in ways
that are faithful, effective and sustainable
11
So what should we do?
12
Four steps to improvement




Think hard about learning
Invest in good professional development
Evaluate teaching ∂quality
Evaluate impact of changes
1. Think hard about
learning
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
Poor Proxies for Learning






Students are busy: lots of work is done (especially
written work)
Students are engaged, interested, motivated
Students are getting attention: feedback,
explanations
Classroom is ordered, calm, under control
∂
Curriculum has been ‘covered’
(ie presented to
students in some form)
(At least some) students have supplied correct
answers, even if they
–
–
–
–
Have not really understood them
Could not reproduce them independently
Will have forgotten it by next week (tomorrow?)
Already knew how to do this anyway
16
A simple theory of learning
Learning happens
when people have
to think hard
∂
Hard questions about your school
 How many minutes does an average pupil on
an average day spend really thinking hard?
 Do you really want pupils to be ‘stuck’ in your
∂
lessons?
 If they knew the right answer but didn’t know
why, how many pupils would care?
18
2. Invest in effective CPD
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 15 contact hours, preferably 50
 Sustained: over at least two terms
 Content focused: on teachers’ knowledge of
subject content & how students learn it
∂ try it out & improve
 Active: opportunities to
 Supported: external feedback and networks to
improve and sustain
 Evidence based: promotes strategies
supported by robust evaluation evidence
 Evaluated: so we know the impact on learning
3. Evaluate teaching
quality
Every teacher needs to
improve, not because they
∂
are not good enough,
but
because they can be even
better.
Dylan Wiliam
Monitoring the quality of teaching
 Classroom observation
– Much harder than you think!
– Multiple observations/ers, trained and QA’d
∂
 Progress in assessments
– Quality of assessment matters
 Student ratings
– Extremely valuable, if done properly
25
4. Evaluate impact of
changes
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. Think hard about learning
2. Invest in good CPD
3. Evaluate teaching
quality
∂
4. Evaluate impact of changes
Robert.Coe@cem.dur.ac.uk
www.cem.org
@ProfCoe
Research-Led Approaches
to Increasing Pupil Learning