School-led Research Development
Research and development opportunities for teachers, where
the ultimate goal should be to empower professionals with
evidence, are significant.
How can research capacity be built in schools?
How can research practice be embedded as part of general
practice?
How does it benefit learning in school?
In what ways can strong partnerships between schools and HEI
promote and enhance opportunities for school-led research?
Long Term Vision
• Getting staff more engaged WITH research
and IN research
• Supported by collaborative enquiry / lesson
study format
• Teachers taking responsibility for their own
CPD through collaborative learning and use of
internal expertise.
We need to focus on classrooms, not schools
• In the UK, variability at the classroom level is
at least four times that at school level.
– As long as you go to school, it doesn’t matter very
much which school you go to.
– But it matters very much which classrooms you
are in.
• It’s not class size.
• It’s not the between-class grouping strategy.
• It’s not the within-class grouping strategy.
Slide from Dylan Wiliam
4
“Every teacher needs to improve,
not because they are not good
enough, but because they can be
even better.”
Dylan Wiliam
Research suggests that the impact of teachers
on students’ outcomes plateaus after a few
years. We need to challenge ourselves to
deliberately seek improvements in our practice.
Where did we start this academic year?
Building on last year’s successes
• Evidence:
– Departmental reviews
– Ofsted
– Overall positive feedback from teachers (qualitative comments on the
sessions offered)
• All noted some impact on Teaching and Learning borne out of focus on
what makes excellent lessons and reflecting on a continuum of teaching
styles.
• Some excellent practice observed, supported by some positive exam
results at GCSE particularly.
• HOWEVER need for more consistency across and within departments.
What we learned from our staff…
Teacher Feedback mentioned:
• The need to share and embed good practice.
• The need for more time to develop and consolidate
strategies, plan collaboratively within departments.
• The feeling that some of the CPD offer lacked coherence.
The wishlist:
- More time (!)
- More peer lesson observations – developmental ,not high
stakes
- Differentiated CPD offer.
- Some wish for sessions where independent reading,
including research, is offered.
Culture and Ethos
• Willingness to move away from what makes an
‘Outstanding’ lesson, Ofsted-approved or
otherwise
• Focus on the learning of our specific pupils rather
than focus on what the teacher is doing at the
front
• “Encouraging authentic collegiality” (Alex Quigley)
- Collaborative work and coaching
• Evaluation of impact on students’ learning
• Creating the right conditions for teachers to thrive
• Evidence-informed
Professional Development
Leading a Collaborative Enquiry
The Plan
• Making use of the Monday CPD sessions for
this purpose (once an half term broadly)
• Working in clusters with a mentor – regular
input and discussion & planning time.
The approach
1. Decide why you’re doing this
2. Decide who’ll benefit, how they’ll benefit
and how you’ll know
3. Decide what you’re not going to do instead
4. Dig in to the theory and research
5. Collaborate, try, reflect, evaluate.
6. Beware group-think, find some challenge
7. Embed and disseminate!
Teacher buy-in
• In depth expertise on an area of their practice
rather than sound bites and strategies which
are rarely embedded
• Gathering a portfolio of evidence to document
the process; focus on outcomes
• Disseminating good practice
• Encouraging further research into a question by
formulating more related questions that
haven't been addressed or answered yet
Example: Lesson Study
1. Plan
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Plan a lesson together.
Address each activity to your Learning
Goal and predict how pupils will react
and how you will assess this.
Pick 3 case pupils.
2. Observe
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•
Teach the lesson with your colleagues
observing.
Pay particular attention to the case
pupils
Conduct any assessments and/or
interviews during & after.
3. Reflect & Plan
•
As soon after the lesson as possible,
reflect how each activity elicited the
sought-after change. Were your
predictions correct? Why?
FOCUS ON THE
STUDENTS, NOT THE
TEACHER
THE PROCESS
Choose an Enquiry question / goal
Set up
Design your evaluation
Investigate the issue, get a baseline
Enquiry,
through
Lesson Study
Plan and try an intervention
Interim review & expert input/research
Refine your intervention
Finish evaluation
Complete your
evaluation
Write a summary
Dissemination & Sharing
Guidance
Framework
Evaluating the impact of our practice
Range of evaluation
FORMATIVE AND SUMMATIVE
ASSESSMENT
TEACHER’S OWN OBSERVATIONS –
NOTES, PHOTOS OF WORK PRODUCED,
USE OF STAR CAMERA
TEAM MEMBERS’ OBSERVATIONS
AND COMMENTS
OTHER STATS
eg attendance figures, number of
comments/detentions/merits in
contact book
QUALITY OF HOMEWORK AND
CLASSWORK, INCLUDING
PARTICIPATION / CONTRIBUTIONS
POST LESSON INTERVIEWS WITH
FOCUS PUPILS
GETTING A BASELINE FIRST?
Evaluation
Importance of
starting with
evaluation in mind.
How effective is
diagnostic marking
between students and
teachers and does it
have an impact on their
learning or attainment?
Selection
• We picked a top, middle and bottom student
based on data and professional judgement
from the 3 classes.
• We took in their books and looked at the
marking and if they were answering questions
that had been asked.
Examples…
Examples…
Examples…
How can we change the
perception of computer
science and IT to
encourage more girls to
choose this subject for
further study?
We narrowed down our research by selecting girls
with high and average CAT scores and questioning
them regarding their interest in computer science.
Through our investigation into papers written and our
contact with CAS – Computing at School, we made
contact with Dr Pau who has been working on this view
and attitude of girls to computing.
In light of this and the ways in which attitudes could
change, we held an intervention which gave the girls
exposure to different forms of technology (i.e. Lego
Mindstorm). As well as this Dr Pau agreed to visit our
school and the girls.
Following this the girls were invited to a free event, planned for
International Women's Day here at the University of
Southampton. It took place on the 7th March from 10am – 4pm,
and was a day of interactive events for female students.
How can we strengthen
the knowledge retrieval
capacity of our
students?
(Beating the ‘I can’t
remember’ line)
Experimenting with ‘cheat sheets’
Responses provided by students on use of cheat-sheet:
• “I think it’s a good idea and they help make me think and
remember. It’s good to condense information. I can see
how it has really helped me.”
• “I think Cheat-sheet was helpful, but if I had added more
things that were my weaknesses, it would have helped me
more.”
• “Yes, it has helped, due to me making so many minor
mistakes that have cost me many marks.”
How can we facilitate
critical thinking at KS3
level through a variety of
discussion based tasks?
How can we get students
to gain more marks in
the 8 mark questions in
the AQA GCSE Physical
Education written
paper?
Wider reading
Engaging with research
• Group mentors’ suggested reading
• Enquiry groups’ own reading
• Reading resources by themes on school system and
supporting blog
• Access to JSTOR
http://phsenquiry.blogspot.co.uk/
Lessons Learnt
• You cannot coerce colleagues into ‘doing an
enquiry’ – Start with volunteers or as part of the
CPD offer
• Time is needed. This requires time and effort.
Creative timetabling needed.
• You don’t know what you don’t know… Choosing
a ‘good’ enquiry question is a challenge in itself.
What next?
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Building on the work done
External expertise? How?
Link with universities
Harvesting the expertise of colleagues completing Masters
Possibly: Learning Communities developing their own
action research
Different levels of engagement depending on experience
and willingness
Support from NTEN
Exciting developments with focus R&D as a Teaching
School within a Teaching School Alliance
More robust evaluation of the programme
Wider reading – What next?
Capitalising on…
Slide from David Weston