Balancing professional development for teachers, with funding, and student achievement

In this podcast (that was shared by Mike Preece), some key points arise about providing learning opportunities across all sociocultural groups in New Zealand...in particular those who are facing socio-economic disadvantages. The link between provision of professional development and shifts in student achievement are discussed, and it was recognised that it is tough to demonstrate this shift using standardised tests. The link between lifts in achievement are not easily measured, and it is problematic drawing a direct causal link...especially as school are inundated by initiatives.

It would be great to hear your reactions - do you feel that use of achievement data to apply for funding "constrains and controls" teaching and teachers? Should we go back to assessing "the performance of individual teachers"? What do you feel the key aspects are that improve the learning experience for students in schools? Should the requirements for entry to teacher training be raised? Can Board of Trustees carry out "trusted" performance appraisal?

How good are our teachers and does it matter? Radio New Zealand's education correspondent, John Gerritsen discusses the quality of school teachers with Angela Roberts, president of the Post Primary Teachers' Association; Dr Judith Aitken, a member of the committee that reviewed the teachers council and a former head of the education review office; and Professor Dugald Scott, a former dean of Education at Victoria University of Wellington (source).

Duration:  27′ 54″

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Image: 'Balancing on the Invisible' http://www.flickr.com/photos/36543076@N00/325661568 Found on flickrcc.net

Teacher's metacognition

Alejarndra Martinez is a psychologist has been working with teachers, initially in rural Chile. She is interested in how teachers view themselves as learners. Currently working on her PhD at the University of Melbourne  Alejandra has been working in professional learning teams, to investigate links between courses and students' outcomes.

One of the focus was to move thinking about my student to our student. The key aspect to inform our teaching from this perspective is the skill level of the students. The variables that are collected around numeracy, literacy, student outcomes, classroom practices, PLT functioning, beliefs and attitudes, and metacognition. Further research on teachers'  professional learning is required in order to understand the characteristics and development of their metacognition (Dinsmore, 2008). The key focus, therefore is how teachers see themselves as learners, and how this impacts their own practice.

The main aim is to analyse the extent to which the shift from a deficit to a developmental approach to assessment and learning influences teacher metacognitive awareness of their professional practice. The study uses a teacher metacognition framework that has 5 elements, which are part of a cyclical process: Comprehension of differentiated teaching practice; self evaluation of current competence; planning professional learning; monitoring professional learning; and evaluation of the progress made.
The Metacognitive Awareness Inventory was adapted (16 questions), and other new questions were added. Two forms were developed (A and B) with 14 common questions to enable comparison. After a calibration process using Item Response Modelling 7 questions were removed, as they were discriminating less the the expected model.

The data was analysed using an item/person map with level descriptions. Teachers were then given the results that indicated that the level they were at, rather than a specific 'score'. The initial findings were based on 359 teachers. There was a large number of teachers at Level A, Level D, and Level F. A learning readiness report on metacognition, which has individual feedback which is linked to the 5 stage cyclical model.

The students who grow the most who are at the lower level, whereas the top level the students do not grow the most. We need to connect differentiated teaching, not only to student needs, but also to teacher needs. Some of the challenges are the links with student performance. There are some aspects of metacognition that needs to be captured with qualitative data; so the next step is to conduct some interviews with the teachers. This is longitudinal research, and data has been collected in year 1 and this year data will be collected to illustrate changes.

Image: '_繁華燃燼，那一面斑駁｡' - Found on flickrcc.net

It was refreshing to listen to what Guy Claxton had to say in the video embedded below (shared by Derek Wenmoth and cross-posted in full below). His pragmatic stance that, while students need to achieve in assessment, they also need to develop and use metacognitive and social skills (key competencies), made a lot of sense. I did have to laugh at his anecdote of a maths teacher grumbling that not only did he have to teach his students maths, he now had to teach them how to think.... Highly recommended.
One tiny grumble...and less irritating in a video, Guy does have a tendency to read the quotations from his slides in full. But, hey!

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Original post "Can schools prepare you for anything?", by Derek Wenmoth, April 18th 2012.
I had the pleasure a couple of weeks ago of attending the 2012 Graham Nuthall Annual Lecture at Canterbury University where I heard Guy Claxton present an engaging talk titled 'Can Schools Prepare You For Anything?' His abstract read:

Traditional education aims to raise standards by any means, but we are coming to see that preparing young people for tests, and preparing them for life, are different goals. How do we deepen learning so that it systematically builds the learning dispositions that the next generation will need? As work on ‘key competencies’ and ‘21st century skills’ evolves it is becoming clearer just what it takes to raise standards in a way that helps kids be ready for anything.

In Guy's typical provocative and well informed style, he challenged us to think more critically about many of the things we're carrying forward from our traditional education system, and to think more creatively about how we might conceive of and implement a truly 21st century approach where we maintain the focus on a future-focused curriculum as well as raising standards for learners.
As with all of these sorts of talks, there was so much to take in and reflect on, but thanks to the team at EdTalks we can all enjoy the change to view Guy's talk again and engage in a bit of 'rewind learning'!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 18th, 2012 at 7:1

eLearning and teacher education: Crossing digital divides

Image by Wayan Vota via Noeline Wright started the presentation with a reference to Prensky's notion of Digital natives and the fact that it was always supposed to be a metaphor, and has since be used in ways that he never initially meant. The notions of digital natives do not replace. for example intuition, good judgement, problem solving, and ability to discern patterns. Also, "in and unimaginable complex future, the digitally unenhanced person, however wise, will not be able to access the tools of wisdom that will be available to even the least wise digitally enhanced human" (Prensky). It suggests that delayed use of these types of tools will be impoverished use. Media should not be regarded merely as teaching aids or tools for learning. Education about the media should be seen seen an indispensable pre-requisite for education with or though media (Buckingham and Burn, 2007).

Critical thinking and metacognitive skills need to be present alongside engagement, intention, deliberation, self-monitoring, and self-regulation (MacDonald et al, 2011). The ability to engage often comes after the means to engage have happened. Engagement does not happen before the ability that they can work on the learning...that it is accessible. while we build self-esteem in students, and that sense of belonging, rather than working with the texts, it will only ever be social. The learners also need to have the confidence to have different points of view, to be able to agree and disagree with each other. "Extended cognition is a core cognitive process, not an add-on extra [because] the brain develops in a way that complements the external structures in ways that people who have not experience these types of interactions would be unable to do. There is a strong link between high achievement and metacognition, which "highlights the importance of learning the self-monitoring and self-regulating behaviours that will ensure task-specific meaning-making" (MacDonald et al, 2011).

The teacher, therefore, guides students through an analysis of the text type, working out what is conveyed, what can be deduced about the writer and/or the origin of the text, how the student located and collected information, and what produce they would create from it.

"Multimodal texts are fast becoming the dominant mode of communication...stdent need to be a discerning user of them" (MacDonald et al, 2011). If the key focus of education is to reduce the distance between a learner and a text, and for the learner to then make that their own - then the role of the teacher is to facilitate the process, and explicit teaching around critical thinking and inference.

Noeline gave some illustrations from initial teacher education, and when she shows them a Web page around a 'Guinea worm' there is often no curiosity or motivation to find out more...do they even exist? What are they? Why might they need to be eradicated? In other words there is little motivation to investigate what the text is.
Noelene closed by saying that what she believes is that there needs to be deliberate acts to teach metacognition, and critical thinking about all types of texts.

A discussion about the impact of the study of metacognition on classroom practice

Image via WikipediaIf you are looking for a paper that covers metacognition and how it affects learning outcomes, then it is worth reading Nayana Karia Metacognition and Classroom Practice: A discussion about the impact of the study of metacognition on classroom practice. Karia, having given an overview of metacognition and its importance in human development, then goes on to explore notions of the reflective practitioner, as well as strategies around group work, peer tutoring, and reciprocal tutoring. There are several examples of what this might 'look like' when some of the approaches are used with learners, including hyperlinks to resources.


An extract from the paper (Karia, 2007, p. 12) reads:: "A move to newer models of assessment necessarily implies a change in teacher focus from content to strategy instruction. To this end, teachers must be offered training to enable them to accurately perceive student aptitudes, preferences and motivational beliefs. Students must be encouraged to individualize strategy knowledge and teachers must instruct for both far and near generalization (Maccini and Gagnon, 2006). Changes in instructional strategy must be preceded by changes in teacher training offerings. There are also inherent weak links in a system that allows young learners to formulate their goals based on perceived task value. Today’s teachers must be all the more sensitive of the need to scaffold learners in the formation of goals, strategies and self-evaluation. And, they must be aware that:

“The key factor at the heart of successful scaffolding is not only the ability of the more able learner/teacher to offer appropriate help, but also their ability to withdraw or fade the support they offer when the learner is ready.” (Luckin & Hammerton, 2002)

Metacognition

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