Since educational leaders and board members are not always necessarily well-versed in educational research methods and since there is huge pressure on education systems to deliver, efforts to nurture great teachers can turn into a nightmare of absurd policies.
For example, grasping at bits and pieces of research, schools can start to insist that every teacher start lessons the exact same way, stop grading students, cancel homework, or talk less in the classroom. The clause 'the research shows that' will be thrown around eagerly, although rarely has the research been read from cover to cover and, when it has, insufficient degrees of confidence in findings and then need for further study are almost always prevalent.
Unfortunately, some myths in education persist despite fairly consequential debunking: such as the Mozart effect , Brain Gym , learning styles , multiple intelligence theory and a series of erroneous literacy strategies such as the ' three queuing ' reading technique. Would the teachers working in schools relying on these theories be considered 'great' for implementing such strategies?
Here is the real problem: teaching only means something within its defined context. It begs the question of whether one can truly speak of great teaching in such broad brushstrokes that the same behaviours and habits are expected in every context. In fact, what are known as epistemic practices suggest that learning and teaching are subject dependent; that seeking generalisable, transferable pedagogic practices is problematic because learning and teaching in chemistry is not the same as learning and teaching in visual arts or Chinese language instruction.
Because of all of these complexities, numerous experiments do not deliver. For example, The Gates Foundation poured hundreds of millions of dollars into a multi-layered experiment designed to boost teaching effectiveness through traditional approaches such as classroom observations, careful recruitment and performance bonuses but found that these created no significant gains in student learning.
Many efforts to answer this have provided results that make sense and seem reliable. This means a collective belief, by a group of teachers in a school, that together they can improve student learning. Nonetheless, it should be noted that many argue that the quantitative research that is used by Hattie to determine good teaching is flawed. These findings are not radical or counter-intuitive: who will argue that believing in students, the teacher knowing the subject matter or assessing well will not improve learning?
Can we and should we extrapolate further? The whole question of culture is worth investigating. To what extent is the transactional language of 'attainment', 'value-added', 'results' and 'scores' not so much an expression of scientific truth but of cultural bias? When administrators come across different teaching styles, different accents, different ways of communicating - and these are cultural - how do they feature on an observation sheet?
And which evidence from which countries involving which learners was used to determine the checklist in the first place? Qualitative studies among Aboriginal and Torres Strait communities in Australia make it clear that culturally responsive pedagogy is of vital importance to students.
Cultural aspects such as reverence for the land and the wisdom of elders might not fit into the Western constructivist paradigm, and why should it? A study carried out on Chinese students showed that the ethical framework of the teacher was of paramount importance to them, something that had not been mentioned in teacher appraisal documentation.
School leaders have to be culturally responsive, taking into account the cultures of students and teachers before jumping at standardised descriptions of what good teaching is. It encompasses the responses I received from all of the teachers 8th grade students. You can view it online by clicking this link. Neier, Caroline A. Gillis, and Susan D. In this study they took a social cognitive view of achievement beliefs as a theoretical framework, they conducted a qualitative study to examine perceptions of homework among a diverse group of low socioeconomic status SES ninth grad-ers who attended low-quality schools.
If the study does not show up below you can view it online by clicking this link. Nowadays, they just call her Ms. Urtubey is in her first year at new school: Kermit R. Booker, Sr. We'll notify you here with news about. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? Comments 0. Top Stories.
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