heart of heartlands lessons

The direction of the day to day teaching job is very much driven by To Do lists. Preparation that needs to be done for the lessons tomorrow. Phoning home after an incident in class that day. Uploading data before the deadline. Over the course of the day, unexpected occurrences add the To Do list.

A major motivator for teachers is helping their students to learn and make progress in their subject. But many of these To Do list tasks while being urgent don’t necessarily help teachers to become better teachers. They are not necessarily important to the overall goals of education. Becoming a better teacher can allow teachers to realise one goal most teachers share: supporting their students to learn in the best way they can. A major way to drive teacher improvement is by engaging with research – whether brief blog posts or longer academic articles. But how often are these on a Teacher’s To Do list?

Research into teacher effectiveness shows that many teachers plateau in effectiveness. So the uncomfortable reality is that unless there is a conscious effort to improve one’s teaching practice, the same teaching practices will be repeated which won’t necessarily make you a better teacher. In a talk to I went to delivered by Professor Rob Coe, he raised the provocative but possibly insightful argument that is an inadequate excuse from teachers to say there’s not time in the day to engage with research. Coe suggested that teachers must do what improves them as teachers. Since engaging with research will help you to help pupils, it should be done.

When I’ve engaged with research and then taken the additional step of implementing it in classrooms I’ve felt it improve my practice and the progress of my pupils. Even a brief blog post can directly input into my planning or feedback. Recently on the commute into work, I read a post by Robert Peal in which he outlined the idea of how making students write down key terms at the top of a piece of extended writing, and ticking them off as they go along, can support with historical writing. With my low attainers in particular, who can be daunted by extended history writing, it’s been confidence boosting as this quite simple step has seen them using more historical terminology in their written work.

The tangible results can invigorate in a profession that can so often sap energy. It’s also the wrong way round to suggest engaging with research presents a time burden; it can be a time saving task to engage with it as the thought processes when deciding how to teach or feedback become more efficient and assured, as they are grounded in sound pedagogical principles.

Below are links some brief articles that could be read over the half term break or once back to school. A couple will take just 10 minutes to read and the maximum length is 10 pages. Some ideas and techniques in here might be disagreed with. Some will excite and then quickly be forgotten about. But there will be a few principles and techniques in in here that can be quickly implemented to improve the learning of your students. Time can be found for that.

1. Dylan William, 9 Things Every Teacher Should Know

Some of these you may well know but there’s some food for thought and some practical implications to pick up.

https://www.tes.com/us/news/breaking-views/9-things-every-teacher-should-know

2. Nick Rose The Seven Pillars of Classroom Practice

This contains some very helpful summarise of research articles and contains useful ideas within the text too.

http://www.crg.co.uk/news/?p=11893

3. Deans for Impact, The Science of Learning

http://www.deansforimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/The_Science_of_Learning.pdf

Some practical psychological principles about how pupils learn that can be easily applied into planning

4. Barak Rosenshine, Principles of Instruction

Some very useful, simple principles about teaching that can inform planning and AfL

https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Rosenshine.pdf

5. John Dunlosky, Strengthening the Student toolbox

Some specific techniques that can really help student learning both in the classroom and outside it.

https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/dunlosky.pdf