sustaining the development of formative assessment with teacher learning communities dylan wiliam...
TRANSCRIPT
Sustaining the development of formative assessment with teacher learning communities
Dylan Wiliam
Keynote presentation
Bedfordshire Headteachers’ Conference, November 2008
www.dylanwiliam.net
Overview of presentationWhy raising achievement is important
Why investing in teachers is the answer
Why formative assessment should be the focus
Why teacher learning communities should be the mechanism
How we can put this into practice
Raising achievement mattersFor individuals Increased lifetime salary Improved healthLonger life
For societyLower criminal justice costsLower health-care costs Increased economic growth
…but what is learned matters too…Which of the following categories of skill is disappearing from the work-place most rapidly?
1. Routine manual
2. Non-routine manual
3. Routine cognitive
4. Complex communication
5. Expert thinking/problem-solving
…now more than ever…
$0.00
$5.00
$10.00
$15.00
$20.00
$25.00
$30.00
$35.00
1973
1975
1977
1979
1981
1983
1985
1987
1989
1991
1993
1995
1997
1999
2001
2003
2005
Dropout
HS Diploma
Some College
BA/BSc
Prof Degree
Source: Economic Policy Institute
Successful education…The test of successful education is not the amount of knowledge that a pupil takes away from school, but his appetite to know and his capacity to learn. If the school sends out children with the desire for knowledge and some idea how to acquire it, it will have done its work. Too many leave school with the appetite killed and the mind loaded with undigested lumps of information. The good schoolmaster is known by the number of valuable subjects which he declines to teach.
(Sir Richard Livingstone, 1941)
The only 21st century skillSo the model that says learn while you’re at school, while you’re young, the skills that you will apply during your lifetime is no longer tenable. The skills that you can learn when you’re at school will not be applicable. They will be obsolete by the time you get into the workplace and need them, except for one skill. The one really competitive skill is the skill of being able to learn. It is the skill of being able not to give the right answer to questions about what you were taught in school, but to make the right response to situations that are outside the scope of what you were taught in school. We need to produce people who know how to act when they’re faced with situations for which they were not specifically prepared.
(Papert, 1998)
Where’s the solution?Structure
Small secondary schools Larger secondary schools
Alignment Curriculum reform Textbook replacement
Governance Specialist schools Academies
Technology Computers Interactive white-boards
School effectivenessThree generations of school effectiveness researchRaw results approaches
Different schools get different results Conclusion: Schools make a difference
Demographic-based approaches Demographic factors account for most of the variation Conclusion: Schools don’t make a difference
Value-added approaches School-level differences in value-added are relatively small Classroom-level differences in value-added are large Conclusion: An effective school is a school full of effective classrooms
Teacher qualityA labor force issue with 2 (non-exclusive) solutionsReplace existing teachers with better ones?
Important, but very slow, and of limited impact Teach First Gradually raising the bar for entry to teaching
Improve the effectiveness of existing teachers The “love the one you’re with” strategy It can be done
Provided we focus rigorously on the things that matter Even when they’re hard to do
20-25%Total “explained” difference
<5%Further professional qualifications (MA, NBPTS)
10-15%Pedagogical content knowledge
<5%Advanced content matter knowledge
The ‘dark matter’ of teacher qualityTeachers make a differenceBut what makes the difference in teachers?
Cost/effect comparisonsIntervention Extra months of
learning per yearCost/yr
Class-size reduction (by 30%) 4 £20k
Increase teacher content knowledge from weak to strong
2 ?
Formative assessment/Assessment for learning
8 £2k
The formative assessment hi-jack…Long-cycle Span: across units, terms Length: four weeks to one year Impact: Student monitoring; curriculum alignmentMedium-cycle Span: within and between teaching units Length: one to four weeks Impact: Improved, student-involved, assessment; teacher cognition about learningShort-cycle Span: within and between lessons Length:
day-by-day: 24 to 48 hours minute-by-minute: 5 seconds to 2 hours
Impact: classroom practice; student engagement
Unpacking formative assessmentKey processesEstablishing where the learners are in their learningEstablishing where they are goingWorking out how to get there
ParticipantsTeachersPeersLearners
Aspects of formative assessment
Where the learner is going
Where the learner is How to get there
TeacherClarify and share
learning intentions
Engineering effective discussions, tasks and
activities that elicit evidence of learning
Providing feedback that moves learners
forward
PeerUnderstand and share learning
intentions
Activating students as learningresources for one another
LearnerUnderstand
learning intentionsActivating students as owners
of their own learning
Five “key strategies”…Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentionscurriculum philosophy
Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learningclassroom discourse, interactive whole-class teaching
Providing feedback that moves learners forward feedback
Activating students as learning resources for one another collaborative learning, reciprocal teaching, peer-assessment
Activating students as owners of their own learningmetacognition, motivation, interest, attribution, self-assessment
(Wiliam & Thompson, 2007)
Keeping Learning on Track (KLT)A pilot guides a plane or boat toward its destination by taking constant readings and making careful adjustments in response to wind, currents, weather, etc.
A KLT teacher does the same:Plans a carefully chosen route ahead of time (in essence building the track)Takes readings along the way Changes course as conditions dictate
Implementing formative assessment requires changing teacher habitsTeachers “know” most of this already
So the problem is not a lack of knowledge
It’s a lack of understanding what it means to do formative assessment
That’s why telling teachers what to do doesn’t work
Experience alone is not enough—if it were, then the most experienced teachers would be the best teachers—we know that’s not true (Hanushek, 2005; Day, 2006)
People need to reflect on their experiences in systematic ways that build their accessible knowledge base, learn from mistakes, etc. (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 1999)
Teacher learning takes timeTo put new knowledge to work, to make it meaningful and accessible when you need it, requires practice.A teacher doesn’t come at this as a blank slate. Not only do teachers have their current habits and ways of teaching—
they’ve lived inside the old culture of classrooms all their lives: every teacher started out as a student!
New knowledge doesn’t just have to get learned and practiced, it has to go up against long-established, familiar, comfortable ways of doing things that may not be as effective, but fit within everyone’s expectations of how a classroom should work.
It takes time and practice to undo old habits and become graceful at new ones. Thus… Professional development must be sustained over time
Two opposing factors in any school reformNeed for flexibility to adapt to local conditions, resources, etc
Implies there is appropriate flexibility built into the reform
Need to maintain fidelity to core principles, or theory of action of the reform, if it is to achieve desired outcomes Implies you have a well-thought-out theory of action
“Tight but loose”Some reforms are too loose (e.g., the ‘Effective schools’ movement)
Others are too tight (e.g., Montessori Schools)
The “tight but loose” formulation
… combines an obsessive adherence to central design principles (the “tight” part) with accommodations to the needs, resources, constraints, and particularities that occur in any school or district (the “loose” part), but only where these do not conflict with the theory of action of the intervention.
Teacher learning communitiescontradict teacher isolation
reprofessionalize teaching by valuing teacher expertise
deprivatize teaching so that teachers’ strengths and struggles become known
offer a steady source of support for struggling teachers
grow expertise by providing a regular space, time, and structure for that kind of systematic reflecting on practice
facilitate sharing of untapped expertise residing in individual teachers
build the collective knowledge base in a school
How to set up a TLCPlan that the TLC will run for two years
Identify 8 to 10 interested colleagues Should have similar assignments (e.g. early years, math/sci)
Secure institutional support for: Monthly meetings (75 - 120 minutes each, inside or outside school time) Time between meetings (2 hrs per month in school time)
Collaborative planning Peer observation
Any necessary waivers from school policies
A “signature pedagogy” for teacher learning?Every monthly TLC meeting should follows the same structure and sequence of activities
Activity 1: Introduction & Housekeeping (5-10 minutes)
Activity 2: How’s It Going (35-50 minutes)
Activity 3: New Learning about formative assessment (20-45 minutes)
Activity 4: Personal Action Planning (10 minutes)
Activity 5: Summary of Learning (5 minutes)
The TLC leader’s roleTo ensure the TLC meets regularlyTo ensure all needed materials are at meetingsTo ensure that each meeting is focused on AfL To create and maintain a productive and non-judgmental tone during
meetings To ensure that every participant shares with regard to their implementation
of AfL To encourage teachers to provide their colleagues with constructive and
thoughtful feedbackTo encourage teachers to think about and discuss the implementation of
new AfL learning and skillsTo ensure that every teacher has an action plan to guide their next stepsBut not to be the AfL “expert”
Peer observationRun to the agenda of the observed, not the observer
Observed teacher specifies focus of observation
Observed teacher specifies what counts as evidencee.g., teacher wants to increase wait-timeprovides observer with a stop-watch to log wait-times
The synergyContent: formative assessment
Process: teacher learning communities
Components of a model Initial workshopsMonthly TLC meetingsPeer observations ‘Drip-feed’ resources
Writings New ideas
SummaryRaising achievement is important
Raising achievement requires improving teacher quality
Improving teacher quality requires teacher professional development
To be effective, teacher professional development must addressWhat teachers do in the classroomHow teachers change what they do in the classroom
Assessment for learning + Teacher learning communitiesA point of (uniquely?) high leverageA “Trojan Horse” into wider issues of pedagogy, psychology, and curriculum