Becoming A Research-Informed Department

By Divisha Patel

More often than not, a school’s core purpose is focused on the learning and achievement of its students. However, as the literature around professional learning communities grows, an emphasis is now placed on the importance of the learning and development of adults as well as students (Handscomb 2019). It is widely argued that teachers become more accomplished professionals through continuing to develop their pedagogy; reflecting upon their lesson delivery and honing their practice in the classroom (Bubb and Earley 2016). That being said, if you were to ask any teacher what’s stopping them from learning more, the answer is likely to be time. Humanities is now a department of seven subjects, therefore improving teaching and learning, and delivering an outstanding student experience, is what grounds and unites us. My motivation as DoL was to ensure that we built a vision that encompassed everyone, regardless of subject, qualification or key stage. Having merged Humanities and Enterprise, it is important to spend time learning about each other’s subjects whilst deciding our team vision or ‘non-negotiables’, as suggested by Jaya, for students to understand the expectations of a Humanities lesson. The main two ways that we’ve incorporated research into our practice is through the use of INSET time and our Wednesday department meetings. INSET For our Humanities INSET time, we do a range of activities such as having the subject coordinators deliver a masterclass about a topic within the T&L goals and/or vision building for our new and improved Humanities team. During T1, we spent some time thinking and discussing our visions as individual teachers, and how we could bring our ideas together through a coaching-style approach. In T2, Charlotte, Lucy and Helen each delivered a 20-min masterclass on an area of development that we’d identified through T1 learning walks and the work scrutiny. This approach was informed by EEF’s report on ‘Putting Evidence to Work’ which recommends the importance of identifying ‘a problem to solve’ (2019).

Lucy Taylor (Geography Coordinator) said “Having CPD in department meetings is such a valuable resource. It allows us time to reflect on our practice and discuss how we may implement new ideas into our classroom practice. The great thing about Humanities is the range of subjects taught - this means we get such a range of CPD from multiple perspectives and encourages us to consider different approaches and strategies we wouldn’t get from our individual subjects.” Here is an example of Lucy’s explicit instruction masterclass:

Department meetings Our Humanities department is organised as follows, with 15 minutes used for each activity:

• Addressing the habitual ‘to-do’ items and logistics
• DoL-led CPD
• Peer-led T&L showcase
• Informal conversations about curriculum, teaching and learning and behaviour

DoL-led CPD: The DoL-led CPD is something that has been introduced for T2 following learning walks and the work scrutiny. It is a way of addressing the areas for development in Humanities, by engaging with research, whilst allowing for an informal discussion around the topic to share ideas. Topics include effective marking; the use of retrieval practice and the importance of student voice, to name a few. The reason for introducing this element of department meetings was to create an implementation plan for the areas we need and want to address, whilst also developing my own leadership capacity, considering half of the team were new to either Humanities and/or the school. The format of the DoL-led CPD follows the same structure, whereby each session starts with a short discussion as a ‘hook’, leading on to research, and then ending with deliberate practice. Here is an overview of the slides for ‘Retrieval Practice’: Nazik Ahmed (ECT2 for Citizenship) said “Personally, I love (and get a kick out of) research and reading around topics (be it on teaching and learning or other aspects of our role) so this has really just enabled me to regularly read around different topics and engage with other perspectives on my areas of interest. It's also played quite a significant role in me developing my teacher persona because I've either been able to engage with authors that share my views/philosophy on education and teaching or challenged me because I've engaged with other perspectives” Peer-led T&L showcase Each week, we have a peer-led showcase delivered by our Humanities colleagues on rotation. At the beginning of the term, I allocate slots to each staff member, ensuring that everyone delivers an equal number of sessions, resulting in approximately 3 CPD sessions for the academic year. Each Humanities member is given the autonomy to do the showcase on anything they would like, such as:

• A form of AfL/questioning
• A piece of work
• An online resource
• A teaching strategy
• Academic reading/research

During the T&L showcase, the teacher tells us a little bit about why they have chosen the topic; the reasoning behind the focus and how they implemented/plan to implement the focus in the classroom. As a team, we then discuss how we could be flexible with the focus and its use for specific key groups such as SEND, EAL or different attainer groups. See here for examples from members of the Humanities team: Michael Paulus- Questioning Charlotte Nicholas- Object Analysis Nazik Ahmed- Thoughts from an ECT William Glydon (ECT1 for History) said “I am really enjoying the variety in CPDs this year. Last year, Nazik delivered a very memorable CPD on staff wellbeing and this couldn't be any further from the 'Dynamic Lesson' CPD offered by Brian, which was fun, organised chaos! The Humanities team is incredibly strong, and has had some fantastic new additions this year. The merge with Enterprise has meant that we can be more cohesive and collaborative in sharing a larger variety of ideas as a team” Further Reading:

Bubb, S; Earley, P; (2016) Schools as learning communities: effective professional development. In: Falus, I and Orgovanyi-Gajdos, J, (eds.) New Aspects in European Teacher Education. EEF (2019) Putting Evidence to Work. Accessed: Putting Evidence to Work - A School’s Guide to Implementation Handscomb, G; (2019) Evidence use, research-engaged schools and the concept of an ecosystem. In: Godfrey, D and Brown, C, (eds.) An Ecosystem for Research-Engaged Schools: Reforming Education Through Research.

Bitesize Research: Understanding The Nature Of Debates In Educational Research

 By Jaya Carrier

I hope everyone has had a great week so far! This week, I was interested in a paper published by the University of Cambridge about the nature of educational research discourse on social and traditional media in the UK and Australia. This was published by Globalisation, Societies and Education in February 2021. Objectives: To understand the nature of the debates in educational research in the UK and Australia and how this shapes educational policy. Summary: The key findings were:

• Education debates in the UK and Australia show evidence of ‘micropopulism’. This is not quite populism in the sense of Brexit or Trumpism, but has salient features of populism insofar as it is deeply divisive, and looks to pit the ‘underserved’ against the ‘elite’.
• In particular, it looks to position those with more traditional views on education against more progressive ones, wherein traditional educators may claim that they are forced by more progressive educators to adopt student-centred teaching methods that have very little basis in educational research.
• The paper suggests that this kind of polarisation does not reflect the true reality of classrooms, which is usually a purposeful mixture of the two.
• These debates, in turn, are influenced by broader so-called ‘culture wars’ on social media and appear to be able to influence policy.
• The authors argue that educators need to be aware of how their own participation in such debates may inadvertently support ‘micropopulist’ tactics that influence policy.

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:

• How do I interact with this debate on traditional or social media? What do I think about this?
• How does my teaching fit within this debate? What do I think about this?

If you would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: Takeaways From Distance Learning

This week, I wanted to share with you an interesting article from Edutopia which is reflecting on distanced and remote learning. 

Objectives: To provide the key ‘takeaways’ from the distance and remote learning that has taken place in the pandemic as schools being to reopen

Summary:  

• The overall impact of digital technology on learning is less than we might think - actually, the quality of teaching is still the most important element within successful education

• More effective differentiation (including more blended learning models) and an emphasis on mastery may be some of the biggest gains from online learning to takeaway

• Much of the narrative is focused on ‘learning losses’ from lockdown, but learning gains from lockdown may be more broad than we anticipate. They might not be from the official curricula, but they can be transformative nonetheless.

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

 

• What things from online learning can I bring with me into the classroom?

• How can I continue to harness the differentiating and mastery elements of online learning?

• What ‘learning gains’ might our students have made? And how will we know?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with Jaya - please comment below! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations. 

Bitesize Research: Collective Teacher Efficacy

This week, I wanted to share with you some of Hattie’s work. Many of you will be familiar with Hattie’s work, but in summary, Hattie has led a project entitled ‘Visible Learning’ which strives to use meta-analyses to determine the strands of T&L with the largest effective sizes on student attainment and progress.

Objectives: To understand the T&L strategies that have the highest impact on student attainment and progress.

Summary:  

• Whilst much of Hattie’s work has centred around feedback, the ‘new number one’ with the largest effective size is termed ‘Collective Teacher Efficacy’ (CTE).

• CTE is broadly:

• A collective belief of a school’s staff that they can positively impact students

• A collective belief of a school’s staff that they should set appropriately high challenging expectations for all students

• Crucially, this belief needs to be continuously underpinned by the evidence of the impact that the school’s staff are making

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

 

• How do I develop this belief with those I work with?

• How do I regularly demonstrate or role model my own belief in this?

• What challenges my ability to have this belief?

• What kinds of evidence can I be using to support the fact that what I am doing is making an impact?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with Jaya - please comment below! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: Emotional Intelligence and Academic Attainment

This week, I wanted to share with you some work done on the relationships between ‘emotional intelligence’ and academic attainment. This work is an early meta analysis looking at over 150 existing studies on this topic, and has been conducted by the University of Sydney in collaboration with the University of Oxford.

Objectives: To understand the role of ‘emotional intelligence’ in academic attainment.

Summary:  

• There are lots of definitions of ‘emotional intelligence.’ Some definitions are around the understanding and management of one’s own and others’ emotions. Some definitions are also inclusive of character traits such as optimism and intrinsic motivation. This study looked at papers that incorporated both of these definitions.

• Emotional intelligence in general was found to account for 4% of the difference between students’ achievement. Specifically, however, the ability to understand emotions (a component part of emotional intelligence) explains about 12% of the difference. Personal emotion management skills accounted for 7% of the difference. 

• Three reasons for this correlation have been posited by the authors of the study:

• Emotionally intelligent students can better regulate their ‘academic emotions’ - namely, those that accompany academic performance (e.g. stress, anxiety, disappointment, frustration etc.) 

• Emotionally intelligent students can form better relationships with their teachers

• Many non-technical academic subjects require an understanding of human emotions and society as integral to the subject matter (e.g. in analysing a play, or in analysing the causes of the rise of a dictatorship)

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

 

• Which students’ struggle with emotional intelligence? How do I know?

• This study suggests that enhancing students’ emotional intelligence could also support academic performance. What strategies or activities could be useful to help develop this?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with Jaya - please comment below! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: Metacognition and Student Progress

This week, with metacognition being a key TTB theme, I wanted to share with you the work of the EEF on metacognition. 

Objectives: To understand the role of metacognition (‘learning to learn’) and self-regulated learning in improving student progress and attainment.

Summary:  

• Metacognitive and self-regulation approaches made a large impact on student attainment - up to 7 months ahead additional progress when compared with their peers. 

• Strategies for metacognition and self-regulation worked best when taught in collaborative groups - i.e. when students could make their thought processes clear through discussion. 

• There is particularly strong evidence that teaching metacognitive and self-regulation strategies to low-achieving older students is especially effective.

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

 

• Which explicit strategies can you teach your pupils to help them plan, monitor, and evaluate specific aspects of their learning? How do these specifically look in your subject? 

• How can you promote, model and develop metacognitive talk related to your lesson objectives? 

If anyone would like to discuss this further with me - please comment below! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: Teacher Leadership and Student Achievement - what's the deal?

In the fourth week in T3, when we are looking at leadership values for T&L evaluation, I wanted to share with you a meta-analysis from the Educational Research Review about the association of teacher leadership and student achievement, published in November 2020.

Objectives: There is a lot of literature around teacher leadership. However, unlike most of the existing literature, this analysis seeks to establish an empirical basis for whether or not teacher leadership impacts student achievement. For this analysis, teacher leadership is defined as those who maintain normal classroom responsibilities as well as assuming leadership responsibilities outside of the classroom. This can be formally (by way of a leadership post) or informally (demonstrating those leadership behaviours). 

Summary:  

• Overall, there is a small positive correlation between teacher leadership and student achievement.

• There appears to be a slightly higher impact of teacher leadership on Maths achievement, rather than reading achievement, although both are positively impacted.

• Teachers involved with curriculum, instruction (classroom pedagogy) and assessment decisions demonstrated the strongest relationships with student achievement. 

• This meta-analysis uses some studies with small sample sizes. This suggests that whilst this is a good start, further work to show the empirical basis for the relationship between teacher leadership and student achievement needs to be conducted.

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

 

• How do I show leadership as a teacher, either formally or informally? What are my areas of strength, and areas for development?

• What does curriculum, instruction and assessment leadership involve? How do leaders in these areas think and make decisions? How can I show these leadership qualities?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with Jaya - please do comment below! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: The KS3 Years and Disadvantaged Children

The third week in T3, I wanted to share with you the work of the Nuffield Foundation on disadvantage in early secondary education (KS3 in the traditional sense of YR7 to YR9) published in December 2020.

Objectives: To examine what, if any, impact the KS3 years have on attainment and progress for disadvantaged children. They looked at lots of factors, but most notably ones connected to family income and attendance.

Summary:  

• There is significant evidence to suggest that a number of educational inequalities widen between disadvantaged children and their peers across KS3. This includes attendance, attainment and progress worsening for disadvantaged children across KS3.

• The gaps in students’ self-reported outcomes also widen, particularly pertaining to attitudes towards school, perception of academic ability, aspirations for careers and further education.

• Identifying and supporting higher prior attaining disadvantage students on entry to secondary school made a difference in creating higher GCSE attainment 

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

 

• Do I know who my disadvantaged students in KS3 are? Do I know who my higher prior attaining disadvantaged students in KS3 are too? If not, how do I find this out?

• How can we support KS3 students to mitigate against some of these widening inequalities from YR7-9?

• How can we work to improve student self-perception across KS3? What has worked well? What could we try differently?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with Jaya - please do comment below! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: Best Practice for Remote Learning

The second week in T3, I wanted to share with you the work of the Education Endowment Fund on Remote Learning. 

Objectives: In the first lockdown, the EEF aimed to synthesise existing studies that were relevant to remote learning to give advice on what best practices might support learning online. Whilst the findings are helpful, the EEF are keen to stress that the studies examined were not done within the same context as the COVID-19 pandemic, which means that use of professional judgement with remote learning still remains highly important.

Summary:  They found the following key tenets were common threads in the studies examined on remote learning:

1. Teacher quality is more important than how lessons are delivered

• Ensuring normal elements of teacher effectiveness e.g. clear explanations, scaffolding and feedback is essential

• There was no difference between teaching in real time, or teaching ‘asynchronously’ - what mattered most was how explanations built on previous learning and how pupil understanding was assessed thereafter

2. Peer interactions can provide motivation and improve learning

• Things such as peer marking and feedback, sharing and collaboration on model answers were found to be helpful across a number of studies.

3. Supporting students to be able to work independently was helpful

• Providing strategies that linked to metacognition was helpful across a number of studies

4. Different approaches to remote learning suit different content and tasks

• For example, games for learning were helpful in MFL, but much less helpful in other subjects.

• Similarly using technology to support retrieval practice and self-quizzing can help, but this is not a replacement for other forms of assessment

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

 

• How can I impactfully sequence learning to ensure that online lessons build on each other successfully?

• How can I ensure that I can facilitate peer interactions in WA Online?

• What practices can be put into place to support students with metacognitions and independent learning processes?

• What different tasks are best suited to my subject, the content I am teaching, and the skills I want the students to develop?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with Jaya - please comment below! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: Positive Student-Teacher Relationships

I hope everyone is well and wishing you all a Happy New Year! This first week back in T3, I wanted to share with you a meta-analysis focusing on the best strategies for positive student-teacher relationships.

Objectives:

In other studies, strong student-teacher relationships have shown to have a significant

impact on the development of cognitive, emotional and social skills.

This study looks at the best possible strategies in building these strong relationships.

This analysis was of both specific programmes, as well as more general strategies. 

Summary:  

• Two particular programmes known as Establish-Maintain-Restore, and BRIDGE, had

            significant effect sizes. 

• In terms of general practice, preventative strategies were found to be more impactful

            than reactive strategies to maintain and strengthen student-teacher relationships. 

• Moreover, direct (e.g. working with the student) rather than indirect (e.g. working with

            the parent) practice had a stronger impact. These include strategies such as praise,

            respect, spending time, and building personal connections. 

• Significant effect sizes were found to repair student-teacher relationships whereby

            teachers suggested a ‘fresh start’ e.g. ‘I know that yesterday’s lesson didn’t go so well,

            but I’m really looking forward to having you in my lesson today.’ 

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflection questions arising from this that

might be helpful to consider are: 

 

• What practices do you use to build and strength good student-teacher relationships? Which are the most impactful in your experience?

• How might you look to use some of these strategies going forward in T3?

• How and when might you use the repairing relationships strategy? What impact might it have?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with Jaya - please comment below!

I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: Bilingualism

This week, in line with when we will be conducting home languages interviews, I wanted to share with you a meta-analysis focusing on the benefits incurred by bilingualism. 

Objectives: To look at the correlation between bilingualism and ‘executive function’ (namely inhibition, switching, attention, monitoring, working memory and planning) in children under the age of 18. 

Summary:  

• Overall the bilingual advantage in executive function was statistically significant

• A moderator analysis was performed to determine any other factors leading to this advantage. Socioeconomic status was discovered to be a significant factor - middle class children having a much greater advantage in executive function than their lower class counterparts. 

• Certain elements of executive function had a stronger bilingual advantage; notably attention. 

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

 

• How does this study impact our EAL learners?

• How can we seek to use this bilingual advantage that many of our students have in their attention spans?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with Jaya - please do comment below! She’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.