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Teaching and
learning

Quality Education & Training:
Sunday, February 13, 2011 1
Towards a Better Future

Reviews of teacher effectiveness literature have
identified a number of characteristics of effective
teachers:

• They teach the class as a whole;
• They present information or skills clearly and
animatedly;
• They keep the teaching sessions task-oriented;
• They are non-evaluative and keep instruction relaxed;
• They have high expectations for achievement (give
more homework, pace lessons faster and create
alertness);
• They relate comfortably to students (reducing
behaviour problems)


Research stresses similar aspects:

• Emphasise academic goals;
• Make goals explicit and expect students to be able to master
the curriculum;
• Organise and sequence the curriculum carefully;
• Use clear explanations and illustrate what students are to
learn;
• Ask direct and specific questions to monitor students’ progress
and check
• their understanding;
• Provide students with ample opportunities to practise;
• Give prompts and feedback to ensure success;
• Correct mistakes and allow students to use a skill until it is over-
learned
• and automatic;
• Review work regularly and hold students accountable for their
work.

These stress teacher communication, assessment and
feedback practices such as:

• Informing children through explaining, instructing and
modelling;
• Reinforcing knowledge through repeating and reminding;
• Supporting learning through bringing different strands of
knowledge together.
• The importance of different assessment strategies are also
outlined:
• Assessment through interaction with children, such as
questioning and testing;
• Assessment through closely observing children;
• Considering the evidence to understand progress and the
learning of individual children


A model developed, which links three factors (professional
characteristics, teaching skills and classroom climate) to
progress.

The teacher’s role in creating an ‘excellent classroom climate’ is
stressed.
• In primary schools, outstanding teachers scored more highly in
terms of behaviours related to high expectations, time and
resource management, assessment and homework.

• At the secondary level the biggest differences were in high
expectations, planning and homework.

• Three factors as identified as important in shaping learning
opportunities in the classroom:
• Lack of disruption
• Encouragement to engage
• High expectations


Features of More Effective Teaching:

• Clear and coherent lesson in a supportive learning
climate
• Engaging students with assignments and activities
• Positive classroom management
• Purposive learning
• Quality questioning and feedback for students
• These features can be seen as necessary and key
characteristics of effective, high quality teaching
across different sectors, subjects and contexts.
• Sammons & Ko 2008


Teaching Learning
• Subject knowledge • Engagement and motivation
• Lesson planning • Interaction between students
• Classroom organisation • Collaboration and co-operation
• Differentiation • Enquiry and research
• Use of resources • Problem-solving
• Assessment • Application to real life
• Use of homework


• Why typical recommendations following
review/evaluation/inspection are not
enough to move schools forward
• (Inspection doesn’t improve schools – it
diagnoses the problems)
• Sometimes schools do not know what they
don’t know – they don’t know what ‘good’
looks like or how to get there…………….


What is the practical implication of ‘support
students in developing problem-solving and
critical thinking’….???

• Provide explicit instruction in strategies which
can help solve different types of problems
• Coach and encourage students to use these
strategies
• Invite students to explain the different
strategies and steps they have used


‘Impactful’ teaching
• – teaching that makes a difference – lesson
by lesson, week by week, year by year
• What is it that schools need to do to ensure
that teaching makes a difference?
• The obvious as reflected in inspection/review
criteria
• but significantly…….. Supporting students in
‘learning to learn’


Context: PPP Project December 2009. 33 teachers
from 13 primary schools and kindergartens in Abu
Dhabi

One-day professional development workshop on
learning how to conduct an action research project in
an educational setting

Training included:

• Designing research questions;
• An introduction to qualitative and quantitative
research methodologies;
• An overview of data analysis;
• A brief discussion on research ethics.


Publication of each project including:

• The background to the research topic each
chose and the reason they chose it;
• The methodology that they selected;
• The findings from their project;
• Conclusions and reflections on what was
learnt and what might happen next.


‘Undertaking this action research project has been
a challenging but worthwhile experience. It has
allowed the school team to explore and discuss
the impact of their pedagogical practices. As
teachers it is very easy to get into the daily
routine of planning, delivering and assessing
without truly thinking about the effect we as
practitioners have on the children we teach.’

(Al Yassat Kindergarten, Abu Dhabi).’


Learning to learn has been defined as:
‘… a process of discovery about learning.
It involves a set of principles and skills which, if
understood and used, help learners to learn more
effectively and so become learners for life. At its
heart is the belief that learning is learnable.’

(Lucas & Greany, 2000, p5)

Metacognition – the process of reflecting on one’s
own learning – is central to learning to learn.


Learning to learn is about individuals
understanding how they learn and
developing their capacity to learn. It involves
developing a range of skills and dispositions
– amongst them:

self-organisation, communication, teamwork,
reflectiveness and self-awareness

Learners taking responsibility for their
learning and participating actively in
designing it.


These approaches aim to ensure learners are:

• Ready to learn in any context and at any age
• Able to tailor their approaches to learning to
different contexts, appropriate to their
individual needs and strengths
• Confident about learning something new
• Able to undertake independent learning
• Able to learn from others and undertake
effective collaborative learning.


Cognition - describes the process of thinking,
including an individual’s habitual mode of
problem solving, perceiving and
remembering(Cassidy, 2004).

Metacognition refers to the ability to regulate
cognitive processes, as typified by Flavell’s
(1979) ‘thinking about thinking’.

Conceptualisation of metacognition that is used in
many studies (for example, Noushad
2008, Vukman 2005 and Higgins 2003).


• Being ready for learning
• Being able to set and achieve goals
• Knowing how to learn best
• Harnessing creativity
• Being able to reflect, adapt and change.

Metacognition underlies the last of these but is
also crucial to most of the others:

Setting and being aware of how to achieve
goals, knowing how to learn best (which depends
on the ability to reflect on one’s own aptitudes
and preferences) and appropriate preparation
all imply the self-awareness, higher order
processing and planning that metacognition
involves.

Embeds metacognition within the disposition of ‘reflection’,
alongside other dispositions to improve learning:

• Resilience – being ready, able and willing to lock onto
learning
• Resourcefulness – being ready, willing and able to learn in
different ways
• Reflectiveness – being ready, willing and able to become
more strategic about learning
• Reciprocity – being ready, willing and able to learn alone
and with others.
Higgins (2007) and colleagues offer variations on this, in
which Responsibility is added


When developing learning to learn
approaches also take into account:

• Learning environment
• Individuals’ knowledge of a vocabulary to
articulate their reflections on the learning
process
These models and frameworks
demonstrate that a holistic approach is
required to develop effective learning to
learn behaviour


• A literature review of effective practice in
England and abroad - Evangeline
Amalathas

• CfBT Education Trust /‘Campaign for
Learning’


‘Government must acknowledge the key
importance of effective teaching and
learning throughout all learning phases in
order both to motivate learners to
continue learning throughout their lives
and to equip them with the skills to do so.
The importance of flexible, transferable
‘soft’ skills as well as vocational skills
cannot be overestimated in the current
economic climate’.


• Uses research findings to identify the most
consistent indicators of school effectiveness
and their implications
• Provides practical direction, in a series of
Study Units, on how the research findings
can be translated into successful practice
• Forms the basis of a core professional
development programme for school
leaders and teachers


• Introduction and Guide for senior staff
• Leadership
• School self-evaluation and improvement
planning
• Human resource management
• Teaching and learning
• Pupil behaviour and engagement
• Engagement with parents
• Promoting pupils’ personal development
• Financial management


• A clear presentation of the main ideas
• The key processes required for successful
performance
• Detailed method statements for each key
process
• Questions and issues for reflection
• Materials from schools that exemplify
aspects of the key processes
• A summary of related research
• A bank of web-based additional resource
materials

• Putting teaching and learning at the heart
of the matter
• Supporting teachers to equip themselves
and their students with the necessary skills
for effective teaching and learning
• Developing the school as one in which the
‘5 R’s of learning’ are central to its culture


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QAAET Conference- Teaching & Learning - Carole McBride

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