Research That Informs Action

Teaching for Today’s Learners

Research That Informs Action

This section provides short summaries of research informed articles and books relevant to an understanding of effective teaching, student engagement and assessment practices.

Learning Knowledge Deeply
(Findings from Cognitive Science) / Traditional Practices
(Instructionism)
Deep learning requires that learners relate new ideas and concepts to previous knowledge and experience. / Learners treat course material as unrelated to what they already know.
Deep learning requires that learners integrate their knowledge into interrelated conceptual systems. / Learners treat course material as disconnected bits of knowledge.
Deep learning requires that learners look for patterns and underlying principles. / Learners memorize facts and carry out
procedures without understanding how or why.
Deep learning requires that learners evaluate new ideas and relate them to conclusions. / Learners have difficulty making sense of new ideas that are different from what they
encountered in the textbook.
Deep learning requires that learners understand the process of dialogue through which knowledge is created and can examine the logic of an argument critically. / Learners treat facts and procedures as static knowledge, handed down from an all-knowing authority.
Deep learning requires that learners reflect on their own understanding and their own process of learning. / Learners memorize without reflecting on the purpose or on their own learning strategies.

Key findings and recommendations:

Schools and classrooms must be learner centered

Teachers must pay close attention to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that learners bring into the classroom. This includes student’s pre-conceptions regarding subject matter, but it also requires teachers to acquire a broader understanding of the student as a learner.

Schools and classrooms must be knowledge centered

Attention must be given to what is taught (what matters for students to know and be able to do?), why it is taught (deep understanding of worthwhile concepts), and what competence or mastery looks like.

Schools and classrooms must be assessment centered

Formative assessments—ongoing assessments designed to make students’ thinking visible to both teachers and students—are essential. They permit the teacher to grasp the students’ preconceptions, understand where the students are in the “developmental corridor” from informal to formal thinking, and design instruction accordingly. In the assessment-centered classroom environment, formative assessments help both teachers and students monitor progress.

Schools and classrooms must be community centered.

Learning is influenced in fundamental ways by the context in which it takes place. A community-centered approach requires the development of norms for the classroom and school, as well as connections to the outside world, that support core learning values.

Deep understanding occurs when teachers organize the curriculum around core ideas from within the disciplines, and then carefully scaffold students’ learning around authentic tasks. All students are able to meet high standards when the work they are required to do is authentic to the discipline being studied and when tasks more closely resemble the work that real writers, scientists, mathematicians, and historians undertake. Learning is deepened and achievement increases when products and performances of students are produced with continuous feedback, reflection, and opportunity for revision.

Principles of Teaching for Understanding

Require active, in-depth learning – through well-designed projects, problems and tasks that focus student inquiry around central questions at the heart of the discipline. Students are engaged in tasks that require them to work in the same ways as writers, scientists, mathematicians, musicians, sculptors, critics and others from such discipline areas engage with their work.
Provide authentic, formative assessment – curriculum and assessment are integrated around meaningful performances in real-world contexts. Performance tasks are central to the work of students and are engineered to represent the big ideas and modes of inquiry from within the discipline field being studied. Formative feedback, through self, peer, and teacher assessments, help students learn to reflect on their own work, evaluate it against clear standards and improve it. Student agency develops when learners are engaged in worthwhile tasks, are invited to provide and obtain feedback about their work and are provided with the time to revise and improve along the way.
Provide opportunities for collaboration – Classrooms are organized for students to participate as members of a “learning community”. This is reflective of Vygotsky’s assertion that learning takes place in a social context and relies on communication and interaction with others. Classrooms become vibrant communities of discourse where student and teacher learning are made visible. Teachers skillfully design and manage group work to ensure that it is purposeful, supports the accomplishment of productive tasks, strengthens relationships and leads to more innovative problem solving. The classroom is a safe environment for risk taking and student diversity is embraced as a key vehicle for sharing expertise and learning.
Pay attention to learner’s prior knowledge, experience and development –Teachers look for ways to connect the curriculum to learners’ experiences, frames of reference and cultural knowledge. They are adept at scaffolding instruction to meet students where they are at in terms of their knowledge and experiences in order to help learners expand their abilities and master new concepts and proficiencies.
Knowledge organized around core concepts and connections - organizing projects and problems around the core concepts and modes of inquiry in the disciplines, and drawing connections among ideas through analogies, contrasting cases, and well-chosen problems, helps student make sense of what otherwise appear to be disconnected or meaningless facts.
Pay attention to and develop metacognitive practices – Teachers encourage a reflective stance towards learning that enables students to assess and direct their own emerging understandings. Metacognition is developed when teachers provide students with opportunities for discussion, formative assessment, the presentation of their ideas, and time for reflection.

Preparing teachers for today’s world requires a close look at what it means to teach and learn in increasingly networked, information-rich, digital classrooms. This framework, published by the Canadian Education Association, puts forward a set of five principles to guide educators in teaching for today’s realities. The five core principles, described below and in the Effective Teaching Practices Rubric, provide a framework for effective teaching:

Effective teaching practice begins with the thoughtful and intentional design of learning that engages students intellectually and academically.
The work that students are asked to undertake is worthy of their time and attention, is personally relevant, and deeply connected to the world in which they live.
Assessment practices are clearly focused on improving student learning and guiding teaching decisions.
Teachers foster a variety of interdependent relationships in classrooms that promote learning and create a strong culture around learning.
Teachers improve their practice in the company of others.

Implicit in these five core principles, is the understanding that technology is an integral feature of today’s learning environments and is therefore inextricably woven into the teaching and learning fabric of contemporary classrooms.

Definition of formative assessment:

An assessment activity can help learning if it provides information to be used as feedback, by teachers, and by their pupils in assessing themselves and each other, to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged. Such assessment becomes ‘formative assessment’ when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to better meet learning needs.

Shallow understanding - A frequent misunderstanding is that any assessment by teachers, and in particular the use of a weekly test to produce a record of marks, constitutes formative assessment. It does not and in fact this type of assessment has been shown to impede learning. Unless some learning action follows from the outcomes, such practice is merely frequent summative assessment: the key feature, interaction through feedback, is missing.

Much questioning – little dialogue - Formative interaction in classrooms involves far more than having good questions: what matters is both the question and the way in which the teacher handles the responses, which it elicits. If a question is asked, but pupils are given little time to think, or one-word correct responses are rewarded while incorrect responses are brushed aside, then there is no formative dialogue. Questions should be deliberately posed as invitations to engage in a dialogue. Students should be given time to discuss issues with one another, and then report their ideas to the class. The role of the teacher here is to listen carefully, and respond constructively to the emergent ideas of students in order to build their collective understanding. A rich diet of spoken language becomes a powerful impetus for learning as students develop the habits of reasoned discourse.

Feedback matters - A diet of marks does not improved learning. Teachers who abandon the giving of marks and devote time to producing effective comments find that pupils use this type of feedback to improve their work, thereby ensuring that the effort invested in the work, by both teacher and pupils, serves to support further learning, rather than to merely produce numbers in a record book.

If comments are to be helpful, they must clearly identify what needs to be done to further improve, and give the recipient specific suggestions and guidance about how to improve. It is wrong to assume that motivating pupils is best served by offering them rewards, such as grades or merits. Feedback that focuses on what needs to be done can encourage all to believe that they can improve, so that they are motivated to invest the effort in producing high quality work.

Clear targets, peer-assessment and self-assessment - Pupils can only achieve a learning goal if they understand that goal and can assess what they need to do to reach it. Self-assessment therefore, is essential to learning and peer-assessment turns out to be an important complement to it. Peer feedback is particularly valuable because the interchange is in language that pupils themselves would naturally use, and because pupils learn by trying to teach, and by being assessed by, their peers.

Re-affirm the core purpose of schools and teaching - Schools and teachers need to re-think their roles and understand that their core purpose is to promote the learning of students. Therefore, teaching decisions must be focused on implementing those key features whereby pupils are helped to become more confident and effective learners.

Assessment for learning has the greatest impact on student learning and achievement ever documented. Learning is no longer mainly memorization and basic practical knowledge such as how to listen, follow direction and be a good citizen. We also need students to learn how to learn, how to work with others, and how to assess their way to success. In fact, evidence of learning is everything a student says, does, or creates.

Quality classroom assessment has two parts: assessment for learning and

assessment of learning. These terms have specific meanings.

Assessment forlearning is more than formative assessment. Assessment for learning includesinvolving students in examining their work in progress, checking to decide what has been learned and what needs to be learned next. It includes setting and using criteria, having students self-assess, being engaged in peer coaching, receiving feedback about their work, collecting and organizing evidence, and presenting evidence of learning to others. It is designed to assist students to learn more and more deeply. It identifies what has been accomplished, what needs to be done, and informs the next steps for both the teacher and his or her students.

The research literature clearly shows that the more students are involved in the classroom assessment process – in terms of setting criteria, giving and receiving feedback, and providing evidence of learning – the more engaged they are, the more they learn, and the more likely it is that they will be able to provide quality evidence of their learning in relation to standards (Black and Wiliam, 1998; Butler, 1987; 1988; Harlen and Deakin Crick, 2003; Meisels et al, 2003; Rodriguez, 2004).

Classroom assessment that supports student learning:

Establishes a classroom culture that encourages interaction and the ongoing use of assessment processes.
Establishes learning goals, and tracks individual student progress toward those goals.
Uses varied instruction methods to meet diverse student needs.
Uses varied approaches forobtaining information about and assessing student understanding.
Provides ongoing feedback about student performance and adaptation of instruction to scaffold learning and meet identified needs.
Involves students actively in the learning and assessment process.

There are three parts to a classroom assessment process that determine its effectiveness. Teachers work with students so they…

Understand the learning destination,
Are partners in the assessment and learning process, and
Are able to provide proof of their learning.

The destination: When teachers talk with students about the learning destination for the unit of work, the course, and the term, students have a chance to engage, to bring prior knowledge to the learning, to feel a sense of ownership, and are better able to be partners in the learning-assessment process. Descriptions of success tell students in simple yet powerful ways what they need to know and be able to do and these descriptions of the learning destination become a guide for the collection of evidence of learning.

Students are partners in assessment: Once students understand the learning destination, the next step is helping them become active partners in a quality classroom assessment process: setting criteria, providing feedback to others, and receiving feedback to help them achieve their own learning goals. When students are involved in setting criteria, the expected learning to be shown becomes more explicit. The secret of success is no longer secret – available only to those who “get it” without being told. This is crucial for many learners, especially for those who struggle to be successful at school. Feedback is essential for learning. The more feedback students receive during their learning, the more likely they are to learn. Students learn from seeing feedback given in helpful ways and from listening to how the language of learning and assessment is used to give feedback.Effective feedback has these components:

Criteria for success are clearly established (often through exemplars).
Providing specific, descriptive, helpful feedback is modeled.
Shared criteria and protocols for providing feedback are developed and practiced.
Students are provided with multiple opportunities to receive feedback.
Students are provided with time to act on the feedback and revise work.

Proof of Learning: Typically evidence of learning includes:

Products including performances, assignments, students’ writings, projects, notebooks, constructions, demonstrations, art work, digital artifacts including animations, slideshows, podcasts, photographs and so on.
Observations on the process of learning, including notes regarding hands-on, minds-on learning activities, as well as learning journals, video, audio, and performances of various kinds across all subject areas.
Records (including digital recordings) of talking and listening to students about their learning, including conferences, student self-assessments, emails, and interviews.

When students understand the learning destination, learn to apply clear criteria to assess their way to success, collect evidence that shows evidence of learning, and present that evidence for summative assessment, the assessment of learning is more likely to be reliable and valid.

Newman, F.M. Authentic Intellectual Work: What and Why?.

Newman argues that authentic work is more than just “real world”, it also has to be grounded in the rigorous thinking of the disciplines and relevant to students’ lives. When doing authentic intellectual work, students move beyond basic skills to more complex challenges.

Authentic intellectual work involves:

Knowledge construction by using or manipulating knowledge in analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and evaluation
Disciplined inquiry through deep understanding of fundamental topics which reflect the ways of thinking and working within that discipline field
Value beyond school where student work has value and meaning beyond the classroom

Newman argues the need for schools to promote authentic intellectual work because:

The workplace now demands that individuals be capable of critical thinking, problem solving, communication, teamwork and addressing complex ideas.
It increases student motivation.
It helps create a common school mission that can be applied to all subjects.

Perkins, D. (2009). Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching can Transform Education. San Francisco, CA:Jossey-Bass.

Perkins uses the analogy of playing the whole game to explore seven principles of teaching that could help transform educational environments:

Play the whole game: By providing students with opportunities to understand the whole game or participate in some accessible “junior” version of the whole game, learning becomes more coherentand meaningful than if it’s broken down into fragmented isolated bits.
Make the game worth playing: Find the hook that will engage students in the “game” right away. Artful teachers use many ways to hook students into learning and connect them to what’s really interesting about a topic or field of study.
Work on the hard parts: Once students have a taste of the whole game, working on the hard parts makes more sense and students are more motivated to do so. Real improvement depends on deconstructing the game, singling out the hard parts for special attention, practicing them on the side, developing strategies to deal with them better, and reintegrating them as soon as possible into the whole game.
Play out of town: Let students transfer their learning to new situations and contexts. A new setting or unfamiliar situation challenges the learner to stretch and adapt their skills and insights. The whole point of formal education is to prepare for other times and other places, not just to get better in the classroom.
Uncover the hidden game: Seek out the hidden understandings so that the game is more attainable for students.
Learn from the team…and other teams: Hardly anything we do is done solo. You are almost always coordinating with other people in a complex way. Human endeavor is deeply and intrinsically collective. Allow opportunities for students to collaborate and work with each other as they figure out various aspects of the game.
Learn the game of learning: Make learning visible and help students take greater ownership and responsibility for managing their own learning. Help them identify what constitutes high quality work and figure out their next steps in terms of moving closer to the target.

Alberta Education. (2011). Framework for student learning: competencies for engaged thinkers and ethical citizens with an entrepreneurial spirit.

Alberta Learning defines competencies as the attitudes, skills and knowledge that contribute to students becoming engaged thinkers and ethical citizens with an entrepreneurial spirit. This emphasis on competencies rather than content enables educators to become designers engaging and relevant learning experiences rather than implementers of top down curriculum. (p.1)