Schools are for learning and learners- PERIOD

Anyone who knows me knows that I am passionate about finding ways to remove any of the static that causes our focus on learning and learners to be fuzzy or unclear. I know that we need to be engaged in the hard work of change in education and I am dedicated to doing my part. I had yet another amazing experience at the Annual Visible Learning Conference where I gathered many nuggets of information that had already set the gears in my mind into overdrive. Then I read this article from Alfie Kohn and started putting some of the pieces together. I especially loved the last line- "Everyone may not get there, but at least in theory all of us could." In the article, he talks about how standardized tests and comparative grades create rankings that make it impossible for all students to experience success because someone always has to be failing. His point is well made and I strongly encourage educators to read the article.

If we believe that everyone is entitled to an education, and if we truly want all children to have a shot at being successful in this world, we cannot continue to let the classroom be a place of such intense competition. There will always be playing fields, courts, pools, concert halls, chess tables, etc... where we can foster and encourage competition for those children who crave it, but education should be for ALL children in ALL contexts.

There is no question that rankings and that aura of competition impact the performance of students. Very early in their learning, students become aware of their "position" in relation to their peers and the subsequent expectations of their teachers and they perform accordingly. During a session on feedback, Shirley Clarke shared that 88% of 4 year olds who are placed in an ability group remain in that group throughout their schooling. During his keynote address at the AVL Conference, John Hattie shared a number of differences that had been noted in the classrooms of teachers with high expectations of students verses teachers with low expectations. Teachers with low expectations put students in ability groups and develop different activities for each group, whereas teachers with high expectations work with all students and expect them to do the same work, but they realize they may need different levels of support and different amounts of time. The children who are placed in ability groups and who are given easier assignments will never be pushed to perform beyond that level. They will meet the low expectations held by their teacher. On the other hand, the students who are given the time and support needed to complete the work will live up to the high expectations of their teacher.

The good news here, is that there is a lot of great information out there to guide our work. John Hattie's meta-analysis is an amazing collection of evidence about which variables in education can have the greatest effect and many other education researchers have complimented his work by clarifying how and when these variables do have the greatest positive impact on student learning. Of all variables, he found that the average effect size was .40 which is known as the "hinge point" point or the growth per year. We know that collective teacher efficacy, with an effect size of 1.39 can have a tremendous impact. However, it is important to read Jenni Donohoo and Peter DeWitt"s work related collective teacher efficacy and collaborative leadership and Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan's work on Professional Capital to truly understand how collective teacher efficacy can be leveraged.

One of the variables that I see as a potential game changer and that was the topic for a lot of sessions, is feedback. It only has an effect size of .66, but many believe it could be much higher if the feedback is used effectively. James Nottingham, in his session on feedback, pointed out that 1/3 of all studies on feedback showed a negative impact on learning. He emphasized the importance of the timing of feedback, specifically that feedback should not be given until after the teacher and students have agreed on the criteria. Shirley Clarke also talked about the importance of co-creating and communicating learning intentions and success criteria in order to provide effective feedback. Similarly, when Hattie shared the differences between teachers with low and high expectations, he noted that teachers with low expectations focus on activities and behaviors and communicate the details of the activities to be completed, whereas the teacher with high expectations focuses on learning and communicates learning intentions and success criteria.

The 2007 publication of The Hidden Lives of Learners, which documented the extensive observational research of Graham Nuthall, uncovered important information that can be used to inform the effective use of feedback. He found that in the classroom, 80% of the feedback that students receive during the day comes from their peers and that 80% of that is inaccurate. Knowing this, it is important to teach students to accurately offer and reflectively process feedback. You can find excellent strategies and guidance for for creating this culture in the classroom in James and Jill Nottingham's book Challenging Learning Through Feedback, or Visible Learning: Feedback (Vol. 2) by John Hattie and Shirley Clarke.

I do not think many of us need motivation to lead this charge of change in education because we see and hear evidence of the need every day. However I want to end with a statistic that has haunted me since seeing it during John Hattie's keynote. He shared this graphic which captures the data Lee Jenkins collected when asking 3,000 teachers the following questions: “What grade level do you teach?” and “What percent of your students love school?”. It shows that from kindergarten to grade 9, student enthusiasm for school drops from 95% to 37%. I don't know about you, but I am not okay knowing that just over a third of our students still love school by the time they start high school.