TEACH
First published in 2023 by Solution Tree Press.
First published in 2023 by Solution Tree Press.
Copyright © 2024 Ingrove Press and Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2024 Ingrove Press and Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
Published in Australia under license by Ingrove Press.
Published in Australia under license by Ingrove Press.
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PO Box 3160 Mentone East, Victoria 3194, Australia
Phone: (03) 8686 9077
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Code: SOT8326
ISBN: 9781923198326
Code: SOT8326
ISBN: 9781923198326
Printed in Australia.
Ingrove Press (formerly Grift Education), a division of Ingrove Group. For permission to reproduce material from this publication, please contact orders@ingrovegroup.com.
Printed in Australia.
Ingrove Press (formerly Grift Education), a division of Ingrove Group. For permission to reproduce material from this publication, please contact orders@ingrovegroup.com.
Learning Is Driven by What Teachers and Students Do Together
Learning is driven by what teachers and students do together. Other people have an influence: families, leaders, administrators, and the wider community. They all play a role. But without a doubt, the interactions between teaching staff and their students make the biggest difference to the success of educational experiences. (Teaching staff means everyone directly involved with instruction, including teaching assistants, learning support mentors, and coaches, as well as teachers.) So, if you are interested in raising standards and improving learning outcomes, then the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process has to take center stage.
How does one improve the teaching and learning process? Thousands of theories and packaged programs promise to help. Which of these have helped and which have hindered? John Hattie’s (2023) synthesis of 2,100-plus meta-analyses indicates that almost everything has worked, even the placebos. Therefore, in a sense, it matters not what we choose. Except that it does matter. It matters a lot.
We have only a short span of time with our students (despite the sense that some lessons will never end!). So, we must be discerning. We must pick the approaches that work best—not just the ones that work, but the ones that work best. Take the inputs we are given (students, resources, curriculum, and time), pick some approaches, work our magic, and presto—create some fabulous learning outcomes.
Oh, how easy that sounds. At least that’s what commentators from afar (a long way afar!) would have us believe. It’s not easy, though, is it? It’s so complex that it is almost impossible to capture accurately. It’s what professors Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (1998b) called the black box :
Inside the Black Box (Black & Wiliam, 1998b) was published just a few years into my teaching career. The effect it had on my thinking still reverberates today. Back then, I wanted to know how to make the actions inside the black box as effective as possible. Today, I still want to know. With thirty-five years of teaching and consulting under my belt, I think I have a better idea.
A decade of speaking tours alongside professors Carol S. Dweck (expert on growth mindset) and John Hattie (creator of Visible Learning), as well as countless keynotes and workshops with other educational luminaries, have also afforded me a rare depth of insight as to what is likely to work best.
My first book, Challenging Learning (Nottingham, 2010), gave the Top Ten FACTS about Feedback, Application, Challenge, Thinking Skills, and Self-Esteem. This was also the first time I shared my concept of the Learning Pit®. Since then, I have written ten more books, each one giving an in-depth analysis of a single area of pedagogy.
Now, it’s time to return to the beginning by sharing the most significant insights on a range of important topics. Each one stands separately. Together, they are more than the sum of their parts. They form a significant part of what ought to be taking place inside the black box.
Questions still abound, of course, but this book shares much of what I have learned.
How This Book Is Organized
To help you understand how this book is organized, this section provides some chapter highlights.
Chapter 1 (page 1): The way you think and the decisions you make as a teacher greatly influence your students’ learning. This chapter shares some criteria you could use to help make those decisions wisely.
Chapter 2 (page 19): Student engagement has always been a concern, perhaps most so now. How can you recognize it when you see it, and perhaps more importantly, how do you improve it so that all students are ready to learn? This chapter includes ways to use questioning and dialogue to boost participation.
Chapter 3 (page 91): Learning begins when students go beyond their current abilities. Unfortunately, many students actively avoid taking on challenges for fear of failure or ridicule. This chapter shows how to make levels of challenge just right so that students more willingly step out of their comfort zone. It also includes Learning Pit approaches.
Chapter 4 (page 147): Feedback is already one of the most powerful effects on student learning, so why write more about it? Well, first, its quality is so variable that one-third of studies show negative effects from it! Second, many school and faculty policies focus on how to give feedback, whereas the way in which students use it matters much more. And third, timing is critical; give it too soon and you’ll stop students from learning, but give it too late and it will rarely be used. This chapter shows how to put all of this right.
Chapter 5 (page 215): Every student is capable of growing and improving. They won’t all achieve top grades, but they can all make excellent progress, so long as our expectations are high and we teach them with this prediction in mind. What does that mean for classroom practice and interactions? This chapter explains all!
Chapter 6 (page 269): Digging ever deeper into the meta-analyses I used to create this book, I noticed how time and again, the outcomes for the strategies I recommend are particularly impressive for students at risk of not graduating from K–12 education. These strategies work
Learning Is Driven by What Teachers and Students Do Together
for everyone (I wouldn’t share them if they didn’t), but they are even more effective in creating equity in the classroom. This chapter tells you how and why.
To help set the scene, I have included three features in chapters 2–5: (1) purpose, (2) notice, and (3) timing. Sections 1.0–1.3 explain why I think these features are important.
CHAPTER 1
Learning
More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given.
During October 1992, I experienced the first day of my teacher training course. After welcoming my peers and me, the tutor pointed to one of the hills in the distance—Wansfell Pike—and asked us to climb it! That was it: no poring over the national curriculum or learning about educational psychology as per our expectations. Instead, our mission was to climb to the top of a 1,600-foot hill, work out where we were, and then return ready to talk about it.
When we gathered back in the classroom, our tutor, Chris Rowley, asked us a series of questions, starting with, “Where were you?” The dialogue that flowed has stayed with me ever since.
Early answers were straightforward enough. We were on Wansfell Pike, one of the hills surrounding Ambleside, a town in the center of England’s Lake District National Park, in the northern county of Cumbria (or the county of Westmorland, for the traditionalists among us). As we answered, Chris neither confirmed nor refuted the accuracy of assertions; he just listened. Now and again, he would ask clarification questions, but otherwise, he encouraged us to talk.
Less than five minutes into the discussion, we began arguing about our sense of place. Many of us were adamant that this part of the world was northern, but in the eyes of the Scottish students among us, it was a long way south. Some said it was traditionally Cumbrian, whereas others said locals couldn’t afford to live in such a touristy place, and therefore, it could no longer be thought of as traditional.
As time went on, we covered a wide range of topics, including how long you must live somewhere for you to think of it as home and for you to be considered a local; where the North begins and where it ends; whether national parks are good for locals; and if a sense of place is anything other than someone’s feelings about a place at a particular point in time.
Afterward, as we reflected on the discussion, Chris shared some curriculum documents identifying sense of place as a central topic in elementary school geography. We were blown away. We had assumed the activity was purely an icebreaker before the real studies began. Yet, his
lesson design and well-timed questions had caused us to care deeply about and engage passionately in a topic that until then none of us had ever even thought about.
Throughout that year, Chris Rowley changed my view of education. Initially, I had signed up for teacher training because I wanted to work with young people. There wasn’t a subject I particularly wanted to teach, and I certainly wasn’t keen on the idea of being back at school, having hated the experience so much as a kid. But I wanted to work with young people, and I thought teacher training was a good place to start.
I soon realized that being a teacher could also give me the opportunity to get kids to care about their learning, to be interested in the world around them, and to want to know more, just as Chris had done for me. His sense of purpose was as inspirational as it was clear—he wanted people to care. Not just go through the motions. Not just pass tests. Not just know the curriculum. But really, deeply, passionately care.
I should say that not every lesson was like the first. There were days that he drew attention to the minutiae of curriculum standards or helped us understand how to grade papers. On other occasions, he took a contrary approach to teaching in the hope that we would push back and show him what needed improving. In doing so, he showed us that there isn’t just one way to teach in much the same way as there isn’t one way to learn. Different contexts need different approaches.
Therefore, I would like to start off this first chapter by asking you to consider your purpose, your mission, and your approach (or approaches) to teaching, for what you do, why you do it, and how you think about it will make a big difference to your students’ learning.
1.0 Remember Your Why
Our sense of purpose is all too often lost in the busyness of the black box. We put so much effort into making today run smoothly that tomorrow’s aspirations are relegated to an afterthought. What outcomes do we want by the end of the term, by the end of the year, or by the end of our students’ schooling? All become passing thoughts when the events of today distract us.
It is a similar story for our students. “What are you learning?” classroom visitors ask. “We’re doing this,” students reply. “Why?” ask the visitors. “Don’t know,” “Because it’s on the test,” and “Our teacher told us to” come the answers.
As Simon Sinek made famous in his TED Talk (Sinek, 2009a), as well as in his book (Sinek, 2009b), we should start with the why. Why are we teaching this? Why are we doing that? Why is this important to master? (One hopes our answers will be better than “Because it’s on the curriculum!”)
More fundamentally, why did we go into teaching in the first place? Why choose this career rather than another? For example, finance and business tend to pay more and demand less. Presumably, we chose it not for the paperwork or politics, nor for the one-hour meetings that last fifty-nine minutes longer than necessary!
Most of us went into teaching to make a difference; to help students learn; to put right what didn’t work when we were students; or to follow in the footsteps of those who made a difference.
Does this passion still propel us? Does the mission still guide us? Or have the bureaucrats ground us down?
As you read this book, you will notice that I am a fan of etymology. Reflecting on words’ original meanings can add layers of significance. The word disaster, for example, comes from the Latin, dis-astro. The original meaning evolved at a time when navigation relied on position fixing using stars and other celestial bodies. Disaster, therefore, was likely when navigators lost sight of the stars.
Following this line of inquiry, which stars do you navigate your teaching by? Do they have something to do with the attitudes, skills, and knowledge you want your students to develop? Do they reflect the grades you hope your students will achieve? Do they perhaps involve the ways in which students engage in schooling with curiosity, eagerness, and confidence? Do they represent students’ belief in themselves and the willingness to continue learning that they might develop by the time they leave your watchful eye? These are all big questions that I hope this book will provoke.
Questions about purpose don’t necessarily have to be so elemental. They could also be about the purpose of the lesson, the topic, or the task. Connecting the what to the why will give meaning. It will situate. It will determine direction. Ultimately, it will lead to better understanding.
To give you a head start, each chapter begins with a statement of purpose. In chapter 4 (on feedback, page 147), for example, I start with the following.
• Feedback should help students decide on the next steps in their learning journey.
• Feedback ought to be offered constructively and compassionately.
• Feedback’s value rests in being received thoughtfully and used wisely.
I also include an example vision statement that you could use to describe the purpose and direction of travel. These statements include a clear sense of the inherent values as well as the expected outcomes.
In the preceding example, I describe the purpose of feedback as helping people on their learning journey. I say this because feedback is at its most effective when used formatively to form the next steps. This becomes the guiding star. Feedback is about helping recipients improve. It’s not about grading or making comments on past performances. It’s about helping students (or staff) decide on their next steps so that they can improve their learning or performance. Having this purpose clear in our minds helps us determine which approaches to use inside the black box and which not to.
1.1 Pay Attention to Your What
Learning what to notice adds qualities to our life that didn’t exist before. In the early 2000s, I began traveling to Australia and New Zealand for work. One thing I noticed was that teachers I met in that part of the world knew their wine. Not all did, of course, but certainly a significant number knew when a chardonnay is more fitting than a sauvignon blanc or when a shiraz is superior to a pinot noir. Back home, my mates and I went to the pub and had whatever local beer was on tap. This collective and seemingly ingrained knowledge intrigued me. So, I signed up for a series of wine-tasting courses.
For the first time in my life, I learned how to taste and smell with sensitivity. I moved beyond simple judgments of niceness to distinguishing between textures, flavors, and aromas. I learned to notice tannins and the ways in which they complement or overpower, to take a similar approach to acidity, and to notice a wine’s body, its smells, and its complexity.
I found it all fascinating and frustrating in equal measure. How had I gotten to my thirties without ever learning this? Not about wine per se, but about tasting and smelling in general. Once upon a time, the process of eating and drinking had been principally utilitarian for me. I ate and drank because it was functional or social. But the more courses I did—and the more I learned what to notice—the more eating and drinking became an experience in itself.
I had a similar journey with photography. A friend of a friend just so happened to be an award-winning photographer. So, I made sure to hang out with him and to learn what I could. And guess what? He taught me what to notice. The sources of light and associated shadows; the relationships between objects; and different perspectives, additional reflections, and cropping change the essence of a photograph. I learned to capture a story in one shot—rarely posed, always contextual. I still take shoot-from-the-hip shots, but when I put my mind to it, I now also take photos that tell a story, celebrate a moment, and convey ideas, all because I know more about what to notice.
And just in the last week, as I have been writing this introduction, I have thought a lot about what to notice in art. I am not an arty person; in fact, I’m quite the opposite. I’ve spent much of my life believing I don’t have an artistic bone in my body. When I was a teenager, my art teachers repeatedly implied I was talentless. Comparing my less-than-impressive efforts to those created by my talented peers further entrenched my belief. As an adult, I once queued for hours to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. I took one look and wondered what all the fuss is about. The same goes for the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Yes, the scale is impressive, but a vista of lakes and mountains wins my attention every time. I know how to appreciate nature, but art is beyond me. Or that’s what I thought.
All it took to change my thinking was a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) by Joseph Fasano (2023), which read, “What’s your favorite detail of any work of art? I think the right hand of Michelangelo’s David is one of the greatest things ever made.” Luckily for me, or else I would have scrolled on by, he included a photograph of the statue’s hand, and, as I mentioned earlier, I like photography. So, I followed the thread of replies, and they were astonishing. Here were people from all around the world giving their recommendations about what is worth noticing.
Many of the replies struck me, but the two that really stood out were these:
Victory of SamothraceMoses Both posts were accompanied by images of the sculptures they referred to. The pictures were breathtaking. They provoked a longing to see the sculptures up close and personal.
I subsequently shared the posts with my eldest daughter, who was equally fascinated. Like me, she has had art teachers who have implied she has little talent in the subject. However, these posts caused her to think that maybe adding a course on art history during her university degree might not be as preposterous as she first thought. That is the power of knowing what to notice. Knowing what to be passionate about.
In each chapter, I will help you decide what to notice. The topics I cover will be familiar to every teacher, but what to notice might not be. Every educator knows that learning should include feedback, dialogue, challenge, and self-esteem. Even growth mindset (Dweck, 2015) is de rigueur these days. But what are the vital features to notice? What is essential, and what is merely window dressing? These are some of the distinctions I will help you make.
1.2 Choose When
Once you’ve clarified your purpose and you know what to notice, your next step is identifying your priorities. Or, to put it another way, you know where you’re going and what’s important. Now, what should you do next and when? I will help you answer these questions throughout the book.
The majority of each chapter covers what . What is feedback (and how does it differ from assessment)? What is a growth mindset, and what can you do to build a growth mindset culture in your classroom? What is exploratory talk, and why is it the optimum form of dialogue in the context of learning? and so on.
However, I also draw attention to when. In fact, in some sections, I do this almost as much as I identify what. For example, deep learning is as necessary as surface knowledge, but the key is not to identify which is best but to know when to move students from one to the other. The same goes for challenge. All students need to be challenged, but no one should be challenged all day long. We need to know when to challenge and when to support, when to scaffold and when to encourage students to study independently. Timing is as crucial as the topic, sometimes even more so. Here are a few more examples to illustrate this point.
• Making mistakes can be instructional (at the right time): In chapter 5 (page 215), I share evidence that learning from mistakes can result in longer-lasting understanding. But when a student makes those mistakes is just as important as how they learn from them. When students make mistakes in high-stakes conditions, the impact is likely to be negative. For example, mistakes in a one-time-only exam could mean the difference between one grade and the next grade higher or lower, or a mistake crossing the road could lead to dangerous consequences. However, making the same mistakes in a practice exam, correcting them, and studying further is likely to lead to enhanced learning. Making mistakes identifying road hazards during a simulation can lead to similarly improved learning if the exam taker has the opportunity to revise and restudy.
• Going into the Learning Pit can deepen learning (at the right time): I created the Learning Pit to encourage my students to step more willingly out of their comfort zone. An exploration of my reasons for this, and why I call the process going through the Learning Pit, is shared in section 3.7 (page 113). For now, I think it’s worth making the point that students shouldn’t always go through the pit, which is the same as saying they shouldn’t always be out of their comfort zone. They obviously need to go beyond their ability and comfort levels if they are to learn; but then sometimes,
