How good is the teaching in your classroom or school, really? Are you sure? How do you know?
Not every teacher or school leader feels comfortable asking such questions, either of themselves or of others. They are challenging questions, there is no doubt about that. But they are also very important questions.
Asking them isn’t about criticism or finding fault. Suggesting that we should get better is not a negative thing – on the contrary! The better we get at something, the better the outcomes we achieve and the more we tend to enjoy what we do.
Making our teaching better and better – regardless of how good it is already – will be of benefit to both the students we teach and to ourselves. A mindset of continuous improvement is an exciting and empowering mindset to have.
The right things, in the right way
That said, achieving continuous improvement is easier said than done. Adopting this mindset is one thing; using it to bring about real improvement is quite another. So how can we do this?
The key is to ensure that we are focusing on the right things, in the right way. But what are the ‘right things’? And what is the ‘right way’? Of all the questions posed so far, these are perhaps the most difficult to answer.
The Teaching Delusion
A lot of teachers and school leaders think they know what the right things are, but really, they don’t. They think they know what the right way is, but really, they don’t. They think the teaching in their classroom or school is good enough, but really, it isn’t.
As uncomfortable as it is true, these are common delusions in the teaching profession. Let’s refer to them collectively as ‘The Teaching Delusion’. Calling this out is important because it is getting in the way of teachers and school leaders focusing on the right things, in the right way.
‘21st-century employability skills’
In my job, I am in the privileged position where I get to watch a lot of teachers teach and talk to them about this. Frequently, I see learning intentions which focus on the development of skills such ‘teamwork’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘active listening’ (whatever that is) at the expense of anything else.
Some schools have gone so far as to insist that every lesson has a focus on the development of such skills. Why? Because they have identified these as the skills that employers are looking for and, therefore, the most important skills for students to be developing. For me, this is delusion.
To ensure these ‘21st-century employability skills’ are being developed, many school leaders and inspectors are telling teachers that ‘students need to lead their own learning’, that ‘lessons need to be less teacher-led’ and that ‘there needs to be more groupwork’.
Accordingly, teachers across the country have been changing their teaching practices to reflect this. But are these the ‘right things’? Whisper it quietly: they might not be. Actually, now that we’ve alluded to it, I’m going to say it: often, I think these are the ‘wrong things’.
Let’s take groupwork as an example. Groupwork is a ‘right thing’, isn’t it? If students participate in groupwork, they will develop their skills in teamwork, collaboration and active listening, won’t they?
Perhaps, if the groupwork is carried out well. But the reality is, with a class of 28 students split into seven groups of four, this is usually very difficult to achieve. Even if you assign clearly defined roles within each group, invariably, human nature kicks in.
Some students dominate and some spectate. Some students think and some switch-off. A few students actually think and talk about the things that you want them to, but many don’t. Out of your class of 28 students, how many of them actually learn what you planned for them to learn?
And, as a bigger question, what did you want them to learn through groupwork (beyond teamwork, collaboration and active listening)? If it was a science or a geography lesson, perhaps you wanted them to learn about the greenhouse effect and its link to climate change.
Do you think that students will learn this best through groupwork or might there be better ways to teach them this?
This example gets to the heart of the delusion. Groupwork, in itself, is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. It’s just a thing. Its purpose is to help students to learn something. Whether or not it is a good way to do this depends on whether or not your students learn it.
If, through groupwork, all students learn what you planned for them to learn, then great! It was a good way to teach them this. However, in order to know this with any degree of confidence, you need evidence of what students learned as a result of the activity.
The effectiveness of a particular pedagogy should be determined by the extent to which students have learned what you wanted them to learn. It’s as simple as that: it’s all about the learning.
Be informed
As interesting as it is to try out different pedagogies to see if they work or not, the reality is we just don’t have time to be doing that in every lesson. Our time with students is too precious.
Yes, we can experiment within our lessons, but to avoid wasting everyone’s time unnecessarily, such experimentation needs to be informed by educational research about what is more or less likely to work, which often depends on what we’re teaching.
In 2021, with such a rich body or educational literature available to us – more than we have ever had before - there is no excuse not to be engaging with this or for our teaching practice not to be informed by it.
Here’s what you need to do
- Block time each week for professional reading. Find a time in the day that works best for you. It doesn’t have to be long – 30 minutes is often enough. More than likely, you’ll enjoy it, you’ll learn from it, and it will fire you up.
- Discuss your reading with colleagues. Dedicate time at weekly team meetings for this. Set-up a whole-school Professional Reading Group for wider discussion.
- Identify a specific aspect of your teaching you want to improve. Make a short, written improvement plan summarising the ‘what’ and the ‘how’. This will clarify your thinking and help hold you accountable to yourself.
- Pair up with a talk partner you respect and trust, or form a small group. Share and discuss improvement plans with one another.
- Invite staff you respect and trust to watch you teach. Ask for feedback on specific aspects of your practice.
- Block time each week to observe other teachers each. As with reading, this doesn’t have to be long. Agree a time to sit down and chat over coffee. If possible, link discussions to your improvement plan, or to theirs.
Bruce Robertson, senior education consultant and author of The Teaching Delusion: Why Teaching In Our Schools Isn’t Good Enough (And How We Can Make It Better).
