Teachers learn better at school

by Darleen Opfer
OECD Thomas J Alexander Fellow

Most of us probably have fond memories of time off school due to teacher training days. Whilst it may have presented a  logistical problem for our parents, it was a blissful free day off for us students. We didn’t stop and consider what teachers were actually doing during these training days. But if we had, we would have wanted them focused on activities directly related to our school experience.  The new Teaching in Focus brief shows that professional development embedded in school life has more impact on teaching practice than non-school embedded professional development.

Traditionally, teachers do not spend the training days in their own school, giving them the chance to focus on solving problems directly related to teaching their students. Instead, teachers are pulled out of their schools and attend one day, ‘single shot’ workshops or conferences where they listen to others instruct them on new policies and practices.

For both school and non-school embedded professional development there are variations in participation levels across countries. Teachers in Chile, France, Italy and the Slovak Republic indicate a high level of participation in non-school embedded professional development activities, whereas teachers in Abu Dhabi, Alberta (Canada), Mexico and Singapore report low levels of participation.

Across the countries surveyed however, teachers reported that they are more likely to participate in non-school embedded professional development activities, such as courses and workshops (70%), than in activities within school, such as collaborative professional learning (61%).

This is a shame because when teachers participate in embedded professional development activities within schools, where they can focus on problems of practice, use real student work, and collaborate with their same-school colleagues, there is a positive impact on teachers’ classroom practices. In the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), teachers reported impacts of professional development on:  knowledge and understanding of their subject field, pedagogical competencies in teaching their subject field,  ICT (information and communication technology) skills for teaching and student behavior and classroom management, among others.

In general, TALIS teachers who report taking part in more non-school embedded professional development activities tend to also report that their professional development has a lower impact on their work, in comparison to the teachers who report engaging more often in school embedded professional development.

A good example of the positive impact that can be achieved when teacher professional development is focused directly in the teaching school, can be found in Latvia’s Developing Skills for Experiential and Cooperative Learning programme, which is funded by the Soros Foundation–Latvia. Teachers in this programme work  together to identify and understand  problems in their teaching practice. Next, they generate a set of ways to address the problem and work on implementing their strategies for solving the problem. Most importantly, they do not do this work on their own, they collaborated as teams to implement and evaluate how well their strategies address the problem. Teachers in the programme continue to work on sustaining their efforts beyond the foundation funding, by forming the Latvian Association for Cooperation in Education (LAPAS, Latvian acronym ) which helps teachers develop collaborative approaches to education reform.

From this evidence, the message to teachers, school leaders and policy makers is clear: prioritise professional development activities that take place in school settings and that are sustained, collaborative, and focused on problems of practice. These are the activities that have the most positive impact on classroom practices.

Links:
Find out more about TALIS
Teaching in Focus No. 10 : Embedding professional development in schools for teacher success, by Darleen Opfer and Katarzyna Kubacka
Re‐conceptualising professional development of teacher educators in post‐Soviet Latvia
International Summit on the Teaching Profession, Banff, Alberta, on March 29–30, 2015
Photo credit: Group of People and Collaboration Concepts / @Shutterstock

Order in the classroom

by Marilyn Achiron 
Editor, Directorate for Education and Skills

There was a good reason why our teachers demanded our attention in class: it wasn’t about power; it was about performance – ours. As this month’s PISA in Focus shows, the disciplinary climate in schools is strongly related to student performance.

You might be surprised to learn that, according to the reports of students who participated in PISA 2009, most students in most PISA-participating countries and economies enjoy orderly classrooms. For example, across OECD countries, more than two out of three students reported that never or hardly ever is there noise and disorder in their classrooms. In some countries, classrooms are models of orderliness: fewer than one in ten students in Korea and Thailand reported that they cannot work well in class because of disruptions; and fewer than one in ten students in Japan, Kazakhstan and Shanghai-China reported that their teacher has to wait a long time for students to quiet down before they can begin class.

But orderly classrooms are not ends in themselves; they seem to be the preconditions for learning. In 55 countries and economies that participated in PISA 2009, students in schools where the classroom climate is more conducive to learning tend to perform better. True, schools with more positive disciplinary climates also tend to have other qualities that are related to better student performance. For example, the students in these schools generally come from more socio-economically advantaged backgrounds. Indeed, in 36 countries and economies, there is a positive relationship between schools’ disciplinary climate and the average socio-economic status of their students.

But PISA results show that even after accounting for the socio-economic status and other characteristics of both students and the schools they attend, including the educational resources available to the school, the way the school is governed, and how the school assesses the performance of its students and itself, in 31 countries and economies, schools with a more positive disciplinary climate tend to perform better. In other words, disciplinary climate is one of few school-level characteristics that show a significant positive relationship with performance consistently across countries. In fact, given the strong relationship between students’ socio-economic status and disciplinary climate, results from PISA suggest that a positive disciplinary climate in school can reduce the impact of a student’s socio-economic status on his or her performance. That is, in more orderly classrooms, students from all backgrounds have the same chances to succeed in their school work.

So maybe orderly classrooms really are, in the end, about power: about students being able to use their inherent power to seize opportunities to learn and work to realise their potential.

For more information on PISA: www.oecd.org/pisa/
PISA in Focus No.32: Do students perform better in schools with orderly classrooms?
Photo credit: Children in a classroom with a teacher/ @ Shutterstock

Evaluation and assessment is for everyone

by Deborah Nusche and Claire Shewbridge
Analysts, Directorate for Education and Skills

Some may ask if all the time, money and effort invested in evaluation and assessment is worth it. The terms evaluation and assessment may strike fear into the hearts of some students, teachers and parents. Are they not just a way to control and constrain what goes in the classroom? Is this just not more unnecessary work for us? What on earth do they have to do with student learning?

A three-year comprehensive review of evaluation and assessment approaches around the world was brought to its grand finale in Oslo last week. The idea of the international meeting was for the OECD to put its own advice into practice: after conducting a major review of policies, do not put the results on a shelf but put them to good use. Bring stakeholders together, discuss the results of the evaluation exercise, and identify strategies to go forward. Already, over the past three years, countries that were reviewed by the OECD have done this on a national level and the results have been pretty impressive.

The main purpose of the OECD’s review was to investigate how these could be embedded in teaching and learning processes themselves, to improve student learning and give helpful information for all those involved:

Students need to be clear about what they are aiming to learn and how they can evaluate their own progress. Engaging students as active participants in assessment will help them develop capabilities in analysing their own learning and becoming self-directed learners. The representative of the European School Student Unions said it very clearly at the conference: Students do not want to be ‘passive objects’ of evaluation and assessment, they want to be actively involved, not just in their own assessment, but also in the evaluation of their teachers and schools.

Teachers also need assessment information that is reliable and consistent across schools in order to understand student strengths and weaknesses in relation to expected standards, to target future teaching and improve classroom instruction. They need feedback on their own performance to guide their professional and career development, and they should contribute to the self-evaluation of their schools.

School leaders can use school self-evaluation processes to steer whole-school improvement and provide accountability information to their communities, employers and the educational administration.

Parents typically want to know how their children are doing and how schools are helping them achieve. Providing evaluation and assessment information to parents is key to building strong school-home partnerships and can facilitate school choice.

Policy makers need aggregated information to monitor the performance of schools and education systems and ensure that national education goals are met and society at large also needs credentials about the quality of education and the achievement of standards in the education system.

Bringing the pieces together 
But if so many actors within the education system are involved in designing and using assessment and evaluation, is there not a risk that too many cooks spoil the broth? Most countries have a whole range of provisions for student assessment, teacher appraisal and school evaluation that have developed quite independently of each other. A key concern is to bring all these pieces together in a coherent framework to create synergies for learning. The OECD Review gives some ideas on how to do so:

• Take a comprehensive approach: All the components of assessment and evaluation – student assessment, teacher appraisal, school evaluation, school leader appraisal and education system evaluation - should form a coherent whole. This will generate synergies, avoid duplication and prevent inconsistency of objectives.
• Align evaluation and assessment with educational goals: Evaluation and assessment should align with the principles embedded in educational goals. 
• Focus on improving classroom practices: To optimise the potential of evaluation and assessment to improve what is at the heart of education – student learning – policy makers should promote the regular use of evaluation and assessment results for improvements in the classroom.
• Build consensus: Ensure that all the stakeholders are involved early and understand the benefits. 
• Place students at the centre: Students should be fully engaged with their learning and empowered to assess their own progress. The development of critical thinking and social competencies should also be monitored.

Links:
OECD Review on Evaluation and Assessment Frameworks for Improving School Outcomes
Synergies for Better Learning: An International Perspective on Evaluation and Assessment
Photo credit: © AKS - Fotolia.com