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

How do teachers really feel about their job?

by Katarzyna Kubacka
Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

September marks the return to school for many students, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, and the return to classrooms for many teachers. It is difficult to know exactly what teachers around the world are thinking as they walk into their classrooms. However, the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) provides us with some useful insights into how teachers feel about their profession and its standing in society.

Media often paints a picture of dissatisfied teachers who are unhappy with their jobs. TALIS findings offer a different view: most of teachers enjoy their job and see the advantages of being a teacher as clearly outweighing the disadvantages. This is good news for education systems around the world:  job satisfaction has important implications for teacher attrition as well as teachers’ attitudes about their job. Teachers who are satisfied with their jobs are more likely to stay in their profession, and feel confident in their skills as teachers.

At the same time, TALIS data show that some teachers do not see their profession as appreciated by society. Less than one in three teachers across TALIS countries believe that teaching is a valued profession in their country. Such a negative perception is likely to affect not only teachers who are currently at the start of their teaching career, but also those considering teaching as a career path. This is an alarming discovery, as building effective education systems requires securing the most qualified candidates for the teaching profession. Indeed, results show that teachers from high performing education systems are more likely to report that they believe their profession to be valued within society. What is it that these countries are doing right?

There are policies and practices that can support teacher job satisfaction. Empowering teachers is one such method: the extent to which teachers can participate in decision-making within their schools has a strong positive association with their perception of being valued. The results also show that the social connections teachers build in schools make a big difference. Positive relationships between teachers, as well as between teachers and students, are related to higher job satisfaction. Collaboration between teachers is another factor that is positively associated with teachers’ job satisfaction, as well as opportunities for professional development. These and other findings from the TALIS 2013 report can be helpful for policy-makers and education leaders in their efforts to build better teaching and learning environments.

To learn more about this topic, take a look at the Teaching in Focus brief. Look out for further Teaching in Focus briefs in the coming months via our website, http://www.oecd.org/edu/school/talis.htm, that will be discussing topics relevant to the experience of teachers, based on the TALIS 2013 report.

Links:
Teaching and Learning International Survey
Teaching In Focus No. 5: What helps teachers feel valued and satisfied by their jobs? by Katarzyna Kubacka
A Teachers' Guide to TALIS 2013
Photo credit: Young business woman writing question mark  / @Shutterstock 

Going for excellence: evaluation and assessment in Dutch schools

by Deborah Nusche
Policy Analyst,  Early Childhood and Schools Division, Directorate for Education

Dutch education is at a turning point. Although the Dutch education system

has made progress on many fronts and has a high standing on international assessments, there is a general appreciation that the system must continue to improve and strive for the next level.

The nature of that next level, however, has not yet been specified.

According to various groups interviewed as part of an OECD Review published today, it could mean further improving the country’s standing on international assessments, with particular focus on top performers; or enhancing general academic achievement and responding better to the learning needs of different student groups; or turning attention to “21st century skills” such as creativity, collaboration and ICT literacy.

The Dutch government has launched a general policy emphasising excellence in education. This includes a focus on providing better support to gifted and talented students and stimulating schools to aim for higher levels of achievement. For example, school inspection visits are becoming more differentiated to help schools with average and good results to further improve towards excellence. Teacher professionalism, and teachers’
capacity for “results-oriented work”, are being promoted as key elements in achieving excellence in education. Recent laws on student assessment make it mandatory for primary schools to implement regular student monitoring systems and a standardised end-of-primary test.

The Dutch government invited the OECD to visit the Netherlands and review how current evaluation and assessment approaches contribute to improving teaching and learning in Dutch schools. The OECD review team found that in many ways evaluation and assessment in Dutch schools are in line with the principles identified by the OECD to develop an effective evaluation and assessment framework. Central instruments for student assessment, school evaluation and education system monitoring are highly developed, and schools are responsible for assuring their own quality. The involvement and cooperation of multiple stakeholders has resulted in a comprehensive and balanced approach to evaluation and assessment, producing ample information and feedback for actors at all levels of the system.

Going forward, the Netherlands needs to ensure that the available evaluation and assessment results are effectively used for improvement in all schools, including in those that are already achieving basic quality. An overarching strategy for evaluation and assessment in the Netherlands could help map out the existing instruments, clarify responsibilities and point to adequate uses of evaluation and assessment results. Teachers, school leaders and governing boards would benefit from enhanced training to interpret and use the information generated by evaluation and assessment for improvements at the school and classroom level. Effective appraisal and feedback systems for school professionals, linked to professional development, can play a key role in building such capacity. Innovative approaches to school evaluation will further contribute to stimulating reflective practice and excellence in schooling.

If evaluation and assessment are to be tools for improving learning rather than the drivers of education in the Netherlands, the system also needs to build consensus on education goals for future generations. What does excellence mean for Dutch schools in the mid-21st century? Are schools sufficiently focused on valued learning goals such as problem-solving, collaboration, ICT literacy and creative thinking? How can evaluation and assessment support rather than stifle innovative teaching and learning? Greater clarity on national learning goals for the mid-21st century will help inform reflection and dialogue on how evaluation and assessment should evolve in order to support a future-oriented education system.

Links:
OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education: Netherlands:
Country Review
Main Conclusions
Summary
For more on OECD Reviews on Evaluation and Assessment Frameworks for Improving School Outcomes: www.oecd.org/edu/evaluationpolicy 
Photo credit: © Fotolia

Learning to Teach: Teaching to Learn

by Kristen Weatherby
Senior Analyst, Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS)

If you are a teacher, chances are the scene in this photo looks very familiar to you. You’ve probably spent quite a few hours in a room similar to this as part of a professional development conference, course or seminar. You’ve listened to the speakers, possibly done some group work with other teachers in the room and then returned to your school. Perhaps you’ve come away inspired and have been able to apply some of what you’ve learned in your teaching. Or maybe you have found it difficult to transfer the content from the course back to the unique context of your school and classroom.

One thing we have learned from surveying teachers around the world as part of our Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is that teachers everywhere want more professional development. On average across countries, 55% of teachers are telling us this. In some countries, continued professional development is an integral part of teachers’ yearly objective-setting and evaluation process. Yet in others the opportunities for teachers to take advantage of professional development may be dwindling – particularly in these difficult economic times. In 2008, teachers told us that the main barriers preventing them from participating in more professional development activities were a conflict with their work schedule (47%) and a lack of available and suitable programmes available (42%). In today’s difficult economic times, schools facing budget cuts might also be less willing to let teachers leave for development opportunities, as these entail considerable cost, not only in fees, travel expenses, and any teacher stipend that might be provided, but also in finding a substitute teacher to cover the classes. What can be done to help give teachers the support they need?

The latest Teaching in Focus brief, “Fostering Learning Communities among Teachers”, discusses how teachers can create and participate in co-operative professional development activities. These are different from the traditional conferences, workshops or seminars that might be held in a hotel ballroom. They includes activities that can often be achieved within the teacher’s own school, such as participating in a teacher network, mentoring, coaching and observing other teachers. On average, only about a third of teachers who reported receiving professional development described it as co-operative professional development.

TALIS asked teachers to report whether they participated in certain activities at school that could indicate the presence of professional learning communities in their schools. A professional learning community can be defined as a school-wide community “aim[ed] at continuous improvement of teaching practices by involving staff in in-depth, systematic, collaborative activities of professional development at the school level.” (Hord, 1997) TALIS found that in many countries, basic forms of co-operation among teachers are common, but collaborating on the core of their professional activities – as professional learning communities require – is much less common.

A professional learning community within school can offer support for teachers where and when they need it.  However, according to TALIS data, such communities are few and far between. Giving teachers access to more professional development opportunities within their own schools might benefit individual teachers while providing the first step toward a professional learning community for the school as a whole.

Links:
To learn more about this topic, check out this month’s Teaching in Focus brief. Look for further Teaching in Focus briefs on topics relevant to the experience of teachers in the coming months.
Follow TALIS and Kristen Weatherby @Kristen_Talis
Photo credit: Interior of a Congress Palace, conference hall / Shutterstock

A Window into the classroom

Dirk Van Damme
by Division Head, Innovation and Measuring Progress (IMEP) and Head of Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)

An excellent teacher is what makes students learn and succeed in school. Everything else – standards, curricula, assessments, resources, school leadership – come second. Yet, what do we actually know about what teachers are doing?

Classrooms seem to be the ‘black boxes’ of the education system. There is not an awful lot of research on classroom teaching practices, but TALIS 2008 provides some self-reported data on teaching practices and professional activities including participation in collaborative learning with colleagues. The main TALIS report, published in 2009, compared the relative preference for three different teaching practices – structuring, student oriented and enhanced activities – across the 23 different countries that participated in the survey. The report showed differences between countries regarding the extent to which teachers are favouring directive and teacher-directed practices over more activating and learner-centred ones. These TALIS results were received as rather disappointing signals, suggesting that the teaching profession was relatively resistant to change in many countries.

In collaboration with the TALIS programme and as part of its Innovative Teaching for Effective Learning project the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) has just released a research report which delves deeper in the TALIS data on teaching practices in classrooms and schools. Based on some advanced analytical tools (multilevel latent profile analysis), this new book called Teaching Practices and Pedagogical Innovations: Evidence from TALIS  identifies underlying profiles in teachers’ classroom practices. A large set of variables about teachers, such as gender, training, subjects taught, but also their pedagogical beliefs, the degree of professional development, the amount of feedback and appraisal received, etc., were brought together and in each country different profiles of teachers were distinguished.

The scientific and policy implications of this research are huge. Many learning researchers and education policy makers strongly – and rightly so – believe in the benefits of more student-oriented, self-regulating approaches to teaching and learning. This suggests that a particular form of teaching is outdated and should be replaced by a more innovative one. Consequently, this report now suggests that we should not look at the quality of what happens in classrooms in an ‘either-or’ way. While it is true that the best teachers differ from their colleagues in their relative use of activating, student-oriented ways of teaching, they also use more structuring, teacher-driven forms of classroom practice. Teaching quality is a matter of diversity of practices, not of one set of practices against the other. Excellent teachers are those teachers who master a large repertoire of teaching practices, which they can deploy according to learners’ needs and varying classroom conditions. Those teachers are also the ones who actively advance their own professional competence by professional development and who feel more satisfied and effective about their own work.

A final important finding is that there is also a clear difference between these teacher profiles in the degree of co-operation with other colleagues and engagement in collaborative learning communities in and outside schools. Excellent teachers view teaching as a collective responsibility within the profession, not as an individualised thing happening behind closed doors. They open the doors of their classrooms, inviting colleagues to engage in what they are doing but also disclosing what happens in classrooms to the outside world. It is that kind of teachers we need to work with our kids.

Links:
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) Activities
OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS)
Teaching in Focus Briefs

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