Current trends I am seeing influencing international schools, helping define future practice...

1. Ten Trends
! scholarship ! professional
development
! literacy and numeracy
! positive psychology
! assessment for
learning ! enterprise education
! data and student ! outdoor education
progress
! parental engagement
! scientific management

4. Assessment for Learning
Assessment for Learning (AfL) means
using evidence and feedback to identify
where pupils are in their learning, where
they need to go and how best to get
there.

5. “Inside the black box” (Black and Wiliam, 1998)
summarises the main findings from 250 assessment
articles (covering nine years of international
research). It identifies five key factors that improve
learning through assessment:

6. The Curriculum TheAssessment
The Differentiation The Evaluation

7. The Curriculum TheAssessment
! Starting event ! Outcome(s) to test
! Sequence ! Formative assessments
! Final test/task
The Differentiation The Evaluation
! Extension, Enhancement ! What did we learn?
! Support ! What should we do
better?

8. What kind of learner are you?
Engage children in discussion about their own learning behaviour,
during lessons or sessions and in plenaries. Questions that encourage
children to reflect on themselves as learners include, for example:
What have you learned?
What have you achieved?
What do you feel good about/proud of?
What do you like doing/learning?
What do you do well?
What do you find hard?
What don’t you know/understand?
What do you want to do/improve/learn?
What do you need to do to make that possible?
What help do you need?
What ways helped you learn this?
What ways did you learn best/prefer?
What do you think of yourself as a learner?
Before using such questions you will want to discuss what these questions mean for the
children you work with.
• Does it vary with age?
• How would you make these ideas accessible to different age groups, and to children with special
educational needs, children from different cultural backgrounds and children with English as an additional
language (EAL)?

9. Classroom talk
Traditional questioning
Teacher asks a question
Children put their hands up
Teacher takes an answer
Teacher accepts, rejects or develops the answer
Teacher asks a further question
Research going back for decades has shown that, in classrooms, teachers control the majority of the talk – selecting who will speak,
when they will speak and for how long. T eachers also do most of the talking in classrooms.
The most common form of teacher–child discourse in classrooms is that shown above. Such exchanges often close down learning
opportunities because children are steered towards a correct answer that the teacher is seeking.
The effectiveness of teacher–learner exchanges depends on the quality of the questioning (or alternatives to questioning).

10. Extending classroom talk
T eaching through dialogue
enables adults and children
to build on ideas in
sustained talk. When
Strategies for encouraging extended dialogue: teaching through
dialogue, teachers and
Another feature of practitioners encourage
classroom discourse that Allow thinking time before taking responses children to listen to each
other, share ideas and
has been identified through
consider alternatives; to
research is the brevity of Use ‘think, pair, share’ (30 seconds to think, 1 build on their own and
many children’s
responses. In a comparative minute to share with a partner) others’ ideas to develop
study of classrooms in the coherent thinking; to
UK, Russia, India and the Do not respond immediately after a child has express their views fully;
and to help each other
USA, Alexander (2001)
has argued for a greater
replied – often they will say more reach common
understandings. T eaching
emphasis on developing
dialogic talk, where
Challenge the response – ‘T me why …’, ‘But
ell through dialogue can
extended responses from what about …?’ take place when a teacher
children are expected, or practitioner talks with
encouraged Ask the child to elaborate – ‘Can you say an individual child, or
and supported. when two children are
more?’ talking together, or
when the whole class is
joining in in a discussion.
Evaluations of the use of interactive whiteboards in Y 5 and 6 found that
ears
their use led to children talking for longer in their responses and using a range
of extended vocabulary in their explanations.

12. X
X
X
3a D/E border
4a good C
5a A or A*

13. Hattie s barometer: !
comparing different influences
J.Hattie, Visible Learning, 2009

14. Ability grouping
J.Hattie, 2009

15. Class size
J.Hattie, 2009

16. Gender
J.Hattie, 2009

17. Principals
J.Hattie, 2009

18. Open or traditional classrooms
J.Hattie, 2009

19. Birth weight
J.Hattie, 2009

20. Socio-economic status
J.Hattie, 2009

21. Pre-school
J.Hattie, 2009

22. Early intervention
J.Hattie, 2009

23. Parental engagement
J.Hattie, 2009

24. Motivation
J.Hattie, 2009

25. Self concept
J.Hattie, 2009

26. Acceleration
J.Hattie, 2009

27. Mobility
J.Hattie, 2009

28. Television
J.Hattie, 2009

29. Professional development
! Must be about improving or updating specialist/
subject knowledge
! Must help us improve our skills in practice
! Must have evaluation alongside development
! Must be sizeable!
...So we need a different paradigm:
! consultancy
! artisan

30. Seligman
! Identified as the founder of Positive Psychology
! Attempting to leave behind a psychology obsessed with illness and
depression
! Trying to find out what is related to Happiness
! Trying to understand how people can improve their happiness
! Developed online tests which help to identify individuals strengths
! Promotes the idea of recognizing and enjoying your strengths, so
that you can build on them

31. Learning to behave
! The three crucial parts of learning to behave for the pre-
teen are:
the ability to
the ability to balance your
deferred
maintain needs against the
gratification
attention
needs of
everyone else
S.Palmer, 2006

32. Hug (or wink)
! Students at Pennsylvania State were
assigned to two groups. The first had to hug
others at least 5 times a day over 4 weeks:
front-to-front, non-sexual hugs using both
arms. The others did not.
! The huggers (averaging about 49 a week)
became much happier
! The guys who found it uncomfortable at first
found ways to start, such as with success on
the sports field
! Later, the researchers found winking and
complimenting also work
J M Clipman, 1999

33. Be optimistic
! Professor Laura King asked participants in an
experiment to visit her lab for 4 consecutive
days, and to spend 20 minutes writing about
their best possible future selves
! Compared with those who just wrote about
their lives, the participants had happier
moods and even reported fewer physical
ailments several months later
! Those who persist derive more benefit
! Why? Because it asks a question relevant to
your lives, it starts the process of building
today and, through the medium of writing, it
helps you discover and structure your ideas
L.A.King, 2001

34. But, 6 years
later...
only 1 in 5 had
completed a four-
year US degree

35. Parental engagement
J.Hattie, 2009