The Sutton Trust recently posted disappointment that despite all the research and evidence teachers and schools continued to use methods and approaches that clearly have little impact on student progress. They cited again those critical elements that are at the heart of great learning and great schools.
This blog seeks to set those ideas and principles against the programme that is expected to be followed in Kunskapsskolan schools around the world.
The Sutton Trust cites the two factors with the strongest evidence in improving student outcomes are:
• Content knowledge. Teachers with strong knowledge and understanding of their subject make a greater impact on students’ learning. It is also important for teachers to understand how students think about content and be able to identify common misconceptions on a topic.
• Quality of instruction. This includes effective questioning and the use of assessment by teachers. Specific practices, like reviewing previous learning, providing model responses for students, giving adequate time for practice to embed skills securely and progressively introducing new learning (scaffolding) are also found to improve attainment.
The other four elements of effective teaching have fair to moderate evidence showing a positive impact on results. They are: classroom climate which includes the quality of interaction between teachers and students as well as teacher expectations; classroom management which includes efficient use of lesson time and managing behaviour with clear rules that are consistently enforced; teachers’ beliefs, the reasons why they adopt particular practices and their theories about learning; and professional behaviours which relates to professional development, supporting colleagues, and communicating with parents.
KED teachers should bring a strong subject knowledge to their teaching. Subject content is not just about the recall of knowledge, it is about comprehension, about being able to apply that knowledge and to be able to synthesise that understanding to clarify values.
However, we also believe that solutions to the big problems in life, at a personal, local or global level, often require knowledge and understanding from a range of subjects and disciplines. The educated person is able to manipulate knowledge and ideas and make informed decisions. (Bildning)
Two of the KED strategies that help this are:
• Theme Courses that require young people to use knowledge from individual subjects to come together to reach solutions to specific problems or issues – ASSIGNMENTS or MISSIONS. This requires teams of teachers to work closely together to support the assignment. It certainly does not mean teachers delivering across disciplines and in areas they are not expert. It means coordinating a team input to draw on the best of instruction to help students achieve their learning goals.
• Workshops: we know that even with the best of teaching, students will construct their own understanding or misunderstanding. KED schools are expected to create learning sessions where teachers have time to talk with students as a small group individually to check this understanding. Students are expected to present their ideas or work at the end of a step or block to check that understanding.
Quality of instruction is not the preserve of Kunskapsskolan (KED) schools and what is considered great practice in other educational settings will apply equally here.
Underpinning best KED practice is the need to make learning transparent to the student. They need to know where this is going and why. We achieve this by providing work-paths, or work-plans. We structure learning in steps. We provide clear goals and criteria. We provide a learning portal were students can see the journey throughout their school journey.
The work-path/plans are designed to provide a range of learning experiences. Lectures where teachers can provide imaginative and impactful instructions; lab sessions where teachers demonstrate a skill or approach and then let students practise that; communication sessions where students can talk and discuss and clarify understanding with the teacher and other students; seminars where students prepare and then work together to discuss their approaches, apply their learning, and solve problems or clarify ideas together.
Finally there needs to be space for students to practice and articulate their learning. All students will do this in different ways, at different rates and will find different things easy or difficult to gain mastery of. So there needs to be workshop time where students can themselves differentiate their learning. Teachers here can work with individuals or groups and facilitate and if necessary structure additional learning.
The Sutton Trust identified good instruction as including- reviewing previous learning, (we encourage the use of WISKAs – what I should know already), providing model responses for students, (lab sessions are designed to achieve this but the Learning Portal should include worked examples as reference for students and clear criteria on the Portal which shows what studnts need to achieve to reach specific levels of attainment) giving adequate time for practice to embed skills securely (workshops are an essential vehicle here) and progressively introducing new learning (scaffolding).
There are two other essential elements outlined as great instruction – effective questioning and assessment. Here KED practice has a specific expectation of teachers and students. At the end of a step or block of learning students must present their learning in a number of ways. There has to be fit-for purpose assessment – and this is not always a test. As part of this- and it can be individually or as a small group- they must talk about their learning. They must be able to withstand questioning and critique. There is no better way of demonstrating mastery or showing security of learning than having to explain it to someone else.
The Sutton Trust again referred to four other approaches that have moderate to good impact:
• classroom climate which includes the quality of interaction between teachers and students as well as teacher expectations;
This is at the heart of the KED Programme. We encourage students to set long term and short term goals that are challenging, clear yet realistic. This goal setting is at the heart of the programme and supported by 1-2-1 personal coaching every week with a base group coach who travels with the student on their learning journey.
‘Classroom climate’ is an old fashioned way of describing this aspect. It makes you think that learning will be organised in a formal classroom setting. In fact creating a learning and a can-do culture is much bigger than this. It is about giving ownership to the student of their learning goals and helping them find the right strategy to achieve them. We expect students and their coaches to always find a way even when they face problems or challenges. Ownership is a really motivating factor for students especially in their adolescent years. We want to see all relationships between teachers and students to be about learning and bringing confidence to their achievement.
• classroom management which includes efficient use of lesson time and managing behaviour with clear rules that are consistently enforced;
This feels very English in the way it is expressed and actually not to agree with it suggests that behaviour doesn’t need to be managed. Of course it does! Great teachers have known that if they pitch their work expectations right, if they create really interesting and relevant learning sessions, much of poor behaviour disappears. However allied to this you have to have high expectations.
We expect all students to achieve their goals, and however they do it, to the quality necessary to attain that ultimate goal. There is nothing permissive about our expectations of behaviour or their work rate. We believe though, that this needs to be always brought back to learning and their ultimate goal. They just need a strategy nd it needs to be applied consistently.
Thinking about the community of learners here is important. Being part of a base group with a coach who sees them every day and helps them plan and then spends individual time with them, being part of a learning community of a size that makes them visible are all part of the KED strategy although the approach varies with each international setting – small schools in Sweden and US, colleges within schools in England and phase tams in India. An interesting OECD report just published warns about seeing large schools as efficient organisations with economies of scale and expansive curricula – small schools have a lot going for them!
• teachers’ beliefs, the reasons why they adopt particular practices and their theories about learning;
The KED programme is not some management system of how to run good schools, but is formed as a result of pedagogical research and 14 years of practice and reflection. At the moment we are pulling together a method bank which identifies all those big and small strategies teachers can use and explains why and when they can be effective. One of the great advantages of having nearly 50 schools and 1500 teachers across the world is that they share practise and planning and can provide any context you can possibly imagine.
• professional behaviours which relates to professional development, supporting colleagues, and communicating with parents.
This is what KED is about as illustrated above. We use the phrase ‘modelling the way’ as a mantra for teachers. As with students teachers are expected to identify clear annual goals for which we have provided clear criteria and expectation – be they outcomes, improved coaching skills or providing fantastic learning opportunities. We expect them to receive coaching and we expect schools to personalise their professional development to enable them to reach their individual goals.
Parents are critical stakeholders. They are informed regularly of progress and issues through the Electronic Data Systems, they can see the learning journeys on the portal, and they are essential in working with the base group tutor and the student to review goals and progress at specific goal setting meetings twice a year.
In conclusion, the KED programme is just that. It is a programme based on a clear set of values:
*All students are different
*Clear goals and expectations
*Education is for life – deep, interdisciplinary and developing
*Life is what you make it!
In many of our schools in different international contexts students achieve more than in other schools locally and nationally. But as always some schools have a way to go. Implementing a set of tools religiously because the programme advises it does not bring results in themselves. As with other types of schools, a real focus on planning for learning and remembering these underlying priorities and practices as highlighted by the Sutton Trust is what makes the difference. Real benefits take place when all of these tools and strategies are implemented together. This requires brave and effective leadership. As the Sutton Trust identifies, many schools, leaders and teachers hang on to practice that has been proved over and over again to have little and in some cases negative effects. Read the article.
Teaching and Learning Without Bounds 