It's About Learning

This Will Make You Rethink Improving Student Achievement

Dwayne Harapnuik — August 1, 2017 — 4 Comments

Not many things we do in education decrease kids achievement and some of these actually make sense. The presence of one disruptive kid in a class negates the performance of most kids, so when you take those kinds of negative ones you’d expect to be negative out, about 95 to 97% of things that we do to kids to enhance their achievement work. — Hattie

When you combine Hattie’s research on student achievement with the foundational ideas on learning from educational thought leaders like Dewey, Bruner, Piaget and Papert one can argue the human being is the most amazing learning entity in the face of the planet. I like to summarize these ideas by suggesting that just as long we aren’t physically or psychologically harming our learners almost anything we do as an instructional practice will help our students achieve.

But as Hattie warns just because we can show some type of improvement in achievement that doesn’t mean that anything goes and that we should continue to do what we have always done in the classroom. On the contrary, Hattie points to his research that shows we need to focus on those things that will move student achieve beyond the average effect size of .4. We need to do those things that will help our students learn the most.

We need to focus on the things like formative feedback, visible and mastery learning and much more that will do the most to improve student achievement and not focus on the politically expedient things like class sizes, rigor, and homework and so many other things which have a smaller than average impact on achievement. The following videos and images below provide an effective summary of what we should be focusing on to improve student achievement.

Hattie spends a considerable time talking about Outward Bound activities because they make learning visible, provide an authentic context for learning, and also give the learner immediate feedback on the learning process. Authentic learning opportunities feed Hattie’s notion of visible learning because they provide a wonderful opportunity for teachers to evaluate their own teaching and enable the teachers to see learning through the eyes of their students and help their students become their own teachers and learn how to learn (Hattie, 2009, 2011). Hattie also argues that teacher must develop the following mind frames that underpin their every action and decision:

My fundamental task is to evaluate the effect of my teaching on students’ learning and achievement.
The success and failure of my students’ learning is about what I do or don’t do. I am a change agent.
I want to talk more about learning than teaching.
Assessment is about my impact.
I teach through dialogue not monologue.
I enjoy the challenge and never retreat to “doing my best”.
It’s my role to develop positive relationships in class and staffrooms.
I inform all about the language of learning.

John Hattie: Visible Learning Pt 1. Disasters and Below Average Methods.

John Hattie, Visible Learning. Pt 2. Effective Methods

Source: Hattie Ranking: Teaching Effects

Additional student achievement ideas to consider:
Full Hattie Ranking – https://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/
Hattie’s Visible Learning site – https://visible-learning.org/
The key to improving student achievement – https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=6434

References
Bell, M. (2011, November 28) John Hattie: Visible learning Pt 1 disasters and Below average methods. [Video File]. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/sng4p3Vsu7Y
Bell, M. (2011, December 1) John Hattie: Visible learning Pt 2 effective methods. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/3pD1DFTNQf4
Bruner, J. S. (1960). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to philosophy of education. New York, NY: Macmillan.
Hattie, J. (2008). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.
Papert, S. (1993). The children’s machine: Rethinking school in the age of the computer. New York, NY: Basic books.
Piaget, J. (1964). Development and learning. In R.E. Ripple & V.N. Rockcastle (Eds.), Piaget Rediscovered: A Report on the Conference of Cognitive Studies and Curriculum Development (pp. 7–20). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.

In Learning achievement, feedback, learner, Learning, visible, visible learning

The key to improving student achievement

Dwayne Harapnuik — June 27, 2016 — Leave a comment

When you listen to Sir Ken Robinson talk about starting a learning revolution and listen to many other educational reform speakers all encouraging teachers to improve our educational system the excitement will only last as long as you can then address the question of how. Educational researcher John Hattie who is also the Director of the Melbourne Educational Research Institute at the University of Melbourne has conducted a synthesis of more than 50,000 studies covering more than 80 million students to determine what factors contribute to most to improving student achievement. The results of this research and the answer to the how question are found in Hattie’s book Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement.

Hattie points out in his Visible Learning books and in many of his talks that just as long as you aren’t doing anything to physically or mentally harm your students almost anything that you do will contribute to student achievement (2008, 2012). The key is to do the things the impact student achievement the most. What are those things?

In the following video Hattie addresses what the most important factors a teacher can address to improve student achievement:

Hattie argues examining, thinking and talking with other teachers about the learning environments that we have created and are creating and the impact that we can have on learners is the most important thing we can do to improve our learners achievement. I have always argued that if I can get educators to talk to other educators and consider what they are doing in their learning environment then the learner wins. Hattie and I are in good company with our recommendations that teachers start collaborating on how to improve the learning environment.

Theodore Sizer, the former Harvard Graduate School of Education Dean and Educational Reformer, argues in his book, The Red Pencil, that little has changed in education since his experiences in the information and test based classroom he endured in 1946. Sizer argues that teachers embrace a code of silence because they are continually subjected to the demands of politicians, administrators, academia, and parents who all claim to have the answer to education reform. Sizer explains that because everyone is a proclaimed expert and is telling teachers what to do when teachers go to their classroom they close the door and they do what they can and what they need to do in order to help students learn. Unfortunately, when they close the door they also agree to not add to the noise and enter into a code of silence where they won’t question or tell their teaching colleagues what to do as long as their colleagues won’t question or won’t tell them what to do. Sizer suggests that this code of silence is one of the main factors that explains why little has changed.

In addition to teachers working together to evaluate their impact as one of most significant factors in improving student achievement Hattie points to these other factors:

Moving from what students know towards explicit success criteria.
Errors an trust are welcomed as opportunities to learn.
Maximize feedback to teachers about their impact.
Getting the proportions of surface to deep correct.
The Goldilocks principle of challenge, and deliberate practice to attain these challenges.

By breaking the code of silence educators can start to work together to evaluate their impact and consider how the learning environments they create can improve their learners achievement.

References
Hattie, J. (2008). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.
Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. Routledge.
Hattie, J. (2013) Why are so many of our teachers and schools so successful? (John Hattie at TEDxNorrkoping). Retrieved from https://youtu.be/rzwJXUieD0U
Sizer, T. R. (2005). The red pencil: Convictions from experience in education. Yale University Press.