Evidence-basedteaching:advancingcapabilityandcapacityforenquiryinschools
Case Study
April 2017
Alan Eathorne
Affinity Teaching School Alliance
Contents
Executive Summary
Project Outline
Approach to Gathering Data
Exploration of Literature
Exploring Lesson Study
Program design and implementation
Getting started with Lesson Study program
Sharing Event
Summary
Methodologies
Interpretivist approach
Making observations
Audit Snapshot
Audit Findings
School Trends
Teaching School Trends
Summary of Findings
Key successes
Key Challenges
Recommendations
References
Executive Summary
With the recent trend in schools towards the use of Evidence Based Teaching (EBT) as a method of developing schools and its use as a vehicle to creating the self-sustaining school model, the Teaching School Alliance wanted to ascertain how many schools were engaging in EBT. In particular this project aimed to find out how and why some schools had begun using EBT and why some schools were not actively engaged. The project found that there were a number of real and perceived barriers that were stopping schools becoming engaged in EBT approaches such as Lesson Study. By analysing findings from an initial audit, and by using the experience of schools who were actively using Lesson Study, the Teaching School Alliance was able to create a ‘Getting Started in Lesson Study’ program that supported schools to get through the barriers and begin to use Lesson Study within their school as a tool for school development. With the schools already engaged in Lesson Study, the project wanted to use their experiences and enthusiasm to share amongst other schools in the Teaching School Alliance, understanding approaches that aided this.
The projects aim was to:
- Develop appropriate knowledge mobilisation strategies to engage more schools in accessing andusing EBT
Project Outline
With pockets of schools already accessing, using and sharing EBT projects across the Teaching School Alliance, we wanted to harness this energy and develop it in two ways. Firstly, by understanding, analysing and designing opportunities for more schools to take part in EBT work and by supporting them to do so. We wanted to understand why they were not using EBT as part of their school improvement system and to see if there were patterns between the contexts of schools not already engaged. Secondly,by developing, refining and promoting the work of schools that were already taking part in EBT work and by developing a community that allowed this learning to be shared, we hoped to develop an even deeper understanding for teachers, facilitators and the TSA as a whole.
Approach to Gathering Data
The project gathered both quantitative and qualitative data at the start, during and at the end of the project aimingto collect and illustrate any impact the project may have had at different levels. We used questionnaires with sliding scales to provide a baseline snapshot for January 2015; the ratings covered various topics that allowed us to create an over-arching view, as well as picking out specific areas to focus on. One of the underlining themes the project wanted to show was the impact it was having on the culture of schools and people working within these schools. As mentioned, because of the ‘culture- shift’ focus of aspects of the project, we sought qualitative data in the form of written questionnaires, interviews and observations of meetings and events from head teachers and teachers before, during and after training sessions. The data collection also spanned the domains of system leadership in order to gain an insight into the impact at all levels. The overarching questionnaire was focused on the 60 headteachers within the TSA and the observations and evaluations were taken from the teachers directly involved in the workshops and sharing events.
Exploration of Literature
At its heart,‘Evidence Based Teaching’ is the fusing of research as an ideological collection of information and the practical application of these findings in the classroom setting, it would seem that there has been a disconnect between research and practice. In the previous decade, teaching, and the development of teaching in schools, may have become blinkered and, on the whole, blinded to the main point of schools and teaching and learning; it would seem that it is being led only by the continual stream of quick-fixes to patch things up. Stigler and Hiebert (1999) concluded that the system must move beyond models of reform that attempt to replace one teaching method with another by implementing so-called experts’ recommendations. As a result many teachers may have become vulnerable to behaving like education robots, needing a steady stream of updates in order to feel confident in what they are doing. In the UK, just as in the US, teaching is a private activity and the isolation of teachers may have inhibited professional dialogue about teaching (Stigler and Hiebert 1999). Training delivered to the whole staff sitting in a hall is becoming less prevalent as leaders realise that treating teachers as tick-list machines may make them behave like them(Roberts 2015). This need to bring about a culture change in teacher professionalism and to find effective CPD approaches lay at the heart of this TSA investigation.
As a result, it was important that the EBT approach that we were going to use for this project was grounded in both research/self-study and collaborative working between professionals. It was also clear that this approach shouldn’t been seen as another ‘fad’ or thing to do. It was also important to strike a careful balance and provide clear explanation,since contrived collegiality (Hargreaves, 1994) in other words, forcing teachers to plan and work together – may not be productive. The hope was that EBT would allow opportunities for teachers to work and explore their teaching together, features which may be key components of learning-centred schools (Dimmock, 2000; Bolam et al2005). Most conceptions of teacher community may have a common core, that is, the notion that ongoing collaboration among educators might produce teacher learningand this may ultimately improve teaching and learning for pupils (Levine, 2010). Harnessing collaboration and placing it at the centre of the EBT work carried out in schools seemed imperative and may have provided an opportunity to break down barriers between colleagues.
Enquiry, by its very nature, may not necessarily provide teachers and schools with right answersor instant fixes, but it mayallow teachers to explore areas that they may be interested in developing. Teachersmay need opportunities to see and try out new approaches in practice. Out-of-classroom training may have limited effects; it may be necessary to integrate new approaches into practice, review and recalibrate that practice (Lewis et al (2012). This idea may support the use of EBT in all schools, a shift in how CPD occurs and the ways in which it is designed. Schools need a research-and-development system that supports the steady, continuous improvement of teaching; this does not exist at the moment (Stigler and Hiebert 1999).The aim of this project was to investigate the facilitation of professional, collaborative and continuous development of teaching and teachers within the classroom context.
With this in mind the TSA was keen to further its understanding of Lesson Study as an approach for EBT and how, ultimately, to allow it to become embedded in school practice across all schools.
Exploring Lesson Study
Lesson Study (LS) is a mode of teacher professional learning first developed in Japan and has been used by teachers there to develop and hone teachers’ practice for over 100 years. Recently Lesson Study has become the world’s fastest growing approach to the development of teacher learning and teaching that improves pupil learning(Dudley, 2014). In essence Lesson Study may provide a way to allow teachers to reflect, plan and act on an identified problem or area of learning that needs exploring and developing.
Figure 1: The Lesson Study Process
Having identified an area that children are struggling to understand, teachers then work in groups to read what research has been conducted around this area, use this information to plan a series of lessons and observe the impact of these lessons on the children’s learning. This allows the group to collaborate in order to make suggestions to other colleagues, the rest of the school and/or other schools about what they have discovered.
Lesson study is a simple strategy, requiring no technology or prior experience and it is this that may make it accessible to any group of teachers (Dudley, 2013). As a TSA we therefore wanted to discover if this simple approach to EBT might mean that schools would be able to implement and use it. Moreover, if schools couldn’t use it effectively what might be the barriers or difficulties that were preventing it from happening?The single most effective intervention that school leadersmake to improve standards of attainment may be to become directly involved in school-based, improvement-focused and enquiry-led professional learning (Dudley, 2013; Robinson et al 2009). This informed our reasoning in deciding to develop EBT and Lesson Study across schools in our TSA to support school improvement.
However, the situation may not be completely rosy. US educators have encountered some barriers, the most significant being the time required to conduct such extensive professional development(Hird 2014), This was something we wanted to analyse and investigate thoroughly in our initial data collection from school leaders. Many school leaders may be put off using LS by the disruption they think it might cause to the school timetable, staff cover system and supply teacher budget,as well as the challenge involved in convincing reluctant staff and governors that LS may be rewarding and effective (Dudley, 2013). This was considered in the design of the support this project intended to provide to the schools involved, so that the support might develop a sustainable culture in the school and not a quick-fix series of events leaving no legacy beyond the span of this project.
Program design and implementation
Getting started with Lesson Study program
I drew upon my experiences and research and the experiences of the Headteachers who lead the Research and Innovation working group for the Teaching School to devise a three session CPD program that I could deliver to a group of schools. The sessions were designed so that they would support a school setting up Lesson Study in their school. The first session of the ‘Getting Started with Lesson Study’ program introduced Lesson Study as a concept and allowed attendees to explore the benefits and the challenges to Lesson Study as well as how to choose their area of focus and who to include in their initial group. The second session focused on gathering research to aid Lesson Study; to think about how to record observations during Lesson Study and how to present overall findings. The third session allowed attendees to talk about how they had got on with Lesson Study, what findings they had generated and how to upscale Lesson Study across the school.
Figure 2: An overview of the Getting Started with Lesson Study Programme
The three sessions were spread across the autumnterm and provided gap tasks between the sessions that would allow participants to return to their setting and try out the approaches we had discussed in the sessions. Our initial group was due to start in the Spring term but this was postponed due to a lack of uptake. In the Autumn term we had eight schools that wanted to participate in the sessions so it ran between September and December.
Sharing Event
In the Summer term we held a sharing event for schools already engaged in Lesson Study. We used this as an opportunity for people to bring posters to share their findings from their school. We also had two key note speakers who shared their insights into EBT as well as sharing how we as a teaching school could move forward through the use of online portals to share practice.
Summary
In summary, the project aimed to create appropriate mobilisation strategies to engage all schools in accessing and using EBT (Lesson Study) so that disengaged schools become engaged in Lesson Study and that schools already engaging in Lesson Study had better ways of sharing and developing practice that would ultimately benefit their school and other schools within the TSA.
The key questions that we aimed to explore were:
- How do you get disengaged schools engaged in EBT when they see only the barriers? How do you convince schools of the benefits? What are the barriers preventing all a schools from accessing EBT?
- How does the TSA as a whole use Lesson Study as a framework for CPD?
- What are the most effective ways for sharing findings in and between schools?
- How can EBT be made simple and accessible without diluting it so that it is no longer EBT?
Methodologies
Interpretivist approach
Through adopting an interpretivist approach, I wanted to be able to use data in its raw form to help to see patterns and trends, but most importantly I wanted to see and feel the culture shift within the schools. Social process may not be captured in hypothetical deductions, covariance and degrees of freedom, but rather by understanding social processes involves getting inside the world of those generating it(Orlikowski and Baroudi 1991). It was therefore important to include quantitative data that could generate teaching school-wide patterns, to use naturalistic methods, such as interviewing, observing and analysis of existing texts to investigate more deeply the culture of different schools and to use these experiences to help shape the project and future approaches.
Making observations
With the interpretivist approach in mind I wanted to make sure that interviews, whilst structured, also allowed for a more natural discussion and conversation. In order to help this process for interviews with participants in the project, I used the ‘Pictor’ technique.
Figure 3: Example of a Pictor technique chart
The Pictor Technique (King et al 2013) is a visual way of helping interviewees to structure their experiences. They are provided with a series of arrow-shaped cards or post-it notes that they arrange on a piece of paper and add notes to the cards. After allowing the interviewee time to develop their story the interviewer can then ask them to share and probe as they recount their example. With collaboration as the key to Lesson study (Dudley 2013), this technique allows the interviewee to consider people directly and indirectly involved in their project. Using arrows may encourage a focus on relationships and interactions, which may be useful to inform research exploring collaborative working and similar issues(King et al 2013). This technique also allowed me to gain an insight and become submerged in their experiences and to use it as a lens to see and to compare their experiences. It therefore gave me a way of drawing out commonalties between different experiences that purely numerical data may not.
Audit Snapshot
In the project I also wanted to use quantitative approaches too and so I devised a short audit that I would use with senior leaders of the schools in the Teaching School to gain a snapshot at the beginning of the project. The initial audit would also allow me to shape how the project may look and to have built into it answers to initial barriers or concerns raised by senior leaders of schools, as well as combining these with the research already available.
I selected eight areas to focus on with the hope that they would show us trends and patterns that I could then interpret.
The audit also asked leaders to suggest possible barriers to their school using EBT and related activities in an open-ended question.
Audit Findings
From the 35 audit responses I was able to identify some clear school trends as well as some clear teaching school trends.
School Trends
- Schools who responded that they were experimentally engaged in Lesson Study also had more experimental or full engagement response to the other categories.
- Schools that responded that there were not engaged in Lesson Study generally had not yet engaged in several other areas.
Analysis of the responses made by schools revealed that where a school is engaging in EBT (in this case Lesson Study), engagement in the process also impacts on other areas such as engagement with literature, engagement with learning communities outside of the school and use offindings to create actions. Of the eight schools who said they were not engaged in Lesson Study, 6 of them had 4 or more other areas on the audit that they were not engaged with. It appears that the presence of Lesson Study within a school either helps to develop other areas of EBT like reading research and professional learning communities or that this presence is a vehicle that brings these areas together to contribute to the culture within a school. This may be beginning to show that in order to create a culture shift within a school there are many areas to consider and develop. The use of Lesson Study develops engagement in other areas, the absence of it in turn sees disengagement in other areas. This may be because the Lesson Study approach has impact beyond the Lesson Study process itself; it may help make teachers more confident in their findings and want to find out what other people think too - both academics and other colleagues.
Teaching School Trends
- 40% of the 35 schools had a designated contact or lead person related to research
- 58% of schools responded that they had no staff engagement in University based Masters or PhD studies
- 20% of schools responded that they were fully engaged in Lesson Study, 57% said that they had experimental engagement and 23% responded that they had not engaged in Lesson Study as a form of EBT.
- 43% mentioned that the barriers they faced in facilitating Lesson Study in their school were linked to time, money and releasing teachers.
- 26% had links to externally funded projects or groups, e.g. IOE, LEEP maths project.
- 11% schools responded that they were fully engaged with online libraries or journals/articles.
These data showed some interesting results that the Teaching School’s Business Development Manager and I interpreted and used when creating the programme to support schools to get started with Lesson Study.