How can development and innovation be evaluated and what is the role of teacher research

1. How can development and innovation be evaluated and what is the role of teacher research Philippa Cordingley Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education

2. How can development and innovation be evaluated and what is the role of teacher research? • Purposes - what use will it be? • accountability & policy making (structural) • sharing further development (formative), • and/or supporting others’ learning (pedagogic) • Proportionality - re original investment and potential outcomes. • Evaluation needs to relate the contribution of what’s being evaluated to students’ and developers’ learning • Fund depth of R&D v external evaluation. • Teacher research is a potential link for both doing & using evaluation

3. Some starting points… • How to link activities and outcomes - given the complex and dynamically interacting variables? Connections if not causes • EPPI review of the impact of collaboration on CPD came up with 17 studies against the odds; • Pupil outcomes inspire teachers – who aren’t naïve about cause and effect; • Using evaluation data effectively is as hard collecting it - this is a learning exercise & needs just as much investment as the evaluation; • Using evaluation & research means professional learning – look at CPD evidence for help

4. Brown et al • 2 years, teachers negotiated pattern of consultation including access to classrooms - started with a menu from research from which teachers selected a focus • Monthly meetings where teachers & tutors presented new ideas or work in progress, with tutors. Topics for monthly meetings from teachers & tutors • Regular class visits, observation and feedback by tutors • Teachers also visited each other regularly & undertook follow up discussions in pairs • Changes - debriefing, new forms of exposition, teaching with less telling, students creating problems for others • Study examined process in take up, effects on teacher beliefs & practice, impact on students’ achievement & behaviour & roll out costs

5. Peer coaching • 10-14 pairs – 24 hours with specialist • Learn about aspect of practice & peer coaching • Build peer coaching agreement for 12 weeks (min 4 cycles) • Follow up 24 hours – exploring students’ work & strategies & further development • E.g. AfL, consulting pupils about teaching and learning, integrating ICT into pedagogy, making effective interventions in behaviour; thinking skills

6. TTA teacher research grants • Awards of c £3,000 • Required from start to work to inform others • Emphasis on building on what’s known, collaboration & reflection on & respect for evidence • Active steering/stirring • Regular meetings to share progress

7. Characteristics of CPD linked to significant teacher and pupil learning • External expertise linked to school based activity • Peer support to create commitment & trust to support risk taking and making needs explicit • Observation, shared interpretation by peers and expert feedback – focused on explicit goals • Identifying own CPD focus & starting points • Processes to encourage, extend & focus dialogue & reflection; and • Sustained, effective use of time to embed practices in classrooms e.g. on-course planning

8. Peer support/coaching • Extending and structuring professional dialogue: • collaborative planning of lessons & schemes of work using the experience to refine learning goals • peer observation & shared interpretation of resulting information • reaching shared explanations for teacher and pupil actions and identifying alternative possibilities • developing deeper questions (& questioning skills) • increasing access to practice in others’ classrooms (10 mins) • Encouraging colleagues to take risks • Sustaining commitment through difficulties & against competing pressures

9. An Analogy Peer supported experimentation, research and reflection External specialist expertise, knowledge and facilitation Teachers’ and pupils’ starting points

10. Capacity building - Links between CPD and teacher research • Peer coaching • Identifying an evidence informed focus • Experimenting with & interpreting new approaches for own context • Observing what happens • Identifying shared explanations • Asking excellent questions • Keeping going over time

11. Examples from TTA TRGs • Effective teaching with and through the internet, Alistair Wells • Using ICT to support the teaching of place in Geography, Colin Storey • Cross curricular work involving mathematics using hand held technology, Peter Ransom • Access and attitudes to ICT, children, parents and teachers from Priory School • The use of ICT in Music Adrian Pitts • How can teachers help children become originators and creators rather than passive users of ICT, Lindsay Moran

12. External expertise linked to school-based activity • Bespoke specialist expertise fitted carefully to in-school learning: • Danny Doyle’s evaluation of the use of lap tops • Dan Sutch & Ros Sutherland et al on ICT and pedagogy using teacher researcher “equals” • Matching the resources demands of specialism with small scale and tailored demands of schools and practitioner researchers? • Going to scale - starting small and growing out from practice • Baumfield & thinking skills, ”, Tacon & Wing, Burton

13. Sustaining and enhancing the quality of teacher research? • All of the above - especially connections with pupils; plus • Make data useful at the point of collection – video, pupil learning logs • Scaffold the bits furthest away from practice • Data days, analysis days, writing days • Mentors specialist in focus & practitioner research – probably needs a network • Create meaningful audiences from start & during the work – others have to interpret for themselves Mmm • Improve the quality of the evaluations

14. Merlin, Arthur and professional learning

15. The book of Merlin, T H White Merlin” said the King, “tell me the reason for your visit. Talk. Say you have come to save us from this war.” “No” replied his former tutor “it is hopeless doing things for other people. The only thing worth doing for the race is to increase the stock of ideas. Then, if you make available a larger and deeper stock, the people are at liberty to help themselves from out of it . By this process the means of improvement is offered, to be accepted or rejected according to their need. Such is our business, to open up new ideas (and practices).” “You did not tell me this before.” Replied Arthur “You have egged me into doing things all my life, the chivalry, the Round Table. What were these but efforts to save people and to improve how things are done? “They were ideas” said Merlin firmly, “rudimentary ideas. All thought in its early stages begins as action. The actions which you have been wading through have been ideas, clumsy ones of course, but they had to be established before we could begin to think in earnest. You have been teaching man to think.” “So my round table was not a failure Merlin?” - “Certainly not, It was an experiment”.

16. Web links • www.curee.org.uk • wwwstandards.dfes.gov.uk/ntrp • www.gtce.org.uk/CPDRoM