Learning the facts about learning by Mark Easton (BBC website 26 November 2014)
School
uniforms instil discipline and improve performance. Streaming pupils gets
better results. Teaching assistants take the strain off hard-working teachers
and help children learn. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
New
government-commissioned research into "what works" suggests many of
the approaches we think make a difference are either a waste of money or may
make matters worse.
Uniform
policy? NO. Schools that
don't force pupils into blazers and ties are almost unheard of these days. But
the best evidence is that a uniform policy makes no difference to attainment.
If anything, it holds students back.
Setting and
streaming? NO. Dividing
pupils into classes of different abilities is a popular approach to improving standards,
but research suggests that it leaves students a month behind those in mixed
groups.
Teaching
assistants? NO. Research
suggests students in a class with a TA do not, on average, perform better than
those in a class with only a teacher.
Longer lessons
(block scheduling, in the jargon )? NO. The evidence
is double-chemistry and triple-maths don't make for more accomplished chemists
and mathematicians.
Repeating a
year? NO. Giving pupils
a chance to repeat a year if they are struggling is not only very expensive -
on average, it leaves children four months behind.
Surprised?
These are the findings of intensive analysis of data from across the world,
part-funded by the Department for Education as part of the What Works Network,
and recently published by the government.
So what does
work?
Meta-cognition
and self-regulation? YES. "What on
earth is meta-cognition and self-regulation?" I hear some ask. It is
hardly the chant at the school gates. But that phrase reflects the most
effective way to improve educational outcomes, according to the evidence.
Meta-cognition
is often described as "learning to learn" and what it means is giving
children a range of strategies they can use to monitor and improve their own
academic development. Self-regulation is developing the ability to motivate
oneself to learn.
On average,
introducing meta-cognition and self-regulation into the classroom has a high
impact, with pupils making an average of eight months' additional progress.
That is a phenomenal improvement.
Feedback?
YES. Feedback is
information given to pupils about how they are doing against their learning
goals. In the workplace it might be part of an appraisal, and the evidence is
that a similar approach works wonders in the classroom, increasing educational
attainment by around eight months
Peer-tutoring?
YES. If pupils
work together in pairs or small groups to give each other explicit teaching
support, the results can be dramatic - particularly with youngsters who
struggle the most. This isn't about doing away with teachers, but it seems when
working with their peers, children tend to take real responsibility for their
teaching and their own learning.
Sometimes the
tutoring can be reciprocal, with pupils alternating as tutor and tutee.
Cross-age tutoring also has advantages for older and younger participants, it
turns out. This intervention, on average, improves student performance by a
GCSE grade.
One-to-one
adult tutoring is, counter-intuitively, less effective and much more expensive
than peer tutoring.
Homework in
primary school doesn't make a lot of difference, nor does mentoring,
performance pay for teachers, or the physical environment of the school.
Given all
this evidence, it appears our debate about school standards is obsessed with
the wrong things. We need to teach our children how to learn and give them more
opportunity to learn from each other.
This
government declares its commitment to evidence-based policies, so one must
assume that the results of research it helped initiate will be disseminated to
every head teacher in the land.
