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The Global Search for Education: What Did You Learn Today?
Dylan Wiliam believes that improving instruction immediately through Embedded Formative Assessment will have a marked effect on education reform worldwide.
“Children do not always learn what we teach. That is why the most important assessment does not happen at the end of the learning—it happens during the learning.” -- Dylan Wiliam
“It is right that teachers and schools are accountable to those with a stake in public education, and this requires assessments that are free from subjectivity. So we do need some form of standardized assessment. However, the U.S. pays a very high price for its insistence—unique among rich countries—of doing this almost entirely with multiple choice tests. Even with multiple choice tests, the best way to raise students’ test scores is to teach for deep understanding.” — Dylan Wiliam
Education policy reformers have focused on raising student achievement via a variety of strategies including curriculum changes, increased use of information technology, changes in the way schools are governed or organized, and even getting rid of incompetent teachers. Leading British educationalist Dylan Wiliam believes the latter will not be effective since it will take too long to implement. His focus instead is on improving classroom practice now. He and his colleagues have developed a classroom program called Embedded Formative Assessment. Over the last four years, this program has been established in over 1000 teacher learning communities in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden and the US, with many teachers claiming it is one of the most effective forms of professional development they have ever participated in.
Dylan Wiliam is Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment at the Institute of Education, University of London. In a varied career, he has taught in urban schools, trained teachers, directed a large-scale testing program, and served in a number of roles in university administration. Last year he was a featured guest on BBC 2’s The Classroom Experiment.
Professor Wiliam, can you give me the background to the development of your teacher/classroom practice project, Embedded Formative Assessment?
In 2004, we published the main findings from a project with secondary school teachers in Oxfordshire and Kent, England in which we worked with them to help them develop their classroom assessment skills. When teachers prioritized regular assessment as part of regular daily classroom practice, their students learned 75% more than those taught by other teachers in the same schools. We concluded that working face to face with teachers, we could help them become better teachers.
When a teacher teaches, no matter how well he or she might design a lesson, what a child learns is unpredictable. Children do not always learn what we teach. That is why the most important assessment does not happen at the end of the learning — it happens during the learning, when there is still time to do something with the information. Our goal was to get teachers to pay more attention to what was being learned while the actual learning was taking place.
"Every teacher needs to be getting better—not because they’re not good enough, but because they can be even better." -- Dylan Wiliam
Why do you think your program would lead to significant improvement in the quality of teaching on a larger scale?
In America the focus seems to be on getting rid of incompetent teachers. I don’t believe that will be effective, and I also think it will take too long to implement. We have to find ways to improve classroom practice now. There is no jurisdiction in the world that I know of that requires that teachers increase their competence every year. Instead, teachers are required to show that they have endured a certain amount of professional development (and these are usually specified in numbers of hours) to continue to be employed, or acquired new qualifications, but they don’t need to get better at teaching. Every teacher needs to be getting better — not because they’re not good enough, but because they can be even better. Every teacher needs to be getting better at something that will make a difference to their students, such as classroom assessment. How this is done cannot be scripted—each teacher will need to work out how to integrate assessment into their classroom routine. The “top down” bit is that every teacher needs to be getting better at something that will improve learning for their students because schooling is a one shot deal for kids. What each teacher works on, however, is up to them — that’s the “bottom up” bit. Once each teacher has committed to a particular improvement in their practice, they share their promise with a group of peers, typically between 10 and 12. A month later they meet again and report back results. It’s a bit like the idea of Weight Watchers. Teachers tell us that having to report back to their peers on their promises keeps them focused on bringing about the change.
What are the main elements of the assessment process that teachers are taught?
The main elements of the program are an initial workshop and then monthly meetings of groups of teachers, where they support each other in keeping to the promises they made. The five key strategies of classroom assessment are sharing learning intentions with students, eliciting evidence of achievement, providing feedback that moves learning forward, activating students as learning resources for one another, and activating students as owners of their own learning. The “Keeping Learning on Track” pack provides teachers with over 20 practical, ready to implement classroom techniques for each of the five strategies.
Where can schools find this product?
In the US, materials to support these Teacher Learning Communities are available from Northwest Evaluation Association in Portland, OR. The product, called “Keeping Learning on Track,” involves all the materials needed for schools to deliver an initial workshop, and to run the 16 monthly follow-up meetings over the following two years.
Professor Dylan Wiliam and C. M. Rubin
- Photos courtesy of Beechwood Sacred Heart School UK and Dylan Wiliam
In The Global Search for Education, join C. M. Rubin and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C.M. Rubin has more than two decades of professional experience in development, marketing, and art direction for a diverse range of media businesses. She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice In Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
Tuesday
September 20th, 2011
Filed Under
C. M. Rubin Dylan Wiliam Education Reform Standardized Testing The Global Search for Education
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Comments
This Embedded Formative Assessment is very interesting. I think it shows great potential for making current teachers better – it’s certainly had good results so far.
The advantage is that it is effective in the short term. The alternative is to fire poor teachers and train up new ones, which is vastly more energy intensive than focussing on the current batch.
I think one should be careful when mentioning the firing of teachers so casually, not only is it hard to fire a teacher unless they really screw up, but there’s also a lot of potential for improvement. The point that is being made in this article, at least how I interpreted it, is that we have the ability to improve lagging teachers and turn them into good or even great teachers, so let’s try that before we start calling for them to be fired.
Well said. See how this goes – it looks promising at the moment – before talking about such serious measures. Still lots of time for a teacher to turn around.
There still needs to be a fair and regular annual review process for teachers, with remedial actions taken as needed.
This seems like a good tool to add to the whole process of improving the quality of education in America. It is not a cure all or a substitute for the other fundamental improvements that need to be made in teacher education, selection, licensing, and assignment to appropriate schools.
It’s certainly very promising. The important part is whether teachers are willing to take it on as part of their daily routine, because at the end of the day it’s them who are going to be affected by it.
I can imagine it being extra work for teachers, but those interested in their professional development (and which good teacher isn’t?) then I would imagine it not to be overly burdensome. You raise an important issue, though, it’s got to be accepted by the teachers, first and foremost.
I think that some teachers will go for it and many won’t, unless there is an obligation or an incentive involved, such as substitution for other professional advancement requirements.
He makes a lot of sense. I agree that getting rid of bad teachers will be hard to implement – it’s notoriously difficult to fire a teacher – but what about implementing that strategy alongside the Embedded Formative Assessment strategy, surely that would increase teaching skills even further?
I suppose that a lot of the teachers who would be in the firing line could really turn themselves around with the EFA, so it would be pointless to go around firing teachers before we’ve done our best to help them improve. Ultimately, no one particularly wants to get fired and if there’s hope of improvement, and the EFA offers that, then why not wait and see how things go first of all?
Seb is on the mark, in my opinion. The EFA has the potential to turn bad teachers good, so we should focus on that in the short term.
“Every teacher needs to be getting better — not because they’re not good enough, but because they can be even better.” I love that quote, it resounds well for me and suggests an ongoing motivation to help raise the next generation of students to be world leading. If only everyone thought like that.
It’s a very powerful message, in fact I think there are a lot in this article. He comes across as a very positive thinker and that is very refreshing in this day and age.
A 75% increase in performance is a startling achievement – one that Professor Wiliam is tremendously proud of. If this technique is scalable across all classrooms with the same end results, this could be a hugely significant advance in the way our schools work and the quality of education our students are receiving.
An impressive number. As far as implementation in the US, it would have to be done state by state. There would have to be buy in at the superintendent level to allow this program to substitute for another obligatory professional development requirement. This is more than the Northwest Evaluation Association can do.
I agree that this is the challenge, and it is a huge one?
It’s always a huge challenge to get the government to do anything! But in all seriousness, the results speak for themselves – this needs further investigation and a wider scale test to see if the results scale well.
The program seems bureaucratic to me. And I don’t know how one can get teachers to put aside the additional time to do this unless they are obligated to do so. Further, in my teaching experience, the process of giving children the opportunity to practice what is being taught to them so that the teacher can see if they are learning, is the way many teachers teach.
My father was a headmaster of a preparatory school for nursery to 8th grade for many years, and I spent several years teaching in poor communities. We always talked the importance that the teacher has in the educational achievement of their students; the difference that a good teacher can make; the difference that good teaching methods can make. So it is understandable that what Professor Wiliam calls embedded assessment can produce outstanding results. I am not sure that this program can be adopted in US public schools, but I am glad that it is working in England.
Dear Ms. Rubin:
As I was reading your article, “The Global Search for Education: What Did You Learn Today?” in Education News on October 19, 2011, I wondered to myself, “can Embedded Formative Assessment work?” I have had first hand experiences learning from an inexperienced teacher and from an experienced teacher. I agree with the teachers working and helping each other to better themselves in their teaching styles; yet, I do not agree that teachers should just focus mainly on one specific object to improve in their classrooms.
I believe that the Embedded Formative Assessment by David Wiliam is similar to peer review for teachers. I believe that teachers should “…assess each others’ teaching and to assist one another in efforts to strengthen teaching, be developed and implemented” because in return they would learn from each other (Larry & Waggoner). I agree with the idea that having an experienced teacher working with an inexperienced teacher helps them both to achieve their goal on improving their classroom, due to the fact that the inexperienced teacher can learn much from the experienced one. In return, the new teachers would bring something different and fresh to the table. I also think that the idea of having the teachers meet with each other once a month to discuss and examine how far they are reaching their goals could benefit them. It would act as a driving force for them to reach their goals (Rubin, 2011). In the book Shame of the Nation by Jonathan Kozol, he discusses how the teachers in poor schools are unqualified to teach the students due their inexperience in teaching, but they do not have a mentor to guide them (Kozol, 2005). I think that if those schools knew about this assessment, then they would have recommend for the teachers try it. I believe that this method would truly help them in improving their teaching skills and their difficult situations at work.
However, I do not agree with the idea that teachers should only improve on one specific object in their class (Rubin, 2011). I believe that this will slow down the process of helping the teachers’ improvement goals. Just like what the article said, “assessment does not happen at the end of the learning—it happen during the learning, when there is still time to do something with the information” (Rubin, 2011). If teachers just focus mainly on one aspect to change, then they will lose sight of their surroundings. They will not be able to help the children in that moment in time. Therefore, it will also hurt the teachers’ path toward their set goal. I believe that the teachers should set a variety of goals, share with their peers, and check those goals off as they march forward improvement.
Therefore, I believe that the Embedded Formative Assessment is a good idea for teachers to participate in. Quoting from the article “…many teachers claiming it is one of the most effective forms of professional development they have ever participated in” is a good sign that this method has help teachers. I believe that peer review for teachers is a good idea because it would truly help them stay focus on the goals they has set up to change. Encouragement and understanding from their peers and would give them more spirit to work harder toward their goals. I believe that no matter if a teacher is a teacher in an elementary school, intermediate level school, high school, college, or a university, having other teachers or professors to rely on for peer reviewing can help them tremendously.
Overall, I do not agree on the aspect that teachers should only set one goal. If they set one goal in mind, then they would work toward that goal and only that goal. They would miss the opportunity to fix or to improve on the other aspect of their classroom. So madam, thank you for your time, and I hope that in the future all school and will have some sort of a support system for their teachers and students.
Bibliography
Kozol, J. (2005). Shame of the nation. New York: Broadway Paperbacks.
Larry, K., & Waggonner, M. D. (n.d.). Collaborative peer review: The role of faculty in improving college teaching. Retrieved from http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache:2Zk6L- y60BkJ:scholar.google.com/+peer+review+for+teachers&hl=en&as_sdt=0,34
Rubin, C. M. (2011). The global search for education: What did you learn today?. Education News, Retrieved from http://www.educationnews.org/international-uk/the-global-search- for-education-what-did-you-learn-today/
I believe that the Embedded Formative Assessment by David Wiliam is similar to peer review for teachers. I believe that teachers should Natural Gem Jewelry teaching and to assist one another in efforts to strengthen teaching, be developed and implemented” because in return they would learn from each other (Larry & Waggoner).