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Miss Jacobs Little Learners on Pinterest

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Miss Jacobs Little Learners on Pinterest

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Over the last few years, there has been a bit of a push in schools to be creating and displaying a Learning Focus for each lesson.

At my school, we are required to display our Learning Intention and Success Criteria to match. This needs to be visible to the students and written in child-friendly language.

I can definitely see the benefit of this as not only does it enable teachers to stay on track, it also gives students an opportunity to self-assess and reflect on their own learning. The only problem is however, it can be a little time consuming creating these statements and then displaying them.

Initially, I started writing them on my whiteboard but then it would get in the way and I'd end up rubbing it off. Then I tried printing them out - which took time and wasted paper and ink.

I recently experimented with this and it has worked a treat!

I have used an A3 sized plastic pocket (it is quite thick and durable).

These are available at Office Max or Office Works.

I used an A3 coloured card for each subject and glued

Then I placed this in the plastic pocket.

This allows me to use it every day. I just write on top of the plastic pocket using a

whiteboard marker and rub it off using a tissue when I am ready to write the new focus up.

I made one for Reading, Writing and Mathematics and colour coded them.

I hope this little tip has inspired you with your own Learning Goals Display!

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Learning Intentions and Success Criteria

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Over the last few years, there has been a bit of a push in schools to be creating and displaying a Learning Focus for each lesson. At my school, we are required to display our Learning Intention and Success Criteria to match. This needs to be visible to the students and written in child-friendly language.

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Examples of Learning Intentions and Success Criteria

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Examples of Learning Intentions and Success Criteria

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John Hattie: Learning Intentions & Success Criteria in a Nutshell

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John Hattie: Learning Intentions & Success Criteria in a Nutshell

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John Hattie Learning Intentions & Success Criteria

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John Hattie Learning Intentions & Success Criteria

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Growth Mindset: Clearing Up Common Misconceptions

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Growth Mindset: Clearing Up Common Misconceptions

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A body of research has shown that telling children that they're smart and implying that their success depends on it fosters fixed mindsets. When these children later experience struggle, they tend to conclude that their ability is not high after all, and as a result they lose confidence, so our praise has the opposite effect of what we intended. On the other hand, praising hard work or strategies used, things that children control, has been shown to support a growth mindset.

This research was designed to learn more about one of the ways to support a growth mindset, not to identify all there is to fostering a growth mindset. When people newer to the growth mindset framework initially learn about this research, they sometimes conclude that we should simply praise children for working hard. But this is a nascent level of understanding. First, exhorting students to work hard would be an attempt to directly change behaviors without changing the underlying belief about the nature of abilities.

Second, students often haven't learned that working hard involves thinking hard, which involves reflecting on and changing our strategies so we become more and more effective learners over time, and we need to guide them to come to understand this. For example, a novice teacher who sees a student trying very hard but not making any progress may think "well, at least she's working hard, so I'll praise her effort," but if the student continues to do what she's doing, or even more of it, it's unlikely to lead to success. Instead, the teacher can coach the student to try different approaches to working, studying, and learning, so that she is thinking more deeply (i.e. mentally working harder) to become a better learner, and of course the teacher should do the same: reflect on how to adjust instruction. "It's not just about effort. You also need to learn skills that let you use your brain in a smarter way. . . to get better at something." ( Yeager & Dweck, 2012.)

Third, cultivating growth mindsets involves a gradual process of releasing responsibility to students for them to become more self-sufficient learners, and praise is a communications technique that tends to be more helpful earlier in that process of building agency. Later on, adults can ask students questions that prompt them to reflect, so that they're progressing down the path toward independence.

Fourth, praise and coaching are not the only, or most powerful, ways to foster growth mindsets. For example, another method is modeling lifelong learning and making it visible, which gets us to the next confusion.
Confusion #3: Growth mindset is about changing young people, not adults
Some recent criticisms paint growth mindset work as solely focused on the students and not the adults. This is a misunderstanding of what growth mindset efforts are about. In our work with educators, we encourage the adults to start with themselves. If we don't work to shift our own mindset about ourselves and our students, then we won't work to change many other important things in the system necessary to improve education. Furthermore, our efforts to foster growth mindsets in students are likely to fail because we will say and do things that reflect our fixed mindset beliefs, which students will notice. We must deeply explore mindsets within ourselves and then gradually work to develop our own growth mindsets and our habits as learners. This means authentically working to become better at what we do throughout our lives, including how we teach and how we create contexts that help students thrive, and making our learning process visible to one another and to students.

We encourage the schools we serve to train teachers early in their growth mindset efforts, involving reflections and discussions on adult beliefs and continuous improvement practices. We provide professional learning resources to help them do so. Dr. Dweck and other mindset researchers speak about the importance of fostering a growth mindset in adults and have researched the mindsets of educators, managers, leaders, and other grownups. Growth mindset research is about learning how we humans can all become more motivated and effective learners, not about how we can change students but not ourselves.
Confusion #4: All that matters is what's in the mind
Another confusion about mindset is that the only determinant of success is our mindset. But that's not the case. Context, culture, environment, and systems matter. For one thing, people's mindsets (as well as other beliefs and behaviors) are strongly shaped by the people around them. Beyond that, people's destiny is not only a function of what's within them, but also of what's around them. A lot of the early mindset research studies focused on individual's minds because they were seeking to understand how humans work. But mindset researchers recognize, research, and speak about the importance of shifting culture, context, and systems, and both researchers and practitioners actively work on that aspect of change efforts.
Confusion #5: Improvement is all about changing beliefs and not doing anything else
Related to that, another confusion we see, also reflected in recent commentaries, is that growth mindset work is solely about fostering the belief that we can improve, but not about changing the educational system or actually doing anything about that belief. Carol Dweck has talked extensively about changing learning tasks, testing practices, and grading systems. Too many tasks and teaching approaches are superficial, irrelevant, unengaging, and not learner-centered. We do need to change these tasks, the curriculum, and the pedagogy. We need to change the idea that school is about testing rather than about learning. We also need to better tackle broader issues such as childhood trauma and lack of exposure to early reading. People who dive deeper into growth mindsets learn about how important these issues are and how we might begin to address them, and a growth mindset helps them take on the challenges. As David Yeager and Gregory Walton point out:
[Mindset] interventions complement-and do not replace-traditional educational reforms. They do not teach students academic content or skills, restructure schools, or improve teacher training. Instead, they allow students to take better advantage of learning opportunities that are present in schools and tap into existing recursive processes to generate long-lasting effects . . . Indeed, [Mindset] interventions may make the effects of high-quality educational reforms such as improved instruction or curricula more apparent (Deepening our understanding over time Yeager & Walton, 2011 Growth Mindset Enables Change ). Let's Learn Together
As with anything else, the deeper we go into mindsets, the deeper our understanding becomes. Over time, more nuanced questions arise, such as about the relationship between mindset and performance, results, failure, potential, assessments, mistakes, and many other things. For example, early on a teacher who is learning about mindset may start oversimplifying mistakes as always being 'good', but this can confuse learners, as mistakes are not always something we should seek to do. With time we start distinguishing stretch mistakes, sloppy mistakes, aha-moment mistakes, and high-stakes mistakes.

Research has shown that developing a growth mindset is beneficial in a variety of contexts, from education to the workplace to interpersonal relationships to sports to health. It leads people to take on challenges they can learn from, to find more effective ways to improve, to persevere in the face of setbacks, and to make greater progress, all of which we need to further cultivate in education. Furthermore, there is evidence that its benefits are most pronounced for people who face negative stereotypes, such as underserved minorities and females in STEM, and as a result growth mindset efforts can narrow the achievement gap.

Growth mindset is a seemingly simple concept, but there is a lot of nuance to the framework and its applications. I hope that this article helps clarify common misconceptions. We invite people to continue diving deeper into this body of work and engage in explorations together. We welcome further feedback because it takes a village, or more precisely, all of us, to foster better learning.

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Growth Mindset: Clearing up Some Common Confusions | KQED

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A body of research has shown that telling children that they're smart and implying that their success depends on it fosters fixed mindsets. When these children later experience struggle, they tend to conclude that their ability is not high after all, and as a result they lose confidence, so our praise has the opposite effect of what we intended.

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By sixth grade a few students are starting to include some strategies for thinking in their maps, such as "concentrate" or "don't get caught up in things that aren't relevant." But by ninth grade many students include specific strategies for thinking on their concept maps, including "making connections," "comparing" and "breaking things down."

Ritchhart studied 400 students at a school focusing on cultivating a culture of thinking. The study had no control group, but Ritchhart could chart development of metacognition from 4th-11th grades.

"Students basically made a two-and-a-half year gain from what would be expected just from teachers trying to create that culture of thinking," Ritchhart said. He admits that the study isn't definitive, but to him it's proof that when teachers focus on these ideas they do see improvement.
HOW CAN EDUCATORS HELP?
In a culture of thinking, students recognize that collective and individual thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted as part of the regular day-to-day experience of all group members. This type of culture can exist in any place where learning is part of the experience including school, after school programming or museum programs.

To help make these ideas more concrete, Ritchhart and his colleagues have been working to hone in on a short list of "thinking moves" related to understanding. To test whether these moves were really crucial, researchers asked themselves: could a student say she really understood something if she hadn't engaged in these activities? They believe the important "thinking moves" that lead to understanding are:

Naming: being able to identify the parts and pieces of a thing

Inquiry: questioning should drive the process throughout

Looking at different perspectives and viewpoints

Reasoning with evidence

Making connections to prior knowledge, across subject areas, even into personal lives

Uncovering complexity

Capture the heart and make firm conclusions

Building explanations, interpretations and theories.

These thinking moves all point to the conclusion that learning doesn't happen through the mere delivery of information. "Learning only occurs when the learner does something with that information," Ritchhart said. "So as teachers we need to think not only about how we will deliver that content, but also what we will have students do with that content."

One easy way to start asking students to be more metacognitive is to build in reflection time about thinking. Ask students to think about the lesson and identify the kinds of thinking they used throughout. That not only builds vocabulary around thinking, but it often gives kids confidence to name specific thinking strategies they used. Taking this time to reflect also reminds students that they did real work during the lesson.
THINKING ROUTINES
To get at how teachers make thinking visible, Ritchhart studied teachers who were very effective at helping student dive below surface level retention of information into really understanding material as it connects to the rest of their studies and their lives. He noticed none of them taught a lesson on thinking.

"They had routines and structures that scaffolded and supported student thinking," Ritchhart said. This discovery led him and colleagues at Project Zero to develop "thinking routines" that all teachers can use to help students develop the habits of mind that lead to more understanding.

One way to develop a culture of thinking is to pick one of the thinking routines Project Zero has designed and use it over and over in a variety of contexts. Rather than trying each routine once, applying one routine in multiple ways will help make thinking in that way habitual. It becomes almost an expectation in a classroom, like other class norms.

One example of this that goes beyond the K-12 classroom comes from Harvard Medical School, where instructors were struggling to train students to listen to patients and make strong diagnoses based on the symptoms they heard. As an experiment, the medical school offered an elective module to students, where once a week they would join a fine arts class using the "See, Think, Wonder" thinking routine to observe art. After 10 weeks, all the medical students were assessed on clinical diagnosing and the students who had done "See, Think, Wonder" had improved much more than those who had not participated.

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When Kids Have Structure for Thinking, Better Learning Emerges - MindShift

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By sixth grade a few students are starting to include some strategies for thinking in their maps, such as "concentrate" or "don't get caught up in things that aren't relevant." But by ninth grade many students include specific strategies for thinking on their concept maps, including "making connections," "comparing" and "breaking things down."

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KQED - How One School Changed Culture From Within to Help Students Succeed

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KQED - How One School Changed Culture From Within to Help Students Succeed

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Like many parents, Nicole Hambric's two kids are very different from one another. Her older daughter is a straight A student who did well in traditional public school, but her younger daughter, Jada, never really liked school. She would do just enough to get by, but often struggled to understand lessons the first time and felt rushed by the pace of her classes. Hambric was surprised to learn in May of Jada's fourth grade year that she might not be promoted to the next grade. She spent thousands of dollars on tutoring to help boost Jada's academics quickly, but she was angry the school hadn't communicated with her about Jada's struggles earlier.

'I had never seen a 95 test result in all the years she's been in school. Now I see that she's focused and she has confidence in herself.' Nicole Hambric, parent

All that changed when Hambric moved Jada to P.S. 89 for middle school and into the Big Picture Learning Academy there. "I saw a complete [180] in my daughter," Hambric said. "At one point learning wasn't her thing and now she loves going to school; she loves learning." Not only that, but Jada is bringing home better grades. She made the honor roll for the first time ever, and is motivated to continue working to improve.

"I had never seen a 95 test result in all the years she's been in school," Hambric said. "Now I see that she's focused and she has confidence in herself." Hambric believes the turnaround has come from the Big Picture Academy's focus on a tight-knit classroom culture, which allows the teachers to focus on individual learner's needs.

"Each of us are different and we all learn differently," Hambric said. "It wasn't that she wasn't able to understand what she was being taught, it's just that she needed a different style of learning."

There are a lot of schools around the country trying to change the educational experience, but often the most visible examples like High Tech High or Summit Public Schools are charter schools, built from the ground up around a shared vision and with the benefit of outside investment. While those schools can serve as inspiration, it's often hard for educators in more traditional settings to see how they can apply those models in their own classrooms where there isn't that same shared vision and extra support. It's easy to see the accomplishments of educators in shiny new schools as out of reach to the average public school teacher.

P.S. 89 is not a magnet school or a charter school -- it's a big, public K-8 school in the Bronx serving a diverse population and many students with high needs. The changes there have not been quick and easy, but rather are the result of a few teachers within the building working to try something different. For the past three years a small group of teachers have been experimenting with bringing aspects of the Big Picture Learning model into this otherwise traditional school.

P.S. 89 teachers aren't implementing the most radical or actualized version of Big Picture Learning, but teachers and administrators at the school are applying aspects of the model that can work within their constraints and are slowly strategizing how they might include others.
TEACHER PERSPECTIVES
"I really feel like building up the classroom environment to be more family like was really important and different," said eighth grade special education teacher Gabrielle Lee. "From there I really saw more growth in the students."

Lee is about to start her third year in the Big Picture Academy; she will have the same 29 kids she has had for the past two years. Keeping students together in smaller, close-knit groups with educators who know them well is one way the Big Picture Academy creates the family feeling Lee described.

'We can actually see the kids having fun and in turn I can have fun as well. It's not me pulling teeth to get them to pay attention or stay awake.' Ashley Sims, 6th grade teacher

Relationships are at the heart of the model. The school had to find ways to make class sizes smaller and to build in time for advisory with a ratio of one adult to twelve kids. They found that opportunity by using a co-teaching model in which a special education teacher and a general education teacher co-teach a smaller group of students in every subject. Half the class are students with special needs, but every student is given individualized attention. Having more adults assigned to these groups of students also means they can break them down into smaller advisories.

At first the model raised eyebrows and some parents wondered if it was a "special education thing," but parents like Hambric were won over quickly by the changes they saw in their children. And teachers like Lee watched students who were known for behavior problems find their place and begin to shine.

One boy transferred into Lee's class in the seventh grade. He'd been suspended the year before for bringing a BB gun to school, but in the smaller, more intimate setting he began to thrive. He was able to talk about his mistake with his classmates and even did his passion project on gun control issues.

"He would say he never wanted to participate in other classes, but he just loved that family feel of Big Picture," Lee said. "He felt like he could be more than what other people were labeling him as."

Another student started middle school barely verbal. She has autism and never spoke in front of the class. After two years of support and time to build trust with her teachers and classmates she now will present in front of the class. For her passion project, she wrote and illustrated a comic book in which each superhero has an autism characteristic that gives him or her superpowers. She has used this project to help educate her classmates about how she experiences the world. She also won the "Most Good You Can Do" scholarship from Big Picture Learning for her work.

The advisory time is one of the biggest differences between the Big Picture Academy and the rest of P.S. 89's middle school. Students get one-on-one time with the teacher and they work on projects related to who they are, what they like, and who they want to be. Teachers have slowly started to integrate more of those qualities into the core academics as well.

Student choice and learning through individual interests is a big part of the Big Picture philosophy, but it was hard to implement at P.S. 89 because all grade level teachers were expected to follow a similar trajectory for the year. Still, teachers in the Big Picture Academy experimented with a bigger project in both math and English that would give students space to problem solve, collaborate, tap into expertise beyond the classroom and exhibit their knowledge in different ways.

For example, in Ashley Sims sixth grade class students were given a pretend pot of money to spend remodeling their bedrooms. They had to use the fractions, decimals and percentages they'd been working with all year to figure out how much paint they'd need and what it would cost, along with other construction challenges. A working contractor came to the class to talk about how he uses math in his work and act as an expert for their projects. Sims said even this small reach outside the classroom was important for students: "A lot of kids don't see the connections in the real world," she said.

The Big Picture Academy has been such a success that this coming school year the entire P.S. 89 middle school along with some elementary school classrooms are moving to the model. That's a big shift because previously the teachers involved were those eager to try something different. Now, the "veteran" Big Picture teachers are coaching their more traditional colleagues in the model, trying to smooth the way for a successful implementation.

"When we're making that whole school or much bigger shift, it's definitely about figuring out in coaching individual advisors what's going to get them excited about the model," said Dana Luria, a regional director for Big Picture Learning who has been helping P.S. 89 implement the pilot program and now the full middle school shift. She's trying to help advisors see that when they bring their passions and strengths to the advisory time they will form stronger bonds with kids.

For example, a math teacher who is new to the model got really excited about the idea of working on a semester long project to build life-sized catapults with his advisory. "He got so fired up," Luria said, which is the most important ingredient. "There's the relationship piece where he's doing something he enjoys with them."

The concerns many educators have about trying something new center around the time it takes, whether it will meet the standards and result in good test scores, and whether all the content will get covered. Those are important concerns, but Luria reminds them that few educators got into the profession excited to make kids take high stakes tests or to rush through curriculum. Most are passionate about helping students grow and learn, and those motivations are the building blocks of a successful advisory.

"Most teachers are in it for the students," said sixth grade teacher Ashley Sims. "And when you have that heart for kids and that heart for learning, Big Picture is just that." She said being part of a classroom where kids care for one another and are excited to learn has changed her job for the better. "It makes it more fun. We can actually see the kids having fun and in turn I can have fun as well. It's not me pulling teeth to get them to pay attention or stay awake."

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How One School Changed Culture From Within So Students Could Succeed

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Like many parents, Nicole Hambric's two kids are very different from one another. Her older daughter is a straight A student who did well in traditional public school, but her younger daughter, Jada, never really liked school. She would do just enough to get by, but often struggled to understand lessons the first time and felt rushed by the pace of her classes.

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KQED -How Students Critiquing One Another Raises the Bar

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KQED -How Students Critiquing One Another Raises the Bar

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Too often, when students produce school work, they turn it into a teacher for a grade and move on. And after the teacher spends time evaluating the student's work, many students never look at the feedback, a cycle that frustrates both parties and isn't the most effective way to learn.

Several schools are trying a different model -- one that takes more time but also helps students feel more ownership over the quality of their work. Called peer critique, students follow clear protocols that remind them to "be kind, be specific, and be helpful" in the feedback they give to peers.

In the Edutopia video shown below about Two Rivers Charter School in Washington, D.C., students explain how through a process of revisions, they can feel proud about gradually producing high quality work. And, since students start doing the peer critique protocol in preschool, the school has built up a culture infused with a growth mindset. Students are constantly experiencing that they can learn from other people's work and that work can always be better.

"You're basically changing the idea of what it means to 'be done,' " said Jessica Wodatch, executive director of Two Rivers Charter School.

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How Students Critiquing One Another's Work Raises The Quality Bar

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Too often, when students produce school work, they turn it into a teacher for a grade and move on. And after the teacher spends time evaluating the student's work, many students never look at the feedback, a cycle that frustrates both parties and isn't the most effective way to learn.

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A common feedback trap that Brookhart observes can happen when teachers forget the goal of an assignment and give feedback on things like grammar instead of the learning goal. For example, if a seventh-grade science lab is meant to teach a concept, but all the feedback is about how the student formatted the lab, then the teacher has missed an opportunity. "Feedback then becomes what do I need to do to please this teacher, not what do I need to do to learn," Brookhart said.

She also points out that feedback depends entirely on the learning goals of individual students. One student may have trouble starting a problem, but generally understands the material, so simply reminding her of the learning target might be enough. Another student may have trouble starting because his grasp of the material is a little shaky, but some guiding questions might be enough to spark his thinking. Still a third student may be lost on the content, in which case working through an example with her might be the appropriate level of scaffolding.

FEEDBACK FOR DIFFERENT REASONS

Often teachers think of giving feedback as useful to the student, but it should also be fruitful for the teacher. An individual instance of feedback can give a teacher a close-up look at the student's abilities with a specific skill, a snapshot of where they are in the scope of the class, and some ideas about where to go in the long term.

"Tell the students what you see in their work," Brookhart said. That doesn't mean merely writing "Good Job" or "Needs Work" in the margins. Those comments are evaluative, signaling the end of the conversation. "Without descriptions students don't have the information they need to take that next step."

Brookhart gave an example of an elementary class working on persuasive writing. Students were asked to write a letter to the librarian after a book was stolen, offering some reasons why she should buy the book again. One student wrote a paragraph explaining that the book was funny and had mysteries in it, so it was worth replacing. The teacher's feedback focused almost entirely on the spelling, capitalization and format errors of the letter. And at the end the teacher wrote, "Add more."

Brookhart unapologetically calls this bad feedback. A student reading this feedback would think the teacher cared only about grammar and format, not about his ideas or persuasiveness, the stated goal of the assignment. "The worst thing about this is that there's something really good in this that the teacher doesn't mention," Brookhart said. The student did offer two specific reasons why he liked the book, but the teacher did not call out those strengths.

"Do not assume this kid knows that he's got the kernel of persuasion in there. Part of your feedback should be to make explicit, so he knows that you know," Brookhart said.

Better feedback would be to tell the student he came up with two good reasons and ask him to add some of the missing information, like the title of the book and examples of how the book was funny or had mysteries. Then, the teacher could offer some sentence starters to help the student "add more," on the principle that he didn't know how to do that, or else he would have. Brookhart says that because this feedback is related to the skill being learned, it's more motivating to students, and doesn't make students feel like they are playing the teacher's game.

"Teachers that are more effective at formative assessment go for student thinking, not just how correct they are," Brookhart said. After a feedback session the teacher should understand more about how the student is thinking than she could gain from merely looking at what he wrote. And, she can then use that insight to give the student opportunities to revise the work and push toward stronger understanding of the learning target.

Brookhart says surveys of students are clear on what they want from feedback. "In many different countries, some done in the context of formative assessment and sometimes summative assessment, what students want is information they can use and the opportunity to use it."

EQUITY IN FEEDBACK

Another key thing to keep in mind when giving feedback relates to equity in thinking. It's easy to see a moderate- or high-level student's work that doesn't have typographical errors and push on the thinking behind it. But often the student whose technical writing skills are lower will get only the typographical feedback without the push on further thinking. While done unintentionally, the difference in feedback reinforces bias and could contribute to different expectations for different students.

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Why Giving Effective Feedback Is Trickier Than It Seems | KQED

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A common feedback trap that Brookhart observes can happen when teachers forget the goal of an assignment and give feedback on things like grammar instead of the learning goal. For example, if a seventh-grade science lab is meant to teach a concept, but all the feedback is about how the student formatted the lab, then the teacher has missed an opportunity.

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When teachers believe that together, they are capable of developing students' critical thinking skills, creativity, and mastery of complex content, it happens! Collective teacher efficacy (CTE) refers to a staff's shared belief that through their collective action, they can positively influence student outcomes, including those who are disengaged and/or disadvantaged. Educators with high efficacy show greater effort and persistence, a willingness to try new teaching approaches, set more challenging goals, and attend more closely to the needs of students who require extra assistance. In addition, when collective efficacy is present, staffs are better equipped to foster positive behaviour in students and in raising students' expectations of themselves by convincing them that they can do well in school.
The Effect Size Research
With an effect size of 1.57, CTE is ranked as the number one factor influencing student achievement (Hattie, 2016). Collective teacher efficacy, as an influence on student achievement, is a contribution that comes from the school - not the home nor the students themselves. According to the Visible Learning Research (Table 1), CTE is beyond three times more powerful and predictive of student achievement than socio-economic status. It is more than double the effect of prior achievement and more than triple the effect of home environment and parental involvement. It is also greater than three times more likely to influence student achievement than student motivation and concentration, persistence, and engagement.

Table 1. Factors Influencing Student Achievement and Their Effect Size

Source: Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. New York, NY: Routledge; and Hattie, J. (2016, July). Mindframes and Maximizers. 3rd Annual Visible Learning Conference held in Washington, DC.

An effect size emphasizes the difference in magnitude of given approaches for purposes of comparison. An effect size of 0 reveals that the influence had no effect on student achievement. The larger the effect size, the more powerful the influence. Hattie (2009) suggested an effect size of 0.2 is relatively small, an effect size of 0.4 is medium, and an effect size of 0.6 is large.

Efficacy beliefs are very powerful because they guide educators' actions. Goddard, Hoy, and Woolfolk Hoy (2004) noted that efficacy beliefs "directly affect the diligence and resolve with which groups choose to pursue their goals" (p. 8). If educators' realities are filtered through the belief that there is very little they can do to influence student achievement, then it is very likely these beliefs will be manifested in their practice. However, if a school staff shares a sense of collective efficacy, then they have a greater likelihood of positively impacting student learning, over and above any other influence.
Six Enabling Conditions
School characteristics associated with CTE, documented in the research, helped in identifying six enabling conditions for collective efficacy to flourish (Donohoo, 2017). While enabling conditions do not cause things to happen, they increase the likelihood that things will turn out as expected.

Advanced teacher influence is defined by the degree to which teachers are provided opportunities to participate in important school-wide decisions.

Reaching consensus on goals not only increases collective efficacy, it also has a direct and measurable impact on student achievement (Robinson, Hohepa, & Lloyd, 2009)

Teachers' Knowledge About One Another's Work

Teachers gain confidence in their peers' ability to impact student learning when they have more intimate knowledge about each other's practice.

Cohesion is defined as the degree to which teachers agree with each other on fundamental educational issues.

Responsive leaders show concern and respect for their staff and protect teachers from issues that detract from their teaching time and focus.

Effective Systems of Intervention

Effective systems of intervention help in ensuring that all students are successful.

Fostering collective teacher efficacy is a timely and important issue if we are going to realize success for all students. Fostering collective teacher efficacy should be at the forefront of a planned strategic effort in all schools and school boards. Attending to the six enabling conditions outlined in this blog is a step toward realizing the possibility of collective teacher efficacy in schools.
References:
Donohoo, J. (2017). Collective efficacy: How educators' beliefs impact student learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Goddard, R., Hoy, W., & Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2004). Collective efficacy beliefs: Theoretical developments, empirical evidence, and future directions. American Educational Research Association, 33(3), 3-13.

Hattie, J. (2016). Third Annual Visible Learning Conference (subtitled Mindframes and Maximizers), Washington, DC, July 11, 2016.

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York, NY: Routledge.

Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. New York, NY: Routledge.

Robinson, V., Hohepa, M. & Lloyd, C. (2009). School leadership and student outcomes: Identifying what works and why. Best evidence synthesis iteration [BES]. New Zealand: Ministry of Education.
About Jenni Donohoo
Jenni Donohoo is a Provincial Literacy Lead, seconded to the Ontario Ministry of Education's Curriculum and Assessment Policy Branch. In this role she works with system and school leaders in order to support high quality professional learning and improve adolescent literacy. Jenni earned a doctorate in education from the Joint Program at the University of Windsor, Brock and Lakehead in 2010. Since then, her passion for research and writing has grown. Jenni has written three books for Corwin. Her most recent book, Collective Efficacy: How Educators' Beliefs Impact Student Learning, was released in November 2016.

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Collective Teacher Efficacy: The Effect Size Research and Six Enabling Conditions

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When teachers believe that together, they are capable of developing students' critical thinking skills, creativity, and mastery of complex content, it happens! Collective teacher efficacy (CTE) refers to a staff's shared belief that through their collective action, they can positively influence student outcomes, including those who are disengaged and/or disadvantaged.

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Orange County Office of Education: Visible Learning & Visible Teaching

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Orange County Office of Education: Visible Learning & Visible Teaching

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10 Research Proven Practices - John Hattie

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10 Research Proven Practices - John Hattie

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Research and Teacher Development - MO Dept. of Ed.

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The Principal's Office - Caruso Middle School

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This is post number two in a ten part blog series (you may click here to start from the beginning).
This blog series serves to highlight his most significant findings and their applications to our classrooms from John Hattie's 2012 work, Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning . His work has given educators quantifiable insights that have no parallel in the field of education.
Need an introduction or a crash course on the effect sizes referenced below? An effect size of 0.40 is what Hattie refers to as a hinge-point regarding what is significantly effective or at "a level where the effects of innovation enhance achievement in such a way that we can notice real-world differences" (Hattie, 2009). Anything between a 0.00 and 0.39 is growth, but is not considered significant growth. Anything below a 0.00 is considered detrimental to student growth. One of Hattie's most important themes is the importance of teachers effectively communicating the intentions of lessons and what success looks like in relation to these intentions. Hattie cited Fendicks 1990 study on teacher clarity where he defined this principle as "organization, explanation, examples and guided practice, and assessment of student learning." (2009) Application to the Classroom Number 9 - Teacher Clarity (effect size = 0.75)
Consider how your use of effectively written learning objectives paired with rubrics that reinforce these expectations play key roles in maximizing your teacher clarity.

In Classroom Instruction That Works by Dean, et. al. (2012), there are four recommendations for setting objectives in the classroom:

Set learning objectives that are specific but not restrictive.

Communicate the learning objectives to students and parents.

Connect the learning objectives to previous and future learning.

Engage students in setting personal learning objectives.

A Random Mention Number 113 out of 150 - School Class Size (effect size 0.21)
A fantastic resource for generating standards-aligned rubrics is the website www.themespark.net. This resource provides rubrics in the core teaching areas and art. In addition, rubrics can be customized to meet any subject area.
A Peek at the Bottom 10 Number 149 out of 150 - Home Television (effect size -0.18)
This is regularly a hot topic found in all places including political debates, teacher contract negotiations, and in discussions around the water cooler. Hattie (2009) asserts that the overall evidence around this topic is not significant in regard to student learning. He cites that "reducing class sizes has not been a powerful moderator on outcomes." He found that the typical effect size in class size studies of about 0.10-0.20 "could be considered small...and certainly not worth the billions of dollars that is required to reduce the number of children per classroom."

Studies all have slightly different findings, but they all support the idea that once students reach a certain threshold of hours per day spent watching television that a negative effect size emerges. Hattie cites Razel's 2001 study which found that when students watched more than two hours per day there was a negative effect size. Age, gender, and IQ all had a bearing on the overall impact.

For more from the blog series view the following post:

Hattie, J., Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement (2009)
http://visible-learning.org/glossary/#4_Teacher_credibility http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/111001/chapters/Setting-Objectives-and-Providing-Feedback.aspx
Hattie, J. Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning (2012)

Effect size image retrieved from: http://www.learningandteaching.info/teaching/what_works.htm

Focus image retrieved from: http://becomingteachertoday.blogspot.com/2015/04/clarity-in-teaching.html

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John Hattie's Top Ten Visible Learning Takeaways - Number Nine: Teacher Clarity

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This is post number two in a ten part blog series (you may click here to start from the beginning). This blog series serves to highlight his most significant findings and their applications to our classrooms from John Hattie's 2012 work, Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning .

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Edutopia: Myth-busting: If I just had better students. . .

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Edutopia: Myth-busting: If I just had better students. . .

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I was at the attendance office one day towards the end of the school year, and the clerk asked me about one of the students who had been skipping class. Unbidden and almost automatically, the words came out of my mouth, "You know, the counselors for some reason decided to give me the worst class possible. How am I supposed to teach them when I have to spend so much time dealing with so many behavioral issues?"

After I left the attendance office, I reflected on what I had said and realized that I had fallen into the trap of self-pity and justification that I have decried so much in my blog posts. I basically said: If the counselors had given me better students, I would be able to teach better. I had to ask myself: Why would I say such things? Have I done everything possible to change the situation? Have I given up?

Why Would I Say Such Things?

Saying such things goes against everything I believe. I said them because I was upset with the students, the counselors, and yes, myself. But you notice that when I said those things to the attendance clerk, I did not include myself. For some reason, I felt that blaming others exonerated me from my personal responsibility for the struggles in that class. The class was super rowdy. Just getting them to settle down and keep quiet for instruction was a chore.

Each day I hoped it would get better, and sometimes it was better. But for the most part, the conflict continued. I often felt like I had to get just enough control of student behavior to enable learning. Sometimes getting them settled as a whole group seemed to take most of the period, and I often struggled to find time to give the students in need individual attention.

What Strategies Worked?

Have I done everything possible to change the situation in this class? Of course not, or the situation would have been resolved (maybe). But I have seen some improvement in behavior because I have learned specific ways to handle behavior. For example, I did the following:

Established leaders in the class who assisted other students (with completing an assignment, staying on task, etc.)

Regrouped any cliques to diminish off-task behaviors, and maintained daily routines and classroom procedures

Provided assignments with step-by-step visual and auditory directions

Prompted writing assignments with sentence stems and models

These strategies for engagement do work for the most part. But some days, my attempts at engaging and managing have resulted in bedlam. Twice now, I admit that I have resorted to trying to be louder than the students -- making me feel foolish and not helping whatsoever.

What Could I Have Done Differently?

I could have been much more firm from the beginning and not allowed a few students to impede the progress of the class. Perhaps I should have been sterner. Over the years, I have had unruly classes, and I will continue to have them. I know my teaching style does not lend itself to disciplinarian methods. I am always fine with a little bit of chaos and noise, knowing students are still productive.

Upon reflection, I was wrong to blame the counselors for putting that combination of students together in that class. How were they to know how it would work out? Most importantly, I was foolish to entertain the thought that if I had better students, I could teach more effectively.

I realized it was not about the teaching at all. It is about the learning. In truth, some of my students were being deprived because I perhaps did not do what was necessary to be successful. In hindsight, I would have redesigned the course to target students' needs instead of constantly tweaking a lesson plan made for students with more traditional skill sets.

And that's the lesson learned by me.

What are your thoughts and beliefs on the myth of having better students? Please share in the comments section below your own experiences with this myth.

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Myth-Busting: "If I Just Had Better Students" | Edutopia

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I was at the attendance office one day towards the end of the school year, and the clerk asked me about one of the students who had been skipping class. Unbidden and almost automatically, the words came out of my mouth, "You know, the counselors for some reason decided to give me the worst class possible.

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We teachers are always looking to innovate, so, yes, it’s essential that we try new things to add to our pedagogical bag of tricks. But it’s important to focus on purpose and intentionality -- and not on quantity. So what really matters more than “always trying something new” is the reason behind why we do what we do.

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Teacher Clarity as an Innovation Teaching Essential

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Teacher Clarity as an Innovation Teaching Essential

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by Georgie Lowe ·

Whether in the face-to-face classroom or online and blended learning spaces, teachers are always looking for ways to innovate. But it's rare to find evidence-based innovations that can be repeated in any classroom and reliably impact student outcomes. Education research faces the challenge of dealing with many variables that can impact studies, such as class size, student characteristics, physical environment, noise and interruptions and even the time of day.

Overcoming variables with a lot of data

A huge meta-analysis on the impact of learning and teaching strategies on raising student achievement was concluded by Professor John Hattie in Visible Learning in 2009. This meta-analysis of meta-analyses consolidated over sixty-thousand studies of meta-data on millions of students to see what worked and what didn't.

This research was based on classroom interventions and innovations for students aged up to twenty years, in developed English-speaking countries. However, these insights may be cautiously applied to adult learning contexts, given the breadth of this work and the lack of a study of equivalent scope in the field of adult education.

The findings unearthed from all this data were visualised using a " Barometer of Influence ". This shows the extent to which a particular innovation or thing will enhance student achievement.

1st insight - any innovation will probably help

Interestingly, it's actually tricky not to enhance student success. Just having a teacher in a classroom will enhance student achievement. The average effect of any teacher innovation on achievement is about .40 on the barometer, as shown in the image below.

2nd insight - start with innovations that have big impacts

Since, on average, most things improve student achievement, Hattie argues that teachers should set themselves a higher standard for innovations, and just look to try the things that have a big difference, way above the average effect size. The below image summarises the top five innovations in the domain of teachers that have the greatest impact on enhancing student achievement.

The language used in education research is far from universal, so let's consider those top 5 innovations further using the glossary provided in Visible Learning as a reference.

Providing formative evaluation (feedback) involves assessing learning progress before or during the learning process itself rather than summatively assessing after the teaching is done. This means making the learning process very visible to the student - they must be able to see the goal, where they are currently in relation to that goal, and how the path ahead looks.

Micro teaching applies to teacher training and development. Typically, it involves teachers conducting mini-lessons to a small group of students while being recorded and engaging in discussions afterwards about the lessons. The videotaping allows for an intense under-the-microscope review of their teaching.

Comprehensive interventions for learning disabled students addresses challenges students face learning to read, write or do maths. The important components of instruction included "attention to sequencing, drill-repetition-practice, segmenting information into parts or units for later synthesis, controlling task difficulty through prompts and cues, making use of technology, systematically modeling problem solving steps, and making use of small interactive groups" (p. 217). An example of an intervention is a shift in pedagogy to use direct instruction coupled with strategy instruction - that is, explicitly teaching students how to succeed, whether through a process used for long division in mathematics or a series of questions to ask when interpreting an academic article.

Teacher clarity involves setting and communicating clear learning objectives, and providing engaging and clearly structured explanations, examples and guided practice. In addition to speech clarity, these key elements are all about making sure students have a clear understanding of their learning process.

Reciprocal teaching was devised as an instructional process to teach students cognitive strategies that might lead to improved learning outcomes. The emphasis is on teachers enabling their students to learn and use cognitive strategies such as summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting, and these are "supported through dialogue between teacher and students as they attempt to gain meaning from text". For example, each student takes a turn at being the "teacher", and often the teacher and students take turns leading a dialogue concerning sections of a text.

To learn more about these recommendations and data, visit http://visible-learning.org/

So, what are good innovations?

Well, highly effective innovations are not what you might expect looking at Pinterest pages and teacher blogs, which often associate innovation with technology.

It's particularly interesting to note that the most influential innovations a teacher can make, according to Hattie's research, are to reflect on your own pedagogical practice and to make the process of learning visible to students. Hattie strives to highlight the importance of students' expectations and students' visibility into the learning process.

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Dazzling Data: 5 teacher innovations to enhance student success - Learning and Teaching at Navitas

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by Georgie Lowe · Whether in the face-to-face classroom or online and blended learning spaces, teachers are always looking for ways to innovate. But it's rare to find evidence-based innovations that can be repeated in any classroom and reliably impact student outcomes.

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Teacher clarity involves setting and communicating clear learning objectives, and providing engaging and clearly structured explanations, examples and guided practice. In addition to speech clarity, these key elements are all about making sure students have a clear understanding of their learning process.

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Top 10 Evidence Based Teaching Strategies

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Top 10 Evidence Based Teaching Strategies

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Most teachers I know care deeply about helping their students succeed at school, and if you are reading this article, you are undoubtedly one of them. Yet, research has revealed some teaching strategies have far more impact than others. These are evidence-based teaching strategies. Busy teachers have so many demands on their time that it is hard to keep abreast of what the research really says - especially amidst the noise of trendy fads.

That's where I can help. I am a passionate teacher who recently had both my legs amputated. This gives me time to read the research and share my findings with teachers like you.

If you want to make a larger difference in how well your students do, then learn about these 10 evidence-based teaching strategies. Some of them may surprise you!

Evidence-Based Teaching Strategy 1: A Clear Focus

A clear focus enables you to focus everything you do and everything you get your students to do on achieving this intended learning. In turn, this has a sizeable impact ( d = 0.75) ¹ on your students' learning.

Note, the impact of a clear focus relies on you adjusting your teaching and learning activities in line with that focus. It doesn't come from fancy names such as learning intentions or learning targets. You can call them goals, intentions, objectives or anything else - it doesn't matter.

Teaching Strategy 2: Pretesting

The term 'testing' tends to get a bad rap in teaching circles. Yet, when viewed more broadly, it actually a potent teaching strategy that underpins x strategies in this list. Pretesting is the first of these.

Teaching Strategy 3: Show & Tell

I call the second evidence-based teaching strategy show and tell, although the research refers to be various other names. It is grounded in the idea that novice learners learn best with explicit instruction ² and represents the I Do phase of the I Do - We Do - You Do model. instruction should make use of:

The nature of show and tell varies slightly between procedural and conceptual knowledge.

Procedural Show & Tell

With procedural learning, show and tell involves:

Modelling often involves working an example, which has a moderate-to-large impact on students learning ⁴.

When worked examples are coupled with verbal explanations of the steps or actions needed, they have even more impact ⁵.

Conceptual Show & Tell

With conceptual learning, show and tell involves:

Visuals may include text, but they are not text-based. Research on the modality and multimedia effects 3 show that combining meaningful visuals with verbal explanations enhances learning.

However, visuals must be used carefully. See The Use of Visuals article.

Checking for Understanding

Models of explicit instruction, such as the I Do - We Do - You Do framework, advise that you should check for understanding before moving on from this stage.

Strategy 4: Integrate Prior Understandings

Pretesting is a powerful way to activate prior understandings. Yet, activating prior understandings is only the first step. You also need to prompt your students to integrate the new information with what they already understood, with questions such as, how does/is this new information:

Relationships could be sequential, hierarchical, cause-effect or comparative. You can ask your students to show these relationships using some form of a graphic organiser:

And, the impact is even larger in mathematics when integrating prior understandings is coupled with worked examples.

Strategy 5: Retrieval Practice

Research shows that retrieving information from memory is a powerful way to learn. In psychology, we refer to this as the testing effect.

In fact, students who practise retrieving information from memory do far better than students who spend an equivalent amount of time restudying.

You can also ask students to practise using a mixture of the above methods.

Strategy 6: Feedback

Feedback is the breakfast of champions, and it is the breakfast served by extraordinary teachers around the world.

Giving feedback involves telling a student:

Feedback is different to praise. Praise focuses on the student, while feedback focuses on what your student did. It provides your students with a tangible understanding of:

In John Hattie's view, any teachers who seriously want to boost their children's results should start by giving them dollops and dollops of feedback.

If you want to learn more about giving feedback, subscribe to our email list. You will then receive a free copy of our eBook How to Give Feedback to Students: The Advanced Guide. You should also check out our student feedback infographic.

Teaching Strategy 7: Spaced Practice

We know that retrieval practice works well, that it works better than restudying material, and that it gas even more impact when accompanied by feedback.

Yet, research shows that students learn more when they practice the same thing repeatedly with spaces in between than they do when they study the same thing intensely for a block of time.

For more details see Distributed vs Massed Practice.

Teaching Strategy 8: Productive Group Work

Group work can have a potent and positive impact on your students' learning.

Yet, group work done at the wrong time or in the wrong way can backfire. Kids can muck around and leave one or 2 group members to do the work. So, follow these tips:

1. Don't use group work as teaching strategy until your class is routinely behaving well as a whole class

2. When you first use group work, make the task easy enough that students won't need help. Then spend your time watching all the groups, offering praise and positive correction when appropriate.

3. Only use group work once all indivdual students have a basic mastery of the task

4. Choose tasks that have a small number of discrete steps

5. Make group sizes equivalent to the number of steps in the class

6. Have each student complete one step, then rotate roles with repeat tasks

7. Hold groups accountable for their behaviour, effort and results

SHAUN KILLIAN
(MEd., MLead.)

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10 Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies for 2023

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Some teaching strategies have more impact on your students' results than others. Discover this core list of 10 evidence-based teaching strat ..

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Hattie's Influences of Student Achievement

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Hattie's Influences of Student Achievement

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This Glossary explains influences related to student achievement published in John Hattie's Visible Learning for teachers (Hattie 2012; 251ff). You can find an older list of influences related to student achievement in Hattie (2009) Visible Learning.

1. Student Self-Reported Grades

Self reported grades comes out at the top of all influences. Children are the most accurate when predicting how they will perform. In a video Hattie explains that if he could write his book Visible Learning for Teachers again, he would re-name this learning strategy " Student Expectations " to express more clearly that this strategy involves the teacher finding out what are the student's expectations and pushing the learner to exceed these expectations. Once a student has performed at a level that is beyond their own expectations, he or she gains confidence in his or her learning ability.
Example for Self-reported grades: Before an exam, ask your class to write down what mark the student expects to achieve. Use this information to engage the student to try to perform even better.
Hattie cites five meta-studies:

Mabe/West (1982): Validity of self-evaluation of ability (Abstract)

Fachikov/Boud (1989): Student Self-Assessment in Higher Education (Abstract)

Ross (1998): Self-assessment in second language testing (Abstract)

Falchikov/Goldfinch (2000): Student Peer Assessment in Higher Education (Abstract)

Kuncel/Crede/Thomas (2005); The Validity of Self-Reported Grade Point Averages, Class Ranks, and Test Scores (Abstract)

2. Piagetian programs

Piagetian programs are teaching methods based on Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development and his concept of children's stages of learning. The meta-study of Jordan and Brownlee (1981) that Hattie cites found that in primary school age there is a close correlation between the performance on Piagetian tests of the thinking level and achievement tests in mathematics and reading.

The Piagetian stages include:

Sensorimotor stage (new born - 2 years old): Infants learn by the basic senses including seeing, hearing and touching and construct an understanding of the world by coordinating those experiences with physical, motoric actions.

Pre-operational stage (2 - 7 years old): Children are able to understand basic concepts and symbols, but do not yet understand concrete logic and cannot mentally manipulate information.

Concrete operational stage (7-12 years old): Children in these ages start solving problems in a more logical fashion but abstract, hypothetical thinking has not yet developed.

Formal operational stage (12 years old onwards): Children and adolescents develop abstract thinking and are able to perform hypothetical and deductive reasoning.

Watch this video to find out and see how children in different ages think differently.
Example for Piagetian programs: Focus on the thinking processes rather than the outcomes and do not impose the adult thinking process on to children.
Hattie cites one meta-study: Jordan and Brownlee (1981) Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Piagetian and School Achievement Tests. ( Abstract)

3. Response to intervention

Response to intervention (RTI) is an educational approach that provides early, systematic assistance to children who are struggling in one or many areas of their learning. RTI seeks to prevent academic failure through early intervention and frequent progress measurement. Watch this video to learn more about Response to intervention.
Examples and more information for Response to intervention: www.interventioncentral.org
4. Teacher credibility

According to Hattie teacher credibility is vital to learning, and students are very perceptive about knowing which teachers can make a difference. There are four key factors of credibility: trust, competence, dynamism and immediacy. In an interview Hattie puts it like that: "If a teacher is not perceived as credible, the students just turn off."
Examples for teacher credibility: Earn trust by showing trust towards pupils. Appear highly organised in the presentation of the subject matter. Develop a powerful style of speaking that uses few verbal hesitancies such as "OK" or "you know". Reduce distance between teachers and students by moving or moving away from barriers (e.g., desk, podiums). Source: cie.asu.edu
5. Providing formative evaluation

According to Hattie (2012) and Black & Wiliam (2001) formative evaluation refers to any activity used as an assessment of learning progress before or during the learning process itself. In contrast with formative assessment, the summative assessment evaluates what students know or have learned at the end of the teaching, after all is done. Watch this video to learn more about the difference between formative and summative assessment methods. In another video you can learn from teachers who describe their experience with formative evaluation.
Example for formative evaluation: Spend the same amount of time or even more on formative assessment as you spend on summative assessment. Give descriptive feedback to students: What is the goal? Where are you in relation to it? What can you do to close the gap?
Hattie cites two meta-studies:

Fuchs & Fuchs (1986): Effects of systematic formative evaluation (Abstract)

Burns & Symington (2002): A Meta-analysis of Prereferral Intervention Teams: Student and Systemic Outcomes (Abstract)

6. Micro-teaching

Micro-teaching is a video recording of a lesson with a debriefing. The lesson is reviewed in order to improve the teaching and learning experience. In Visible Learning Hattie describes micro-teaching as a practice (often in laboratory settings) that "typically involves student-teachers conducting (mini-) lessons to a small group of students, and then engaging in a post-discussion about the lessons" (Hattie 2009, 112). You can find plenty of microteaching videos on Youtube to get an idea of this method ( example). Technical aspects are less important than the later analysis which allows teachers to get a microscope-view on your own teaching. Under the guidance of a supervisor, the student-teacher is first asked to present a self feed back of his mini lesson, then the team gives feedback to provide positive reinforcement and constructive criticism.
Examples for micro-teaching: Since its invention in the 1960s at Stanford University by Dr. Dwight Allen, microteaching has become an established teacher-training procedure in many universities and school districts. You can find more information on micro-teaching here or here.

Hattie cites four meta-studies:

Butcher (1981) An experimental investigation of the effectiveness of a value claim strategy unit for use in teacher education (Unpublished M.A. Macquarie University Sydney)

Yeany/Padilla (1986): Training science teachers to utilize better teaching strategies (Abstract)

Bennett (1987): The effectiveness of staff development training practices (Unpublished Ph.D. University of Oregon)

Metcalf, K. K. (1995). Laboratory experiences in teacher education (Abstract)

7. Classroom discussion

Classroom discussion is a method of teaching, that involves the entire class in a discussion. The teacher stops lecturing and students get together as a class to discuss an important issue. Classroom discussion allows students to improve communication skills by voicing their opinions and thoughts. Teachers also benefit from classroom discussion as it allows them to see if students have learnt the concepts that are being taught. Moreover, a classroom discussion creates an environment where everyone learns from each other. In this video by Heather Joseph-Witham you can see how to lead a classroom discussion effectively.
Examples for an effective classroom discussion: Create a series of questions for the students to think about. Allocate enough time in the lesson for an elaborate discussion. Make sure that students can freely express their opinion without being laughed at or ridiculed. You can find helpful tips on planning, moderating and reflecting on classroom discussion in a paper by William E. Cashin (PDF).
8. Comprehensive interventions for learning disabled students

The presence of learning disability can make learning to read, write, and do math especially challenging. Hattie admits that "it would be possible to have a whole book on the effects of various interventions for students with learning disabilities" (Hattie 2009, 217) and refers to a meta-study of Swanson, Hoskyn and Lee (1999). To improve achievement teachers must provide students with tools and strategies to organize themselves as well as new material; techniques to use while reading, writing, and doing math; and systematic steps to follow when working through a learning task or reflecting upon their own learning. Hattie also discusses studies which found that "all children benefited from strategy training; both ths with and those without intellectual disabilities."
Examples for effective interventions for students with learning disabilities: One strategy discussed in a paper by Neil Sturomski: "Teaching Students With Learning Disabilities To Use Learning Strategies" (PDF) is called "DEFENDS". This strategic approach helps secondary students write a composition in which they must take a position and defend it (Ellis, 1994). Each letter stands for a strategic step: You can find further information in a papber by H. Lee Swanson and Donald Deshler (2003): Instructing Adolescents with Learning Disabilities: Converting a Meta-Analysis to Practice (PDF)
D ecide on audience, goals, and position
E stimate main ideas and details
F igure best order of main ideas and details
E xpress the position in the opening
N ote each main idea and supporting points
D rive home the message in the last sentence
S earch for errors and correct
9. Teacher clarity
Examples for teacher clarity, learning goals and success criteria: This short video provides a great example for a lesson intended to let students write a good "How-to book". The teacher explains how to develop and set clear learning goals and success criteria before the students actually start the writing activity.
Hattie defines teacher clarity quoting the (unpublished) work of Fendick (1990) as "organization, explanation, examples and guided practice, and assessment of student learning - such that clarity of speech was a prerequisite of teacher clarity." (Hattie 2009, 126) One of the main points of Hattie's books about Visible Learning is the importance to clearly communicate the intentions of the lessons and the success criteria. Clear learning intentions describe the skills, knowledge, attitudes and values that the student needs to learn. Teachers need to know the goals and success criteria of their lessons, know how well all students in their class are progressing, and know where to go next.

Hattie cites one meta-study:

Fendick (1990): The correlation between teacher clarity of communication and student achievement gain (Unpublished Ph.D. University of Florida)

10. Feedback
Examples: Related to the notion of "feed up, feed back and feed forward" teachers must answer three feedback questions: "Where am I going? How am I going? Where to next?" Constantly ask the students in order to maximize the feedback from the learner back to the teacher. Create a classroom climate where error is welcomed. In this short video John Hattie talks about what feedback means and how to make feedback work effectively for learning in the classroom.

According to Hattie and Timperley (2007) feedback is one of the most powerful influences on learning and achievement, but this impact can be either positive or negative. They developed a model of effective feedback that identifies the particular properties and circumstances that make it work. Feedback on task, process and self regulation level is far more effective than on the Self-level (e.g. praise wich contains no learning information). Descriptive feedback is closely related to providing formative assessment (see above). In an interview Hattie emphasized that the most powerful feedback is that given from the student to the teacher. This feedback allows teachers to see learning through the eyes of their students. It makes learning visible and facilitates the planning of next steps. The feedback that students receive from their teachers is also vital. It enables students to progress towards challenging learning intentions and goals.

Glossary by Sebastian Waack. Follow me on Twitter. Always happy to talk!

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Glossary of Hattie's influences on student achievement - VISIBLE LEARNING

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This Glossary explains influences related to student achievement published in John Hattie's Visible Learning for teachers (Hattie 2012; 251ff). You can find an older list of influences related to student achievement in Hattie (2009) Visible Learning. 1. Student Self-Reported Grades Self reported grades comes...Read more ›

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8 Strategies of Teacher Clarity (Marzano & Hattie)

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8 Strategies of Teacher Clarity (Marzano & Hattie)

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By Shaun Killian (MEd, MLead)
Robert Marzano and John Hattie have both reviewed the research on which teaching strategies work best. While they used different methods and terminology, they agreed on these 8 powerful strategies.

Strategy 1: A Clear Focus

John Hattie highlights how important it is for you (and your students) to be clear about what you want them to learn. According to Hattie, teacher clarity is one of the most potent influences on student achievement. Robert Marzano agrees! He includes lesson goals in his top 5 list of factors that affect how well students do at school.

Hattie states that lesson goals:

Clarify what you want your students to learn

Can focus on surface or deep learning (or both)

Must be challenging for the students relative to their current mastery of the topic

May be grouped (i.e. a single lesson may have more than one goal)

Need to be shared with the students

Marzano also found that posing questions at the start of a lesson is an effective way to focus students. For example:

How do you add mixed fractions with different denominators? That's what you must know by the end of this lesson.

What is the difference between elements and compounds?

Why is Persuasive Essay A better than Persuasive Essay B?

When (what period) were Egypt's great pyramids built?

Hattie suggests using questions in a slightly different way:
How To Set Lesson Goals To Boost Student Achievement

What are today's lesson goals?

What do I already know that will help me achieve these goals?

What actions will I need to do to ensure I achieve these goals?

Strategy 2: Offer Overt Instruction

Robert Marzano claims it is important to explicitly teach your students the things they need to learn. In fact, he found it was the most critical factor (teacher controlled) affecting students' success. You need to:

Tell them what they need to know

Show them how to do things they must be able to do for themselves.

John Hattie did not review explicit teaching per se, but he did find that Direct Instruction was very effective. Direct Instruction involves explicitly teaching a carefully sequenced curriculum. And, it has built-in cumulative practice.

Hattie also highlighted the power of giving students worked examples. More specifically, you should use worked examples when explaining how to multi-step tasks. Marzano also highlights the importance of providing examples and non-examples of the concept you are teaching. For example, when teaching prime numbers it would be useful to highlight:

2 as an example

9, 15 and 21 as non-examples

This helps to avoid confusion with odd numbers.

Marzano also found that you can explicitly teach deeper levels of understanding. How? By using graphic organisers. You should use graphic organisers to show how different ideas were related to each other. For example, you should use them to show steps, cause-effect, hierarchy, lists, comparisons, etc.

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Neither Hattie nor Marzano believes that great teaching is nothing more than standing out the front of the class and imparting knowledge. However, both agree that telling students what they need to know and showing students what they need to be able to do are essential aspects of teaching.

For an example of explicit teaching in context see the I Do, We Do, You Do model.

Strategy 3: Get the Students to Engage with the Content

You must teach students what they need to know and be able to do. But, it is also essential to get them to actively engage with the content.

Marzano and Hattie agree that this starts with students' prior knowledge. You need to help them link new information to their prior knowledge of the topic. Students need to engage with the content as soon as they hear it by:

Adding it to what they already know, or

Using it to clarify some of the faulty assumptions they currently hold

Engaging at the Surface Level

When students are relatively unfamiliar with what you are teaching, engagement strategies include:

Generating questions while reading

Taking and organising notes

Summarising

Rehearsal

Marzano also found getting them to work with physical manipulatives is helpful. And, he found that the simple act of asking students simple recall questions works well.

All these strategies are useful, but they only allow students to engage with the content at a surface level.

Engaging at a Deeper Level

Hattie and Marzano also found several ways for students to engage at a deeper level. These include exploring relationships between things using:

Marzano also recommends using analogies, such as:

Persuasive devices are to a writer what tools are to a tradie, or

The Magna Carta offered citizens what a referee offers a game of soccer

These are practical strategies that exemplify the higher levels of the SOLO taxonomy. This is an alternative to Bloom that Hattie advocates.

For further information, see 7 High-Impact Learning Strategies You Must Teach Your Students.

Strategy 4: Give Feedback

It is vital that you give your students feedback after they engage with any new material. This involves:
See How to Give Feedback to Students: The Advanced Guide

Highlighting what is right and wrong, or good and bad about their work

Helping students to see how they can improve

Robert Marzano found that you need to give your students feedback while they still have time to improve. John Hattie agreed with this but went further. He found that:
See The Value of Feedback Infographic

Novice or struggling students need immediate feedback

More experienced and capable students do better when they receive delayed feedback

Hattie also highlighted that feedback is a two-way street. Student results provide the basis for both feedback to:

Students on how they can improve

You on the impact your teaching is having

Strategy 5: Multiple Exposures

If you want students to internalize new information, you need to expose them to it several times.

Robert Marzano explored ways to enhance students' vocabulary. He found that it was critical for teachers to expose students to the same word multiple times.

John Hattie picks up on the significance of multiple exposures. He talks about the critical importance of techniques such as rehearsal and review.

Rehearsal means going over the material until you can remember it

Review involves going over things you have learned previously

He also stresses the merit of giving students time to practice doing the things they have learned to do. When spaced out over time, Hattie found that having students practice things led to a 26-percentile improvement in their marks.

On a more cautious note, Hattie warned that practice without feedback could be dangerous. Why? It leads to students internalizing the wrong things.

Strategy 6: Have Students Apply Their Knowledge

Robert Marzano found that helping students apply their knowledge deepens their understanding.

A Deductive Process

Knowledge application is a deductive process. Put another way, students apply general principles to specific case studies or problems. Marzano found that deductive thinking helps students to generalise their learning beyond the topic or task at hand. He advocates:

Teaching students how to think deductively

Giving them guided practice in doing so

Hattie confirmed that deductive processes are much more useful than inductive teaching (i.e. asking students to discover general principles from observing particular situations).

Problem-Solving

Knowledge application also involves problem-solving. Robert found that problem-solving had a significant effect (d = 0.54) on students' understanding. Marzano believes that problems should require students to apply previously learned knowledge and skills. Hattie agrees. When problem-solving is used in this way, Hattie found a similar effect size (d = 0.61) to Marzano. However, when a problem is used to stimulate discovery learning, the opposite is true (d = 0.15). Hattie also emphasized the importance of teaching students how to solve problems.

Strategy 7: Get Students Working Together

Robert Marzano and John Hattie agree that getting students to work together is a good idea. It helps them to achieve better results. The use of cooperative learning groups adds value to:

Whole-class instruction (d = 0.41)

Individual work (d = 0.59-0.78)

They also agree that inter-group competition can increase the effect of cooperative learning even more.

However, neither Marzano nor Hattie believes that cooperative learning should replace whole-class instruction. Nor should it replace individual learning activities.

Hattie highlights the importance of individual students' competence. If students haven't gained enough mastery of the material, they cannot actively participate in cooperative learning tasks.

Marzano adds that if students are to master what they are being taught, they also need opportunities for individual practice and feedback.

Finally, Marzano and Hattie agree that cooperative learning is only useful when you:

Structure it carefully

Keep groups small

Teach students how to work in groups

For further information, read Group Work That Works.

Strategy 8: Build Students' Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy refers to a student's belief about their ability to successfully complete a task. It is situation specific. For example, a student may feel confident that they can dance well on stage but be insecure about public speaking.

Hattie & Marzano both found that students' self-efficacy had a substantial impact on how well they did at school. Students who:

Believed they would master fractions were more likely to do so

Saw themselves as poor readers were less likely to improve their reading

Marzano found that you could build students' self-efficacy through praise and expressing your belief that they can do well. However, to be effective, such praise must:

Be genuine - i.e. only given when students have made a real improvement

Refer to specific accomplishments related to the task

As Carol Dweck noted, if you praise lavishly and liberally, you end up praising mediocrity. In turn, this sends a message that you believe that this is all they are capable of.

Hattie highlighted the reciprocal nature of the link between self-efficacy and achievement

Achieving genuine success influences self-efficacy

Self-efficacy influences success

Marzano & Hattie In a Nutshell

John Hattie and Robert Marzano have each conducted significant reviews of what works best in the classroom.

There are some apparent differences in their work.

They use different terminology to each other.

Marzano uses more isolated strategies, while Hattie combines strategies into broader approaches

Marzano's findings are based heavily on teacher-designed assessments. Yet Hattie's findings make more use of standardized tests

However, as you can see, there is significant agreement between Robert Marzano and John Hattie when it comes to what works best in the classroom.
Updated December 2016
References

John Hattie. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement.

John Hattie & Gregory Donoghue. (2016). Learning Strategies: A Synthesis and Conceptual Model.

Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering & Jane Pollock. (2001). Classroom Instruction That Works.
[+Ceri Dean, Elizabeth Hubbell, Howard Pitler & BJ Stone. (2012). Classroom Instruction That Works. (updated)]

Robert Marzano & Debra Pickering. (2010). The Highly Engaged Classroom.

Robert Marzano & Mark Haystead. (2009). Meta-Analytic Synthesis of Studies Conducted at Marzano Research Laboratory on Instructional Strategies.

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Marzano & Hattie Agree on These 8 Strategies

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By Shaun Killian (MEd, MLead) Robert Marzano and John Hattie have both reviewed the research on which teaching strategies work best. While they used different methods and terminology, they agreed on these 8 powerful strategies. John Hattie highlights how important it is for you (and your students) to be clear about what you want them to learn.