Teaching strategies that really benefit teachers to be effective and those teaching strategies that are not too taxing for teachers to implement in the classroom?
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In general we can see statistically significant predictors: the Self-Regulation Component (e.g., time management) and Will Component (e.g., self-discipline). For this group of underprepared students, results show that personal factors can play a significant role in academic success. This two predictors are closely connected to academic self-efficacy.
And self efficacy is related to expectations and self-perception beyond IQ or culture. Therefore fostering this persnal factors (expectation, hope, willingness and others) is animportant key.
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This is wonderful, I will begin to review the literature and work through them - this is excellent - thank you so much for taking time to put these together.
Are they works that particularly deal with primary and secondary school studetnts?
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4. Cueto, S., Guerrero, G., Leon, J., Zapata, M., & Freire, S. (2014). The relationship between socioeconomic status at age one, opportunities to learn and achievement in mathematics in fourth grade in Peru. Oxford Review of Education, 40(1), 50-72.
Thank you for your reference - I looked up them now - but I am trying to explore a logarithm that can show variance and account for how and what variables are directly related to showing how teachers benefit and how we conceptualize it
Dr J F. In Australia, Low SES students are mainly characterised by poor protoacademic skills. That is, they have not received the family input that develops such things as preparation for reading, writing and numeracy in particular nd consequently are at a disadvantage from the start of school. From 2000 to 2005, I conducted an action research project at a large urban high school drawing a large proportion of low SES students. I had been teaching at that school for 10 years previously and devoped the thesis that these students had disengaged from school at an early age mainly because, having started school at a disadvantage, they were consequently labelled as 'poor achievers' and had accepted the label and given up. My research was to adapt curriculum, assessment, reporting and pedagogy so as to maximise focus on improvement rather than absolute achievement. Over the 5 years, there was reasonable evidence that reframing schooling to focus on each student's relative success increased engagement. Interestingly it did so for the higher achievers as well as the lower.
So the intervention was to reframe what happened in the classroom to explicitly rebuild students' self efficacy. and it worked! A detailed description of the project is in my publications.
Thank you for your response. We also followed Waldrip et al work with regard some of what you have suggested.
I guess my question in particular is - when you say that you have "adapt"/ed curriculum, assessment, reporting and pedagogy - what variance do these account for - and what changes in what factor led to what outcomes -
I agree with you that "reframing" research does provide positive improvement/s at many levels - but again to what extent this can be generalized and to what extent is this sustainable.
I have also worked in LOW SES schools in outer parts of QLD but the same argument holds - that teacher based interventions do show episodic improvements - but to what extent these are sustainable for the cohort or the students again is not clear
Unfortunately Dr J-F, you are correct. Sustainability is the issue.
To respond to your first question - At the time of the action research, I thought that Outcomes based education was going to become the basis for the next many years and my action research was intended to test ways to get more from the new approach. I was not looking for data to test the approach so my 'experiment' was very poorly designed. What I can say is that what I did made a difference, particularly for those who had already decided that they were 'failures' at school. It appeared, and I stress 'appeared', that changing to measuring and reporting improvement rather than performance was the factor that allowed both teachers and students to think of success differently and, in a nutshell, realise that success could be defined as 'improvement through effort', which consequently changed their self efficacy beliefs.
Since that time however, politics has undone what could have been a valuable paradigm shift in schooling and so some of what I did has been lost. For the last 10 years, I have been experimenting with how the original ideas could be integrated with the extant paradigm, with limited success. My conclusion is that sustainability is of two types.
1. That which is built into the system. In other words a paradigm shift forced on teachers by the system itself. I still hope for that, and the latest work by Geoff Masters of ACER COULD lead to this in the future.
2. That which is built into the learners DESPITE the system. This is unfortunately ad-hoc and limited but better than nothing.
My experience of the transition from Outcomes Based education back to the 'traditional' showed that changes can't be maintained in the face of systemic pressures. Most teachers will fit their beliefs to the systemic paradigm. I have however seen some evidence of the second type of sustainability. Through my work (and others') I have seen students change their beliefs, and become more positive about success. In the face of the extant system, it is as I pointed out, inconsistent. Some change and some don't.
In essence for sustainable change, there must be systemic change. It doesn't need to be major but it must be profound. I think that one change suggested by ACER, to measure improvement rather than performance COULD provide the basis for the profound shift necessary for sustainable improvement.
To add to what I was saying, the second form of sustainability is still possible but it is more difficult to achieve because both teachers and students have to change beliefs in the face of a system that sends the opposite messages. The system needs to be changed. Having made the change once, I do not think the change is difficult, but it must be supported with PD and be maintained for some years because personal beliefs take time and evidence to change. I have changed teahers' beliefs twice now. Once back in 2000 when the system was more supportive and since then, once more in the face of a dysfunctional system. The latter was MUCH more difficult to achieve and maintain. PS Andrew Martin's work on Personal Best reflects the same issues, using a 'bolt on' approach. It works, but not as well as it could if the system was consistent with the psychology of self efficacy.