Professional DevelopmentLeading a Collaborative Enquiry

The Plan…In pairs or trios, teachers lead an enquiry

on an aspect of pedagogy they want to develop.

Focus on a specific cohort.Focus on gathering evidence of the

impact of our practice on pupils’ learning.

Collaborative planning, observing, recording, reflecting, tweaking, reviewing, evaluating…

EMBEDDING what works.Sharing and DISSEMINATING.

The PlanMaking use of the Monday CPD

sessions for this purpose.

Working in clusters with a mentor – regular input and discussion & planning time.

“Every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better.”

Dylan Wiliam

Research suggests that the impact of teachers on students’ outcomes plateaus after a few years. We need to challenge ourselves to deliberately seek improvements in our practice.

Disadvantaged student

Average student

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6

Effect of teaching on students in years of progress

Poor teaching

Highly ef-fective teaching

Source: Sutton Trust (2011)

Why are we doing this?

Better teachers improve the life chances of students.

Genuine expertise

Soundbite

knowledge

The problem with continuous professional development is that the continuous bit is too often missing.

Research shows that only 1% of CPD has a transformative impact on classroom practice.

But teachers can lead a transformation themselves through deliberate practice and collaboration.

Ends…as much as meansStart by identifying a specific

group of pupils who are supposed to benefit and pick an area of learning to develop and then choose an approach.

Think of ways of evaluating impact from the start.

Enquiry QuestionsRefining and identifying cohort.Sharing.

GROUP MEMBERS

ENQUIRY QUESTION

FOCUS COHORT

Range of evaluation

Evaluating the impact of our practice

FORMATIVE AND SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT

TEACHER’S OWN OBSERVATIONS – NOTES, PHOTOS OF WORK PRODUCED, USE OF STAR CAMERA

TEAM MEMBERS’ OBSERVATIONS AND COMMENTS

OTHER STATS eg attendance figures, number of comments/detentions/merits in contact bookQUALITY OF HOMEWORK AND CLASSWORK, INCLUDING PARTICIPATION / CONTRIBUTIONS

POST LESSON INTERVIEWS WITH FOCUS PUPILS

GETTING A BASELINE FIRST?

Choose an Enquiry question / goal

Design your evaluation

Investigate the issue, get a baseline

Plan and try an interventionInterim review & expert

input/researchRefine your intervention

Finish evaluation

Write a summary

Dissemination & Sharing

Set up

Enquiry, throughLesson Study

Complete your

evaluation

THE PROCESS

Guidance Framework

1. Plan• Plan a lesson together. • Address each activity to your

Learning Goal and predict how pupils will react and how you will assess this.

• Pick 3 case pupils.

3. Reflect & Plan• As soon after the lesson as

possible, reflect how each activity elicited the sought-after change. Were your predictions correct? Why?

2. Observe• Teach the lesson with your

colleagues observing.• Pay particular attention to the

case pupils• Conduct any assessments

and/or interviews during & after.

Example: Lesson Study

FOCUS ON THE STUDENTS, NOT THE TEACHER

EvaluationImportant

to start with evaluation in mind.

What barriers can you foresee and what possible solutions can you suggest?

From Hunting English blog

Planning time

Next steps…

Next Monday CPD session: 2nd December

Enquiry should have started in order to fuel the next discussion / planning / reflection session.

Further reading and guidance

Please feel free to ask for specific reading on your chosen topic.

If you would like to find out about strategies used by colleagues from other schools, let me know.