Evidence Based Teaching #DfEEBT

Thursday evening was spent in the company of some very accomplished and highly qualified researchers, who also happen to be teachers. One of four regional meetings (London,   Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham) hosted by Dr Kay Graham and Rachel Morris – Improving Teacher Quality Division, Dept. of Education, it was the Departments’ second effort to engage with the teaching community (this much they outlined). Though this was a more rustic collection of research / education enthusiasts, and I mean that with the utmost respect, it was a late-in-the-term Thursday evening after all.

Dr Kay Graham summarized the Departments rational and interest in Evidence Based Teaching (EBT), explaining why, rather suitably, with a medical analogy (‘similes and analogies’ sit in pole position at the top of the EBT top ten methods for effective teaching, care of Robert Marzano’s Classroom Instruction that Works.)

The aim, a worthy one, to make teaching more evidence based and resistant to the peddled educational quackery the likes of which Tom Bennett so eloquently denounces and David Didau critically lambasts – eg Thinking Hats, learning styles and brain gym. My only unease is that I remain unsure as to whether teaching is in fact an art or a science? And does backing EBT suggest more of the later?

What soon become apparent on Thursday evening is that EBT applied to a broad range of education improvement themes, teacher training, professional development, teaching practice, school leadership, and that the place of class based, small scale action research seemed to be… somewhat devalued. I think as researchers we understood why, however those involved in teacher development know how powerful it can be.

We left the meeting with numerous unanswered questions, hardly surprising given our penchant for discovery and research, and a yellow hat (benefits) full of new twitter colleagues. The cost? Most of Friday I was running on empty, a midweek parents evening and not getting home much before 10pm, and a to do list, still to do.

If you are interested in driving change through quantitative evidence, join the EBT conversation on Twitter #DfEEBT, keep an eye out for any ResearchED 2014 news, browse over the Education Endowment Foundation pages. If you are less inclined, that please consider the following question.

Consider those precious few minutes today that you had to catch your breath and chat with colleagues? During those precious few minutes did pause, reflect and choose to discuss ways in which to improve your teaching? Or were you embroiled in discussion about deadlines, policy or targets? (What is the evidence for the use of target grades to raise academic achievement?)

If you still are not interested, or still making up your mind, why don;t you experiment with a handful of these suggestions.

Then there is teacher-researchers that tweet.

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