Transcript Project Overview - Australian Institute for Teaching and

Mapping the territory:
Advanced Standards for Teaching
Lawrence Ingvarson
Research Director: Teaching and Learning Program
The meaning of “standard”
Two facets:
1. Standards as emblems or rallying points
2. Standards as exemplars or measures
The meaning of teaching
standards
Two facets:
•
What we value in teaching
•
What teachers should know and be able to do
to promote quality learning opportunities
What should teachers get better at?
Teaching standards embody the professional values
that teachers develop over time
Professional learning
Experience
What should teachers get better at?
•
•
•
•
•
Deeper understanding of content from the learner’s point of
view
Deeper knowledge, awareness of students as individuals
Capacity to provide useful feedback
Learning how to let your authority “go” and promote
independent thinking and learning
Ability to make assessment a vehicle for student learning
Effective professional learning = Long-term, personal quest
ASTA Standard 6. Highly accomplished
teachers of science engage students in
scientific inquiry
Highly accomplished teachers of science actively
involve students in a wide range of scientific
investigations . . . .
They both teach and model practices that allow their
students to approach knowledge and experiences
critically, recognise problems, ask questions and
pose solutions. Their teaching reflects both the
excitement and challenge of scientific endeavour and
its distinctive rigour. . . .
Standards as measures:
Three essential components
1.
What is to be measured (what is
accomplished teaching)?
2.
How will it be measured (what
evidence is valid/relevant?)
3.
What counts as meeting the standard?
Components of a set of standards
What to
measure
How to
measure
How to
score
What teachers
should know and
be able to do
Tasks or exercises
that provide
evidence of a
teachers’ practice
and thinking
Evaluation criteria to
identify accomplished/
non-accomplished
teachers
What to measure
Subjectmatter
knowledge
Pedagogical
content
knowledge
Knowledge
of
students
• Fundamental
ideas in science
• Epistemology of
science
• Knowledge of
topics/ concepts/
skills in the area
(e.g., physics,
biology)
• Recognition of
aspects of the
content that will
be likely to pose
the greatest
difficulties for
students
• Anticipation of
persistent
preconceptions,
misconceptions,
or difficulties
that are likely to
inhibit learning
• Master of
different
techniques that
are adapted to
students’
background and
abilities
• Knowing who
their students
are - prior
beliefs, needs,
attitudes, second
language, etc.
• Continue to
expand the
understanding of
their students
throughout the
year
• Understand the
students’
differences in
social and
cultural
backgrounds
Knowledge of
classroom
teaching and
management
• Creating routines
for recurring
classroom
activities
• Use of tools of
explanations
(e.g., examples,
analogies)
• Keep the class
going - pacing time (e.g.,
avoiding
classroom
inertia)
Affective
• Conception of
general aims of
education and
their ground
• Conception of
their role in the
teachinglearning process
• Views about
individual
differences and
styles of learning
National Board for Professional
Teaching Standards (NBPTS)
Mission:
To establish high and rigorous standards
for what accomplished teachers should
know and be able to do, to develop and
operate a national voluntary system to
assess and certify teachers who meet
these standards
Principles underpinning the
NBPTS standards
:
•
Teachers are committed to their students and their
learning.
•
Teachers know the subjects they teach, and how to
teach those subjects to students
•
Teachers are responsible for managing and
monitoring student learning.
•
Teachers think systematically about their practice and
learn from experience
•
Teachers are active members of learning
communities
NBPTS: Questions for Standards
Committees
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What makes your teaching field unique from other
fields?
What are major issues of your field – past, present
and future?
Describe features of accomplished teaching in your
field?
Describe the different contexts in which teachers in
your field work. How do these contexts affect their
approach?
How do accomplished teachers in your field address
issues of - diversity? ESL? Technology?
An example of NBPTS standards structure:
High School Science
Domain 1: Preparing the way
Domain 2: Establishing a
for productive student learning favorable context for learning
•Understanding students
•Knowledge of science
•Instructional Resources
•Engagement
•Learning environment
•Equitable participation
Domain 4: Supporting
teaching and learning
Domain 3: Advancing
student learning
•Assessment
•Family and community outreach
•Contributing to the profession
•Reflective practice
•Science inquiry
•Expanding fundamental
understandings
•Contexts of science
Characteristics of “well written”
standards
•
Neither too general nor overly prescriptive
• Rest on sound research and wisdom of
practice
• Tied to a clear/comprehensive vision of the
goals of education for students
• Focus on critical and observable aspects of
accomplished practice
ASTA National Science Standards
Guidelines for Consultation Feedback
1. Coherence
2. Validity
3. Difficulty
4. Language/Clarity
5. Assessability
6. Professional development
7. Non-Prescriptive
8. Context Independent
National Board for Professional
Teaching Standards
Assessment Structure:
•
Portfolio (four tasks)
•
Assessment Centre (six tasks)
Middle Childhood/Generalist
(Age Range: Students 7-12)
Exercise 1: Supporting Reading Skills
Teachers will demonstrate their ability to
analyse and interpret student errors and
patterns of errors in reading. Teachers will be
asked to analyse and interpret a transcript of
a given student's oral reading of a given
passage. Teachers will also be asked to
identify and justify appropriate strategies to
address the identified student's needs.
National Board for Professional
Teaching Standards
Portfolio:
4 Entries
•
3 Classroom Exercises
1 based on samples of student work
2 based on videotapes of classroom
practices
•
1 based on documented accomplishments
outside the classroom
Contributions to profession and school
community
Criteria for valid assessment of
accomplished practice
Assessment tasks must:
•
•
•
allow for the variety of forms sound practice takes,
sample the range of ways teachers know their content, and
provide appropriate contexts for assessments of teaching
knowledge and skill.
The most valid teacher assessment processes engage candidates
in the activities of teaching - activities that require the display
and use of teaching knowledge and skill and that allow teachers
the opportunity to explain and justify their actions.
Examples of portfolio entries for
primary teachers
1. Provide evidence of a unit of work, with student writing
samples, in which you have developed student’s
writing ability over time
2. Provide evidence, through a videotape, written
commentary, and student work samples, of how you
have help build students’ mathematical understanding
Knowledge of
students
Ability to reflect
insightfully on
effectiveness of
their teaching
Knowledge of
science
Ability to plan
for effective learning
ASTA entry:
Teaching a major idea in
science over time
Ability to assess
student progress
and provide
helpful feedback
Ability to engage students
in a sequence of learning
activities
The Idea of a Standards-Guided
Professional Learning System
Main components:
•
Profession-defined standards that describe effective teaching
and provide goals for professional development over the long
term
•
An infrastructure for professional learning that enables
teachers to gain the knowledge and skill embodied in the
standards
•
A voluntary system of professional certification based on valid
evidence that the standards have been attained
•
Career paths that provide incentives and recognition for
teachers who gain certification
A Standards Guided Professional Learning System
Emerging Career Structure
Knowledge and skill-based salary
Salary
Highly Accomplished
Accomplished
Registration
Evidence of
Professional Development
Professional
certification
Professional Certification
- an endorsement a professional body gives to a
member who has attained a specified set of
performance standards
It is:
• available to all members of the profession
• based on assessment of performance; it is not an
academic qualification
• Portable and belongs to the person (not a job or
position or classification specific to a school or
employer)
Quality assurance in teaching
and school leadership
Ministerial/Managerial
accountability/leadership
Professional
accountability/leadership
Quality assurance in teaching
Ministerial/Managerial responsibility
Performance
Management
Selection
Qualification
Teacher education
Induction
Registration
Continuing
professional
development
Professional responsibility
Professional
certification
Teachers’ views of the NBPTS
certification process
(Sample: 10,000 teachers 2001)
•
the certification process had made them better teachers
(92%),

was an effective professional development experience
(96%),

equipped them to create better curricula (89%),

improved their ability to evaluate student learning (89%),

enhanced their interaction with students (82%), parents
(82%) and colleagues (80%).
“The National Board Certification process was by far the best professional
development I have been involved in. I did not realise how much I still needed to
learn about impacting student learning. I learned so much through hours of
analysing and reflecting.”
“I gained valuable insight of myself as a teacher. The process helped me to assess
my teaching abilities as no administrator could have. Most importantly, my students
benefit from my self-improvement.”
“Working with other teachers in my school who were also working on certification
was rewarding”
“It was the hardest thing I have ever done and it is something I am so glad that I
tried. I am immensely proud of the work I turned in – even if I did not make the
needed grade. It has made me a better teacher and colleague.”
Why should teachers get involved in
developing their own standards-guided
professional learning system?
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To demonstrate professional credentials
To gain more control over PD system
To engage most teacher in effective PD
To place more value on good teaching
To provide credible recognition to teachers
who attain high standards of practice
To provide quality assurance functions that
employers and schools can not provide
Trends in the development of teaching
standards
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
They are developed by teachers themselves
They aim to capture substantive knowledge about teaching and
learning – what teachers really need to know and be able to do to
promote learning of important subject matter.
They are performance-based. They describe what teachers should
know and be able to do rather than listing courses that teachers
should take
They conceive of teachers’ work as the application of expertise and
values to non-routine tasks. Assessment strategies need to be
capable of capturing teachers’ reasoned judgements and what they
actually do in authentic teaching situations.
Assessment of performance in the light of teaching standards is
becoming a primary tool for on-going professional learning
Teachers and the NBPTS
Teachers form the majority of the Board of
Directors
Teachers form the majority of NBPTS
standards committees.
Teachers work on the NBPTS staff.
Teachers have staff positions with NBPTS
contractors.
Teachers score assessment exercises and set
performance standards
Good teaching does not come through imposed
requirements but through the individual
teachers’ commitment to high professional
standards. The important changes needed in
teaching are those that teachers must make
for themselves. They are not changes that
governments can mandate or unions can
achieve through their industrial activities.
(The way) to revitalize teaching is to make it
possible for teachers to draw on the deep
well of their own professionalism. (Ramsey,
2000, p 7)
It’s your profession