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Episode #1 Pilot: Demolishing Thinking Classrooms · When Will They Learn?

0:06
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to When Will They Learn?
0:08
SPEAKER_00: My name is Greg Ashman.
0:10
SPEAKER_02: And I'm Katie Wade.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: And Katie, how do we know each other?
0:14
SPEAKER_02: So Greg and I go way, way back.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: So we have worked together at Ballarat Clarendon College.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: But even before that, Greg was actually my teacher for year 11 physics.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think you were accelerating, Katie.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: So I think you were doing year three, four in year 11.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: True, true.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: So year 11 physics in, oh, year 12 physics in year 11.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's correct.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: So, and you're up in Brisbane.
0:36
I'm still at Ballarat Clarendon College doing my thing and
0:39
you're now up in Brisbane.
0:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
0:41
so I've moved up to Brisbane middle of last year and I've
0:44
started work at a boys
0:45
SPEAKER_02: secondary school up here.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: And how's it going?
0:49
SPEAKER_02: It's good.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: I absolutely love it.
0:50
I'm lucky to get to come in and do my favourite thing every
0:53
single day as part of my work.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Pretty good, isn't it?
0:56
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the things that I like about my job is it's also one of my,
1:01
SPEAKER_00: well,
1:01
SPEAKER_00: it's my main interest as well.
1:03
It makes me a bit sad,
1:03
I suppose,
1:04
but it does mean that I enjoy what I do.
1:08
Okay,
1:09
so we are going to talk about some things that we have been
1:12
reading.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: I say reading,
1:13
SPEAKER_00: but the first thing we're going to talk about is actually a podcast,
1:17
SPEAKER_00: but I read the transcript rather than listen to the podcast.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: And it is of The Balance by Dr. Caitlin Tucker.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: And she is interviewing one Peter...
1:31
SPEAKER_00: Lil Jadal, I think you say Lil Jadal.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if the J is pronounced.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: And it's about building thinking classrooms,
1:41
SPEAKER_00: building thinking classrooms,
1:42
which is this approach to teaching mathematics that is taking
1:47
the world by storm,
1:48
SPEAKER_00: I would suggest,
1:49
SPEAKER_00: Katie,
1:49
SPEAKER_00: by storm.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: There are Facebook groups.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: There's an Australian building thinking classroom.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: It's got a following.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Australian Building Thinking Classrooms Facebook group.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: And there are things associated with it,
2:01
SPEAKER_00: like vertical non-permanent surfaces,
2:05
SPEAKER_00: which basically means,
2:06
SPEAKER_00: as far as I understand it,
2:07
SPEAKER_00: writing on the walls.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: But they have to be everywhere.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
2:11
You've got to put whiteboards on the walls or whiteboard paint
2:14
on the walls.
2:16
But I found this podcast that I read quite illuminating because
2:21
I didn't know Peter
2:23
SPEAKER_00: Liljadal's origin story,
2:26
SPEAKER_00: which is quite an interesting one.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: But before we get to that,
2:30
I would like to say some of the things that he talks about in
2:35
this podcast that I
2:36
SPEAKER_00: find myself actually agreeing with.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: So I don't think...
2:42
I don't think that – it's not a simple case of this being
2:48
completely wrong.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: I resonated with some of the problems that Lil Jadal faced,
2:54
and he almost at times grasped towards what I would consider
2:59
some of the solutions
3:00
SPEAKER_00: to those problems.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: And he's also very clear that unlike maybe some –
3:07
SPEAKER_00: for want of a better word, constructivist maths teachers.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: So this idea that students have to kind of construct their own knowledge.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: At one point,
3:16
SPEAKER_00: I think he uses the classic line,
3:19
SPEAKER_00: and I'm going to not be able to find it now,
3:21
SPEAKER_00: but something like knowledge builders rather than...
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Being a passive receiver of knowledge to an active creator of knowledge.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's classic constructivism.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: And so he's got that kind of approach,
3:34
but he recognizes that you can't just throw kids into difficult
3:38
problems because
3:39
SPEAKER_00: they'll just get very frustrated.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: And so quite sensibly,
3:42
SPEAKER_00: he recognizes that if you're going to pursue this approach,
3:46
SPEAKER_00: you need to give them a sense of success,
3:49
SPEAKER_00: which I agree with.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: I would probably go a bit harder on that and for a bit longer.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: And he also says don't grade homework.
3:57
And I totally agree with that because there's absolutely no
4:00
point grading homework
4:01
SPEAKER_00: because you don't even know whether the student's done it.
4:03
I'm not quite sure I agree on his purpose of homework,
4:08
which he's checking for understanding.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: I view it as practice.
4:12
And so you should already know how to do the things that you're
4:15
practicing.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: That's how I would view homework.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: But I agree that you shouldn't grade it.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the origin story.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: So as I understand it,
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Kate,
4:25
SPEAKER_00: and you might be able to fill me in,
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Peter Liljadal is teaching maths,
4:30
SPEAKER_00: calculus,
4:31
SPEAKER_00: to...
4:34
to not the top students,
4:36
he's keen to tell us,
4:38
at 7am in the morning in a portable classroom.
4:44
And he writes a question on the board and asks them to talk to
4:49
the person next to each other.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: They say nothing.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: So he goes out to the parking lot, the car park, and...
4:58
SPEAKER_00: watches them through the window and they don't talk to each other.
5:00
So he comes back in and says,
5:02
give me something,
5:03
anything,
5:03
and they don't give him anything.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: And so he abandons the lesson.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and he just walks out.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: He just says, that's it, done, done here.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: And then two days later, he...
5:14
SPEAKER_00: He has another go, and they still don't give him anything, do they?
5:19
SPEAKER_02: No, no, they don't.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: And then eventually he figures out...
5:22
SPEAKER_00: He just sort of keeps coming up with excuses to leave the room.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: He goes into the parking lot again,
5:28
and eventually he figures out that they don't know how to do
5:33
the question,
5:34
SPEAKER_00: which I would have thought...
5:37
SPEAKER_00: would have become clear earlier than that point.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: That's what I would have thought.
5:44
SPEAKER_02: It feels obvious.
5:45
If they're sat there quietly,
5:46
I would go,
5:47
you know,
5:47
I suspect they don't know how to do this.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: But it's this whole...
5:54
SPEAKER_00: So I've actually read...
5:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you have,
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Katie,
5:58
SPEAKER_00: but it's a book,
6:00
SPEAKER_00: Building Thinking Classrooms,
6:01
SPEAKER_00: came out a few years ago.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: And it's really interesting.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: I would say...
6:07
SPEAKER_00: There's an interesting... And I don't think this is conscious.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: I never think people do this consciously.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: But essentially, he plays a bit of a trick on us.
6:15
So if I stand at the front of the classroom and show you how to
6:19
do something and
6:20
SPEAKER_00: then you do it,
6:23
SPEAKER_00: that's mimicking and it's not thinking.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: So the only way, by his definition...
6:31
kids can meet to be thinking according to his definition of
6:35
thinking is essentially
6:37
SPEAKER_00: to engage in some kind of discovery learning problem solving.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: So therefore,
6:43
SPEAKER_00: when you flip that around,
6:44
SPEAKER_00: the only way kids can be thinking is to engage in problem solving.
6:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, it's stuff they don't know.
6:51
SPEAKER_02: That's sort of his condition.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:53
So then the research he does on whether the kids are thinking
6:56
or not is basically a
6:57
SPEAKER_00: proxy for whether they're doing problem solving or not.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: And so,
7:02
SPEAKER_00: of course,
7:02
he's going to find that problem solving activities involve them
7:05
doing problem
7:06
SPEAKER_00: solving.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: And so that involves them thinking.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: And so problem solving activities promote thinking.
7:11
And explicit teaching,
7:13
well,
7:13
that makes them engage in mimicking,
7:16
which isn't thinking.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:17
And so therefore,
7:19
the explicit teaching activities do not promote thinking.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: And so by defining thinking in this way,
7:25
it sort of gets you to the constructivist outcome that you kind
7:31
of wanted to get to
7:32
SPEAKER_00: in the first place.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: What did you think about that?
7:35
It is wild to say that in a lesson,
7:38
and let's assume it's an explicit instruction lesson.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: I've shown them to do something.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: The students do it.
7:42
SPEAKER_02: It is wild to say that they're not thinking in that moment.
7:46
SPEAKER_02: There is no way you can walk into a year 12 maths classroom,
7:50
SPEAKER_02: show them how to do something,
7:51
SPEAKER_02: watch them struggle through something they've just seen you do,
7:54
SPEAKER_02: and say,
7:54
SPEAKER_02: oh,
7:55
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
7:55
SPEAKER_02: but they weren't thinking when they did it.
7:57
SPEAKER_02: They just copied you.
7:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: And we know that there's so much more to it than that.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: I think it was,
8:01
SPEAKER_02: for me,
8:02
SPEAKER_02: it was this constantly going back to this sort of,
8:05
SPEAKER_02: and I want to say implication,
8:07
SPEAKER_02: but he really says,
8:08
SPEAKER_02: students don't think in a typical lesson.
8:11
SPEAKER_02: And if they're copying, they're not thinking.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: Yes,
8:15
SPEAKER_00: and I've written,
8:16
SPEAKER_00: like,
8:16
in the margin on the whole story about the whole parking lot
8:20
and the portable,
8:20
SPEAKER_00: I've just written,
8:21
SPEAKER_00: teach them!
8:22
SPEAKER_00: Exclamation mark, exclamation mark.
8:24
SPEAKER_02: I did add in child safety, oh my, as a note.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: Don't leave your class.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Do not leave your class.
8:33
Whether you say you're going to go and do photocopying or not,
8:37
it's not advisable.
8:39
I also thought that in that anecdote,
8:41
he kind of edges towards explicit teaching.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: So he says at one point,
8:46
I started tinkering with things like getting the kids working
8:48
at their whiteboards.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: And I started playing with different things.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: I started doing take-home exams and things like this.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's sort of...
8:56
SPEAKER_00: This is what I mean.
8:57
He kind of inches his way towards what I would probably call
9:02
interactive explicit teaching.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: But then veers off in this quite madcap and zany fashion.
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SPEAKER_00: So the whole trope that classrooms,
9:18
SPEAKER_00: so he talks about classrooms,
9:19
SPEAKER_00: they look a lot like they did 170 years ago.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: Ah, that one, yep.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's bad.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: That's just automatically bad.
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SPEAKER_00: It's just bad out of principle.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: In principle, bad.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Nothing should look like it did 170 years ago.
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SPEAKER_00: So out go bicycles,
9:36
SPEAKER_00: out go fountain pens,
9:38
SPEAKER_00: out go umbrellas,
9:40
SPEAKER_00: because these all look like they did 170 years ago.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: The...
9:45
SPEAKER_00: The reality is that if something looks like it did 170 years ago,
9:48
then that tells you that that's probably quite a good design
9:51
because otherwise it
9:53
SPEAKER_00: would have altered.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: It wouldn't have endured.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it wouldn't have endured.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: And it got me thinking about Chesterton's Fence.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're familiar with Chesterton's Fence.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: So this is the idea that G.K.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton,
10:06
SPEAKER_00: he says,
10:07
SPEAKER_00: reformers come along,
10:08
SPEAKER_00: reformers of whatever kind,
10:10
SPEAKER_00: political reformers,
10:11
SPEAKER_00: educational reformers,
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
10:14
And they see a fence in a field and they go,
10:17
I can't see the purpose of the fence.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Let's get rid of it.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: This is Peter Liljadal's approach, isn't it?
10:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
10:23
at one point he tells a story about how he gets rid of all the
10:26
furniture in the
10:27
SPEAKER_00: classroom,
10:27
SPEAKER_00: gets rid of it.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Just get rid of it.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: Get rid of all the furniture.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And the teachers hate it and the kids hate it,
10:35
SPEAKER_00: but it completely changes the classroom dynamics,
10:37
SPEAKER_00: which is good,
10:38
SPEAKER_00: but obviously you've got to work with the teachers in the end,
10:40
SPEAKER_00: so he ended up putting some of the furniture back.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: But, yeah, just get rid of it all.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: That's his approach.
10:45
If Peter Liljadal sees a fence that he can't see a purpose for,
10:49
he gets rid of it.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Whereas Chesterton would say that the sensible reformer,
10:55
SPEAKER_00: sees the fence in the field and doesn't see what it's for and decides,
11:01
SPEAKER_00: well,
11:01
I better go away and have a bit of a think about what it's for
11:04
because until I
11:05
SPEAKER_00: understand what that fence is doing,
11:08
SPEAKER_00: I can't get rid of it.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: And that whole section on, you know,
11:14
SPEAKER_00: just reforming classrooms,
11:16
SPEAKER_00: just throwing things out there,
11:17
SPEAKER_00: just getting rid of the furniture,
11:20
SPEAKER_00: moving things around,
11:21
SPEAKER_00: annoying the teachers,
11:22
SPEAKER_00: annoying the students.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: And he's got this whole thing, isn't it?
11:25
SPEAKER_00: There's four things that front a room?
11:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's where the teacher stands, the whiteboard.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: It's the desk.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think desk is where the teacher stands, the projector screen.
11:38
The projector screen,
11:39
all these things front the room,
11:41
which is bad for some reason.
11:43
So a room having a front to it is a bad thing because rooms
11:48
have been having fronts
11:49
SPEAKER_00: to them for 170 years.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't be having classrooms with fronts to them.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: Can't have fronts to classrooms.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: You can't get rid of all of these four things that front the room.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: So you need to get rid of one or two of them, you know, because...
12:08
Because reasons and it'll all be great and we change the way
12:12
kids think and we'll
12:12
SPEAKER_00: get them thinking and how they interact and all that sort of stuff.
12:15
So I thought that was kind of interesting and a bit of an
12:20
insight into the kind of
12:26
SPEAKER_00: radical approach that he's taking.
12:29
It's almost like he has to pick apart every single part of what
12:34
I'd call an
12:35
SPEAKER_02: explicit instruction lesson or an active explicit instruction.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: It felt unnecessary to attack the furniture.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: It certainly did.
12:45
We haven't talked about Dr.
12:46
Caitlin Tucker,
12:47
and she's the person that's interviewing her.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: She's obviously very impressed with Peter Liljadal.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: And then she tells a little anecdote about how,
12:57
in response to all this business about furniture and fronting
13:00
the room and all this
13:01
SPEAKER_00: sort of stuff,
13:02
about how she decided that she woke up one day and she was very
13:08
much against
13:09
SPEAKER_00: teacher desks,
13:10
SPEAKER_00: just really opposed to them.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: And so she decided to get rid of her teacher desk, just get rid of it.
13:15
And she was going to take a student's desk and put wheels on
13:18
the bottom and then
13:20
just scoot around and sit next to various students and help
13:24
them as they were
13:24
SPEAKER_00: working problems.
13:25
And then when people would visit a classroom to give students
13:28
notes and that,
13:29
SPEAKER_00: they didn't know where the teacher was.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: And this was all marvellous.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: I just thought that was quite an interesting insight as well.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: I just, again, I question the practicality.
13:37
SPEAKER_02: As someone who's,
13:38
SPEAKER_02: you know,
13:39
SPEAKER_02: spent my day in a classroom,
13:40
I would question the practicality of me on a wheelie chair or a
13:43
wheelie desk moving
13:45
SPEAKER_02: around the room to talk to students.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: Like if I want to talk to a student, I walk over to that student.
13:49
Well,
13:49
what he gives you an insight into is I think the way I would
13:55
teach is very –
13:59
SPEAKER_00: whole class explicit teaching.
14:01
SPEAKER_02: You're not saying in front of the room, are you?
14:03
SPEAKER_02: Because that's bad.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: We know that.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's bad.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: But I would be misguided, fool as I am.
14:10
I would be stood at the front of the room and I would be
14:13
teaching the whole class
14:15
SPEAKER_00: and I'd be getting them to hold their mini whiteboards up constantly.
14:17
Because I think one thing that people misunderstand about
14:20
explicit teaching is that
14:21
SPEAKER_00: it's a kind of a lecture class.
14:23
And I've been insisting on them contributing and holding their
14:27
mini whiteboards up
14:28
SPEAKER_00: with their answers and all this sort of stuff.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: But I think that there are cultural differences here.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: For a start,
14:35
I wonder the extent to which North American teachers feel
14:39
empowered to insist on
14:41
SPEAKER_00: things.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: So there seems to me to be a lot of...
14:46
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't say pandering,
14:47
SPEAKER_00: that's a very negative word,
14:48
SPEAKER_00: but responsiveness to what the students want.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: And so if the students don't want to give an answer, they don't.
14:55
Or if the students ask a question,
14:57
they feel that...
14:58
Whereas I think I would be more...
15:01
SPEAKER_00: at the front of the room, kind of managing it a little bit more.
15:05
And I think part of what comes across is in the building
15:10
thinking classrooms
15:10
approach is a way of managing that and trying to deal with the
15:16
fact that you've got
15:17
SPEAKER_00: students who in these classrooms,
15:19
SPEAKER_00: it appears that if they become disengaged,
15:22
SPEAKER_00: they're allowed to just be disengaged.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: So what we have to do is try and sort of
15:27
SPEAKER_00: cajole them back into being engaged with,
15:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
15:31
SPEAKER_00: if you wanted to be negative,
15:32
SPEAKER_00: you could say gimmicks,
15:33
SPEAKER_00: but with these walls and writing on the walls and stuff.
15:36
Whereas I would just say,
15:37
no,
15:38
you need to hold your mini whiteboard up for me.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: I need to see what you've written.
15:41
And I would sort of doggedly go after that until that's what
15:46
was happening.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: So I wonder if that's part of the cultural difference.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: And I also wonder whether...
15:50
SPEAKER_00: When I think of my classroom and the balance,
15:54
I wonder whether kids in these classrooms are basically doing a
15:57
lot of seat work.
15:59
Well,
15:59
obviously not in Peter Lildred's classrooms because they're
16:01
standing up.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: But what's traditionally called seat work,
16:04
SPEAKER_00: where they just sit at desks and work problems,
16:07
SPEAKER_00: whereas individually or in pairs,
16:09
whereas there'd be less of that in an explicit teaching
16:13
classroom because you'd
16:14
SPEAKER_00: hold the class together much more.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't know whether...
16:18
SPEAKER_00: whether that resonates at all with how you read it?
16:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
16:21
SPEAKER_02: well,
16:21
SPEAKER_02: I think the idea of having students,
16:24
SPEAKER_02: and it's interesting,
16:25
this sort of brings up the engagement because it's interesting
16:27
to have students up,
16:29
SPEAKER_02: you know,
16:29
SPEAKER_02: working at walls,
16:30
SPEAKER_02: working around the classroom because I,
16:32
SPEAKER_02: so when I started my teaching journey,
16:33
SPEAKER_02: I started it up in Queensland at a state school.
16:36
In my second year,
16:37
I moved down to Victoria and taught at Ballarat Clarendon with
16:39
Greg.
16:40
SPEAKER_02: And when I was teaching by myself,
16:41
SPEAKER_02: I'd been taught in my first year at uni,
16:43
SPEAKER_02: I was told,
16:44
SPEAKER_02: you know,
16:44
SPEAKER_02: have the students up,
16:45
SPEAKER_02: have them working at different stations around your classroom.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: And even in that,
16:49
SPEAKER_02: I can tell you that if I've got them working on classroom walls,
16:52
SPEAKER_02: there are students within those groups who are not engaged in the work.
16:56
There's one or two who are probably leading them doing stuff
16:59
and the rest of them are sat back.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: So they're not engaged.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: If I were to sort of contrast that with the way that I teach now,
17:04
SPEAKER_02: where it's up the front of the classroom,
17:06
SPEAKER_02: students are on mini whiteboards for the full 70 minute lesson.
17:10
SPEAKER_02: If I were to contrast that,
17:11
I know that every single one of my students is engaged and I
17:14
know that every single
17:15
SPEAKER_02: one of my students is answering every single question.
17:18
SPEAKER_02: And I know off the top of my head,
17:20
SPEAKER_02: this student can do this well,
17:21
SPEAKER_02: this student struggles with this.
17:23
I have that information because I'm getting that for 70 minutes
17:26
at a time from
17:26
SPEAKER_02: every single one of them.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: And it...
17:34
SPEAKER_00: What I was going to say.
17:36
Something came to me then as you were talking and I've
17:38
forgotten about it.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: So you were just cycling back.
17:42
SPEAKER_02: I think it was engagement,
17:44
SPEAKER_02: students moving,
17:46
SPEAKER_02: students sort of sitting back when they're doing group work.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's it.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly it.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: So that's called social loafing.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: So there's quite a lot of research that's been done on that.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: And this is the idea.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: The classic study is like a tug of war.
18:04
And essentially,
18:05
if you measure how hard an individual can pull on a rope...
18:09
SPEAKER_00: and then you put four of them together pulling on a rope,
18:12
SPEAKER_00: the total force the four of them apply is less than if you added the four
18:20
SPEAKER_00: individual forces together.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: So people take a break when they're in a group.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: And people have examined this phenomena in all sorts of situations.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: One of them is these studies that involved what is called brainstorming.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure that's a particular term we would use these days.
18:41
But essentially,
18:43
you've got to think of as many ideas as you can in a certain
18:46
amount of time.
18:47
And they ask people to do this individually,
18:49
and then they ask people to do it in groups.
18:51
And the number of ideas that the group comes up with is less
18:55
than the sum of if
18:57
SPEAKER_00: those individuals had been working on their own.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: And so this is quite a well-known phenomenon in psychological research,
19:04
SPEAKER_00: that when you group people,
19:06
SPEAKER_00: you will engage in a social loafing,
19:08
SPEAKER_00: and that will act differentially.
19:10
So you would know that when you've got those groups of students
19:13
in the class –
19:14
SPEAKER_00: It's not a random person that decides to take the lead and do the work.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: It's often the kid who's already the most advantaged.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: Someone who knows it.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: And the kids who are the least advantaged are the ones who go,
19:26
SPEAKER_00: oh,
19:27
SPEAKER_00: well,
19:27
this guy seems to know what he's doing or this girl seems to
19:29
know what they're
19:30
SPEAKER_00: doing.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: I'll let them get on with it.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: And so that kind of compounds the problem.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: In his book,
19:36
SPEAKER_00: Lil Jadal suggests that – well,
19:41
SPEAKER_00: I know it's a solution to social loafing,
19:42
but a solution to the whole problem of group work is to
19:46
randomly assign kids to
19:48
SPEAKER_00: groups.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: So he uses like packs of cards and things like that.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: Now,
19:52
I'm not quite sure why being randomly assigned to a group would
19:55
make you more
19:56
SPEAKER_00: likely to engage.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: I think he thinks that you would – if you go with your friends,
20:01
SPEAKER_00: there's already a kind of social hierarchy.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: And you know which friend is going to take over.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: But if you go with a random group of students,
20:09
SPEAKER_00: then there's no social hierarchy already in place.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: But also, you're probably more likely to step back.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: You don't know other people, that sort of thing.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure it necessarily solves the problem, but it shows that...
20:25
Lil Jadal is aware of some of these issues and kind of trying
20:28
to work them out in
20:29
SPEAKER_00: his own very idiosyncratic way.
20:31
SPEAKER_02: It just feels like there's a simple solution to what he's raising,
20:35
where it's keep every student accountable in every second at
20:38
every problem that
20:39
SPEAKER_02: you're doing.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: Just keep them all in the same place.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: And you don't have this issue.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: There's going to be no social loafing if you don't allow that to happen.
20:46
You can create the conditions,
20:47
but that's not even a problem in your classroom.
20:50
What do you think of his idea that if a kid asks you a question
20:53
about their work,
20:54
SPEAKER_00: you should smile and walk away?
20:56
SPEAKER_02: They're the three question types.
20:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:00
So he proposes he's got three different question types,
21:02
two of which he basically says are bad.
21:05
SPEAKER_02: So he's called these,
21:07
SPEAKER_02: they are proximity questions,
21:08
SPEAKER_02: which is where if you're close to a student,
21:10
SPEAKER_02: they'll ask you a question,
21:11
SPEAKER_02: not because they care,
21:12
SPEAKER_02: but because they're close to you.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: He's got what he calls a stop thinking question,
21:17
which is when students ask a question to give themselves
21:20
permission to stop
21:21
SPEAKER_02: thinking.
21:22
So they're trying to transfer that or give that responsibility
21:25
to the teacher.
21:27
SPEAKER_02: I love this part, though.
21:28
He also has a keep thinking question,
21:29
which is,
21:30
you know,
21:30
elaboration or clarification.
21:33
But he did point out that the stop thinking and the keep
21:35
thinking questions can be
21:36
SPEAKER_02: the exact same question.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: And you have to guess the student's motive behind those.
21:40
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
21:41
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
21:43
SPEAKER_02: It just blew my mind that if a student puts their hand up and again,
21:47
SPEAKER_02: in my classes,
21:48
SPEAKER_02: I don't do the,
21:49
SPEAKER_02: here's a question for you guys,
21:50
SPEAKER_02: students put their hand up.
21:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't do that.
21:52
If I ask a question,
21:53
it's to my full class or it's to one student who I've chosen.
21:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:58
But if my students want,
21:59
they know at every point,
22:01
hey,
22:01
put your hands up.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: Do you have any questions?
22:03
And they would volunteer these and we would answer them because
22:07
if they're asking
22:07
SPEAKER_02: me a question about the work,
22:09
SPEAKER_02: I assume that's because they want to know it.
22:11
And I think it's great that we have a student who's confident
22:13
enough to put their
22:14
SPEAKER_02: hand up and say,
22:14
SPEAKER_02: hey,
22:15
SPEAKER_02: I don't understand this or this doesn't work for me.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: Yes,
22:19
SPEAKER_00: and it goes back to this idea,
22:20
SPEAKER_00: like,
22:21
SPEAKER_00: I don't think kids ask that many questions in my lessons,
22:25
SPEAKER_00: really.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Was it 400, he said?
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: 400 in a day?
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Just huge, vast numbers of questions.
22:32
And all I can think is that these kids are sat at desks being
22:36
given problems to do.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, not sat at desk, because they're stood up at them.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: So they're stood up at walls.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: Stood up at walls.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Or in Dr.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Caitlin Tucker's case,
22:47
whizzing around on little desks on wheels and answering
22:52
questions for extended
22:54
SPEAKER_00: periods of time.
22:55
And the teacher is circulating around and then occasionally
22:59
kids are sort of asking
23:00
SPEAKER_00: them questions and that's where all these questions come from.
23:02
There just wouldn't be the space for it in what I do because –
23:07
and so I just don't get –
23:08
asked that many questions really um and perhaps that's i don't
23:14
know um and if and
23:15
you're right if if a kid asked me a question i'd be quite
23:19
pleased and usually it
23:20
would be something that is something i want to clarify for
23:24
everyone because it
23:24
means i can explain something very well made it clear i had a
23:28
question the other
23:28
day that um and i realized it was i was teaching physics i
23:32
can't remember what the
23:33
SPEAKER_00: question was i wish i could
23:34
But it was one of those that made me think,
23:36
oh,
23:36
yeah,
23:36
I need to explain that to everyone.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:39
And so I jumped in and sort of explained that to everyone
23:41
because it was a key issue.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: He...
23:46
SPEAKER_00: He talks about, yeah.
23:48
So as I said,
23:48
he goes on to talk about success,
23:52
which was the bit I liked.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: So this is not,
23:55
SPEAKER_00: so there's this idea out there called productive struggle,
24:00
SPEAKER_00: which is by definition,
24:03
SPEAKER_00: it's good,
24:03
SPEAKER_00: isn't it?
24:03
SPEAKER_00: Because it's productive.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: So if you call it productive struggle, it's got to be good.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: That's a good title.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: It's not an unproductive struggle.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: It's not that kind of a struggle we're talking about.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about productive struggle.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: So by definition, it's good.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: But it's a very popular idea out there in maths education.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: And I worry a lot that teachers are...
24:24
SPEAKER_00: giving kids tasks that they can't do,
24:27
SPEAKER_00: that they struggle with,
24:29
SPEAKER_00: and they go,
24:30
SPEAKER_00: oh,
24:30
SPEAKER_00: well,
24:30
SPEAKER_00: that's great.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: It's a productive struggle.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: That's marvellous.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: I think that Peter Liljilal recognises that possibility,
24:39
SPEAKER_00: recognises that risk,
24:41
SPEAKER_00: and does quite a lot of good work,
24:43
SPEAKER_00: I think,
24:44
SPEAKER_00: in...
24:45
SPEAKER_00: explaining why you wouldn't do that.
24:48
You wouldn't just throw kids into problems without building up
24:53
their confidence at
24:54
SPEAKER_00: first and without giving them some sort of sense of success.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: So I do think, I did like that bit about the interview.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: I thought he was onto something there.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: He started onto it.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: Whether...
25:09
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how familiar... I mean, maybe we'll come back to research.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how familiar he is with the research on this,
25:16
SPEAKER_00: but there is quite a lot of...
25:18
A very strong signal in the educational psychology research is
25:23
that a sense of
25:24
SPEAKER_00: success...
25:25
SPEAKER_00: And motivation, which is, well, it's really difficult to define.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: You can't measure motivation directly.
25:32
You end up measuring lots of different things that are sort of
25:36
related to it.
25:36
But a sense of success and however you're measuring motivation
25:40
are very strongly correlated.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Now,
25:43
many people think that motivation and success are correlated
25:49
because motivation
25:50
SPEAKER_00: leads to success.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of evidence that at least...
25:55
SPEAKER_00: the other direction is at least as important.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: So success leading to motivation.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: And he seems to recognize that, which I thought was a good thing.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: I think so.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: I think where it sort of fell apart for me,
26:05
SPEAKER_02: because I wrote it down as being a note that he said,
26:07
SPEAKER_02: I think his quote was,
26:08
SPEAKER_02: challenge should be on the heels of success.
26:11
SPEAKER_02: But he then sort of went on to say,
26:12
SPEAKER_02: but that's kind of your first challenge,
26:14
SPEAKER_02: but then you need to challenge them again and then again and again.
26:16
SPEAKER_02: And he sort of almost peels that away.
26:18
SPEAKER_02: So it's like he starts with this idea of
26:20
SPEAKER_02: Well, we want them to be successful.
26:21
SPEAKER_02: We want them to experience that.
26:23
SPEAKER_02: But then immediately goes,
26:25
SPEAKER_02: and once they've done that,
26:26
SPEAKER_02: then let's just keep increasing that complexity rather than,
26:29
SPEAKER_02: and it's not to say you can't do that,
26:31
but rather than actually looking into everything that needs to
26:33
sit instructionally
26:34
SPEAKER_02: before that.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: There's no sort of discussion about the,
26:37
SPEAKER_02: you know,
26:37
the amount of practice that it takes for students to then be
26:40
able to attempt a
26:41
SPEAKER_02: problem that,
26:42
SPEAKER_02: you know,
26:42
SPEAKER_02: like we'll call it problem solving for the sake of it,
26:44
but to then be able to do this problem solving where it's a
26:47
little bit unfamiliar
26:47
SPEAKER_02: to them.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think he believes in developing problem-solving skills.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: So to me,
26:55
a problem-solving skill is something like being able to
26:58
factorise a quadratic
26:59
SPEAKER_00: equation.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: That's a really useful skill that will help you solve problems.
27:02
But to others,
27:04
it's this broader set of kind of strategies that are a little
27:07
bit more abstract.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:10
A lot of people who subscribe to this constructivist view feel
27:14
that if we tell kids
27:16
SPEAKER_00: how to do things,
27:17
SPEAKER_00: if we show them how to do things,
27:18
we forego the opportunity of them developing these more
27:22
abstract problem solving
27:24
SPEAKER_00: skills.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: At one point he says,
27:26
SPEAKER_00: and this is a value statement,
27:29
SPEAKER_00: he says,
27:30
SPEAKER_00: they're supposed to find things out.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: And they're supposed to learn.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: And if they're the only person,
27:37
SPEAKER_00: if the only person they're learning from in the room is me,
27:40
SPEAKER_00: then I'm hopelessly outnumbered,
27:42
SPEAKER_00: right?
27:42
SPEAKER_00: So he doesn't value himself as the imparter of knowledge.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:49
He feels that the most important thing is that they're learning
27:53
how to figure things out.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: They're learning these problem-solving skills.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Now,
27:56
I would argue that there's no evidence that problem-solving
28:00
skills of that kind
28:01
SPEAKER_00: exist,
28:02
SPEAKER_00: really,
28:03
SPEAKER_00: or can be taught.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely,
28:05
SPEAKER_00: when you get down to the fine grain of factorising a quadratic,
28:09
that exists and can be taught and is useful in a wide range of
28:12
mathematical
28:12
SPEAKER_00: problems.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: But in terms of these broader, more...
28:16
SPEAKER_00: abstract,
28:17
SPEAKER_00: you know,
28:17
SPEAKER_00: problem solving skills,
28:19
critical thinking skills that are often invoked as an important
28:24
outcome of
28:25
SPEAKER_00: education.
28:27
There's no real evidence that in any kind of general sense that
28:29
they really exist.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: And even if they did,
28:33
SPEAKER_02: me teaching a student,
28:35
SPEAKER_02: hey,
28:35
SPEAKER_02: this is how you problem solve in maths,
28:37
that's a completely different skill to problem solving a
28:40
situation in your personal
28:42
SPEAKER_02: life.
28:43
SPEAKER_02: They do totally different things.
28:44
And there's this generalization that's made that these skills
28:48
are transferable,
28:48
SPEAKER_02: if they even exist,
28:50
SPEAKER_02: which just doesn't make sense.
28:52
SPEAKER_02: And we know that intuitively.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: There's a paper...
28:57
SPEAKER_00: André Tricot, French guy, or is he Swiss?
29:05
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, doesn't matter.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: No one cares.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: And John Sweller wrote a paper,
29:08
SPEAKER_00: he's French,
29:10
wrote a paper about this a while back that some people really
29:13
dislike because they
29:15
SPEAKER_00: take quite a strong line.
29:16
They essentially suggest that any of these problem-solving
29:20
skills that are broadly applicable...
29:23
are things that we essentially have evolved to acquire without
29:27
instruction and
29:28
SPEAKER_00: cannot be taught.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: Now,
29:30
SPEAKER_00: I think you can argue,
29:31
SPEAKER_00: we can get into semantics here,
29:33
that there might be elements of these things that can be taught
29:38
or actually it's
29:39
SPEAKER_00: not the underlying skill that can be taught,
29:42
but we can teach things that sit on top of it in particular
29:46
situations and stuff
29:47
SPEAKER_00: like that.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: But that's a very strong paper and it uses this idea of
29:51
SPEAKER_00: biologically primary knowledge,
29:53
things that we've kind of evolved to acquire without
29:56
instruction and biologically
29:59
SPEAKER_00: secondary knowledge,
29:59
SPEAKER_00: which isn't completely distinct,
30:01
SPEAKER_00: but sort of sits on top of it.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: But really,
30:04
SPEAKER_00: because it's so recently invented cultural knowledge,
30:08
SPEAKER_00: we haven't evolved to acquire it.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: And so we often need to obtain it from others, which we're very good at.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: We're very efficient at obtaining knowledge from others.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: It's our superpower, really, as a species.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: And so the idea that you would kind of disrupt that and say,
30:24
SPEAKER_00: no,
30:24
SPEAKER_00: figure it out for yourself,
30:27
SPEAKER_00: it is a bit of an odd idea really,
30:28
SPEAKER_00: but it is a very popular one in education.
30:31
SPEAKER_02: It's just, if nothing else, it's just inefficient teaching.
30:35
SPEAKER_02: And there are discussions about the fact that the curriculum is crowded,
30:38
SPEAKER_02: that people can't get through things,
30:40
SPEAKER_02: that there's too much stuff.
30:43
But if we didn't waste time having students figure it out
30:46
themselves and we said,
30:47
SPEAKER_02: hey,
30:47
SPEAKER_02: this is how you do it,
30:48
SPEAKER_02: it's really easy to fit that stuff in.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: It is.
30:51
And if we accept that this is how we have evolved to acquire
30:56
information from each
30:57
SPEAKER_00: other,
30:57
SPEAKER_00: that we don't have to figure everything out from ourselves,
31:00
SPEAKER_00: that's what separates us from other things.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: animal species,
31:04
SPEAKER_00: that ability to acquire knowledge and then culture,
31:07
which means that each generation can start from where the
31:11
previous one left off and
31:12
SPEAKER_00: we can just keep going.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: That's something that's kind of unique and to forswear it and say,
31:19
SPEAKER_00: well,
31:19
SPEAKER_00: actually,
31:19
SPEAKER_00: that's not the right way to learn.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just lead to these inefficiencies that you talk about.
31:26
It seems to be a fundamental kind of misunderstanding of who we
31:30
are and what our
31:32
SPEAKER_00: capabilities are and how we acquire information as a species.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: Shall we move on to the article that you wanted to talk about, Katie?
31:50
SPEAKER_00: So do you want to introduce us to that a little bit?
31:53
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: So I've got an article here written by John Cole.
31:58
SPEAKER_02: So the article is setting the standards,
32:00
SPEAKER_02: who chooses,
32:01
SPEAKER_02: and they've got in quotations,
32:02
SPEAKER_02: that's important,
32:03
SPEAKER_02: who chooses best practice.
32:05
So that's been published by the Australian Association for
32:09
Research in Education.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:11
SPEAKER_02: Basically,
32:12
SPEAKER_02: what this article speaks to is the highly accomplished and lead teacher,
32:16
SPEAKER_02: which if you're familiar with the Australian teaching standards,
32:19
SPEAKER_02: that's one of the levels that you can reach on that.
32:21
It sort of compares this idea of this highly accomplished or
32:25
hoped teacher.
32:27
SPEAKER_02: It compares that to departmental,
32:29
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to say,
32:30
SPEAKER_02: mandates or guidance around how things should be taught.
32:33
And essentially what this article is looking at is it's this
32:35
competing idea of what
32:37
SPEAKER_02: teaching expertise actually is.
32:40
Is it people who are considered highly accomplished teachers
32:42
based on the teaching
32:43
standards or is it people who are just following these sort of
32:46
departmental
32:47
SPEAKER_02: guidelines that say,
32:48
SPEAKER_02: hey,
32:49
SPEAKER_02: you should do things like explicit instruction.
32:51
SPEAKER_02: You should do things like retrieval practice in your classroom.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was quite interesting because,
32:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
32:58
SPEAKER_00: I suppose the obvious thing to reach for is the medical comparison.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: So what are they going for?
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:09
So if you're a surgeon,
33:13
you can be both highly – what's HALT stand for again?
33:16
SPEAKER_02: So it's highly accomplished and lead teacher.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: So you could be a highly accomplished and lead surgeon, right?
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
33:24
But that doesn't mean that you wouldn't follow standard
33:26
practice in doing a hip replacement.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: In fact,
33:30
it would mean that you'd be really good at following standard
33:33
practice in doing a
33:34
hip replacement and you would know and maybe you'd be able to
33:36
train others in
33:37
SPEAKER_00: standard practice for doing hip replacement.
33:39
Whereas Cole,
33:41
on the AARE blog,
33:43
he sees a kind of tension between being highly accomplished and
33:49
SPEAKER_00: and following standard approaches, which I just don't see, really.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: So, for instance, he talks about...
34:01
SPEAKER_00: So these mandates,
34:03
SPEAKER_00: for example,
34:03
SPEAKER_00: the Victorian Department of Teaching and Learning Model,
34:06
SPEAKER_00: the New South Wales Department,
34:07
SPEAKER_00: has provided a mandate regarding instructional approaches.
34:10
Catholic Education Canberra-Golburn mandates specific practices
34:14
to teachers.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: They do.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they do.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: And they also have improved their NAPLAN results significantly.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Considerably,
34:20
SPEAKER_00: yes,
34:22
because these mandated practices are the ones that highly
34:26
accomplished teachers are
34:29
SPEAKER_00: using.
34:30
I wonder whether part of the confusion here is to do with these
34:36
standards that go on.
34:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:40
So I work very closely with the teaching standards and I've
34:43
spent a bit of time on
34:44
SPEAKER_02: them and the frustration that I've had.
34:47
So I've just been on going through the standards and I was
34:49
comparing them for myself.
34:51
I was looking at,
34:51
well,
34:52
what would I be considered if I were to objectively look at
34:54
these?
34:55
And interestingly,
34:57
so one of the standards is know students and how they learn.
35:00
SPEAKER_02: If you asked me objectively, I'd say that's probably my strongest one.
35:03
SPEAKER_02: That'll be the best.
35:05
SPEAKER_02: And yet that,
35:06
SPEAKER_02: when I went through and I did their self-assessment tool,
35:10
SPEAKER_02: I didn't come out as ranking.
35:13
SPEAKER_02: I ranked okay, but not great on that.
35:15
SPEAKER_02: And that came down to this focus on differentiation in the standards.
35:19
SPEAKER_02: And it's because the way that they define it is very much,
35:23
SPEAKER_02: well,
35:23
are you providing different sort of things to students with
35:28
different needs?
35:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: And it's like,
35:29
SPEAKER_02: well,
35:30
SPEAKER_02: no,
35:30
SPEAKER_02: because my main instruction to my students,
35:33
my tier one instruction is so good that it's very rare that we
35:37
require these extra
35:38
SPEAKER_02: interventions.
35:38
And when we do,
35:39
that's then you're moving into your tier two,
35:41
tier three interventions.
35:43
But it really emphasizes,
35:44
you know,
35:45
I mean,
35:45
I'm going to say differentiation.
35:46
SPEAKER_02: It emphasizes different teaching over explicit instruction.
35:49
SPEAKER_02: So the standards themselves are where this falls apart.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
35:54
And the important thing there is,
35:58
if you look at,
35:59
so why are we differentiating?
36:00
SPEAKER_00: We're differentiating for different needs.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: And differentiation is one of these terrible words that just,
36:05
SPEAKER_00: you know,
36:05
SPEAKER_00: it just means so,
36:07
SPEAKER_00: it's so expansive,
36:08
SPEAKER_00: can mean so many things.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: It can mean whatever you want it to mean.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: But it can mean opposite things.
36:12
So it could mean I'm differentiating for this kid who is a
36:16
struggling writer by
36:18
SPEAKER_00: letting them record audio instead of write.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: OK, so that means we're sort of going around the difficulty.
36:25
Or I'm differentiating this struggling writer by giving them a
36:28
writing frame.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: So actually addressing the writing issue.
36:32
There's opposite approaches,
36:33
but they could both be described differently.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: as differentiation.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: And so differentiation means all these different things.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: But when we look at,
36:40
SPEAKER_00: you were talking about your explicit teaching,
36:41
SPEAKER_00: your whole class explicit teaching,
36:44
SPEAKER_00: If you look at the needs of kids with,
36:46
SPEAKER_00: say,
36:47
autistic spectrum disorder or with ADHD and you look at the
36:51
recommendations there,
36:52
some of those would sit outside whole class interactive
36:56
explicit teaching.
36:57
So sometimes people would recommend giving choice over task and
37:02
things like that.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: That's probably not happening in your...
37:06
SPEAKER_00: whole class explicit teaching classroom,
37:08
SPEAKER_00: or not very often,
37:10
SPEAKER_00: but most of the other kinds of recommendations,
37:12
SPEAKER_00: structure,
37:12
SPEAKER_00: routines,
37:13
SPEAKER_00: breaking problems down.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: Breaking things down into small steps.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: All of those things are the sorts of things that everyone gets
37:22
in an interactive explicit teaching classroom and is most
37:27
needed by the kids who
37:29
SPEAKER_00: have the most needs.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: So if you're doing that,
37:32
SPEAKER_00: as you say,
37:33
SPEAKER_00: if that's your tier one instruction,
37:35
SPEAKER_00: that's what you're launching with,
37:37
The idea is that the intention behind it is you're going to
37:39
have fewer problems
37:42
SPEAKER_00: with kids understanding,
37:44
fewer kids who will need the follow-up support and the Tier 2
37:47
instruction.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: So,
37:48
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
37:48
focusing on differentiation for differentiation's sake in the
37:52
standards is a bit of
37:53
SPEAKER_00: a problem.
37:55
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it absolutely is.
37:57
It's an interesting way to define someone as being a highly
38:00
accomplished teacher.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's the challenge that I've got with it,
38:04
is the standards themselves don't reflect what I would call
38:07
best practice,
38:08
SPEAKER_02: no quotation marks.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: They don't reflect that.
38:11
So I was having a good look into it and there's no minimum
38:15
amount of teaching
38:16
SPEAKER_02: experience to apply to become a highly accomplished teacher.
38:19
SPEAKER_02: You've got to go through a whole approval process.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: But
38:23
Your approval process is based on you essentially showing that
38:26
you can meet these
38:26
SPEAKER_02: particular standards,
38:28
but the standards themselves don't align with what the evidence
38:31
would say.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: Yes, and they're woefully out of date as well.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I noticed, so...
38:41
SPEAKER_00: So I'll just read this,
38:42
but when the direction about how to teach is fixed through
38:46
central mandates,
38:47
SPEAKER_00: it becomes problematic for teachers to enact these aspects of the highly
38:52
SPEAKER_00: accomplished lead teacher criteria.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, that... Well, it does.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's my experience, isn't it?
38:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: But that tells you something about the criteria, doesn't it?
39:02
SPEAKER_00: Because really, if you've got mandated practice that reflects...
39:09
SPEAKER_00: We don't know everything.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot to be researched in education.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: What you've got in these mandates is best bets.
39:17
So we look at the evidence,
39:18
messy as it is,
39:19
which it is in education,
39:20
it's really messy.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: You look at the evidence and you try and detect a signal and you go,
39:25
SPEAKER_00: well,
39:25
SPEAKER_00: look,
39:26
SPEAKER_00: it seems that...
39:27
Most of the time,
39:29
this approach is going to be more successful than that
39:32
approach.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: So this is what we're going to ask teachers to do.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: That's essentially what this – mandate is a very scary word,
39:38
SPEAKER_00: but that's essentially what this boils down to.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: We look at the evidence and we think that,
39:42
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:42
SPEAKER_00: introducing things in small steps,
39:45
SPEAKER_00: asking questions after each step,
39:48
SPEAKER_00: that's going to be more successful than –
39:50
SPEAKER_00: An alternative approach.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: So this is what we're going to ask teachers to do.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay, right, great.
39:54
So you would think then that your highly accomplished teachers
39:57
would be the perfect
39:58
people to go around to the teachers in a school or an
40:03
organisation and say,
40:04
SPEAKER_00: okay,
40:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to help you do this.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot to doing this.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to show you how to break things down.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to show you how to run this routine.
40:12
You know,
40:12
if you want it to be interactive,
40:13
you need to make sure that all kids are interacting.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: If kids know they can opt out, then...
40:17
SPEAKER_00: It won't be as effective.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: So these are some strategies you can use to do that.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: And so,
40:21
SPEAKER_00: but no,
40:22
SPEAKER_00: instead,
40:23
Cole is saying there's a tension here that by saying that we
40:28
should have these kind
40:30
SPEAKER_00: of standardized practices,
40:30
SPEAKER_00: and he uses lots of scary words.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: He uses mandate.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: He talks about scripted lessons.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm aware of like
40:40
SPEAKER_00: two or three programs that literally use scripts.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: And they're pretty good, actually.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: But most of the teaching in explicit classroom is not scripted.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: My lessons are not scripted.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure your lessons are not scripted.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: Definitely not scripted.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: But he uses these scary words.
40:54
But he sees there's a tension there between using these
40:59
practices and teacher professionalism.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: Well,
41:02
SPEAKER_00: if that's the case,
41:03
SPEAKER_00: then I think we've got the wrong idea of what teacher professionalism is.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's exactly it.
41:08
Your professionalism should be defined on your ability to do
41:13
what you – actually,
41:15
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to be careful when I say this.
41:16
SPEAKER_02: I was going to say what you understand to be the best for your students,
41:18
but I'm actually going to say what the evidence at the moment
41:21
would suggest is the
41:22
SPEAKER_02: best for your students.
41:24
SPEAKER_02: Because at the end of the day,
41:25
I think that our issue around this is that we see
41:28
professionalism as being,
41:30
SPEAKER_02: look,
41:30
SPEAKER_02: you've got a lot of experience,
41:32
SPEAKER_02: you seem to have your class under control,
41:34
SPEAKER_02: so therefore you must be an expert teacher.
41:37
SPEAKER_02: It has nothing to do with,
41:39
SPEAKER_02: well,
41:39
are you somebody who can take a student who doesn't know
41:42
something and get them to
41:42
a point where they're way more effective at doing that
41:45
particular skill or better
41:47
SPEAKER_02: with that particular piece of knowledge?
41:49
SPEAKER_02: They don't actually look at how good you are in the classroom.
41:53
SPEAKER_02: Instead, it focuses more on, well, how confident are you?
41:56
SPEAKER_02: Can you keep your class under control?
41:58
SPEAKER_02: How long have you been in the profession?
41:59
How confident are you when you stand up there and you tell
42:01
people that you're a
42:02
SPEAKER_02: really good teacher and you know how to do this?
42:05
SPEAKER_00: Frankly,
42:05
SPEAKER_00: Katie,
42:05
SPEAKER_00: I think in a lot of schools,
42:07
SPEAKER_00: you're a good teacher if you're giving your leaders an easy life.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: If they don't have to intervene,
42:15
SPEAKER_00: they don't have to do anything,
42:17
SPEAKER_00: you're not causing any problems and they can just leave you be.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: and do whatever they're more interested in doing,
42:25
SPEAKER_00: then you're a good teacher and you must therefore be highly accomplished.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes it's just as basic as that.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: Whereas it's not, it's sad, isn't it?
42:36
SPEAKER_00: But I just don't think that in education,
42:38
SPEAKER_00: people are that focused on the teaching,
42:42
SPEAKER_00: the actual instruction and what goes on.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: We'd like to talk in these abstract terms.
42:47
I mean,
42:47
just another example,
42:48
like,
42:49
and this isn't abstract,
42:50
this is very concrete.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: One of the examples he gives about these,
42:55
SPEAKER_00: Coles gives about these mandates,
42:57
SPEAKER_00: these terrible scary things that teachers are being asked to do,
43:00
SPEAKER_00: is directions about how desks are arranged in the classroom.
43:04
SPEAKER_00: Directions about how desks are arranged in the classroom.
43:06
SPEAKER_02: Back on the furniture thing.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, back on the furniture thing.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: But if you look at the research on this,
43:12
SPEAKER_00: ABAB design,
43:13
SPEAKER_00: Kevin Weldell did a lot of this back in the day.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: And what you do, ABAB design is the class is its own control group.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: So...
43:23
You arrange the class in groups,
43:26
and then next week you arrange it in rows.
43:28
And then the next week you arrange it in groups,
43:30
and then the next week you arrange it in rows.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: And so the one class is its own control group.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: And you look at how task behavior varies.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: And it's very clear, if you look at that sort of research, that...
43:44
Tables in rows,
43:45
or horseshoes as well,
43:46
although they're not very efficient use of space.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: Tables in rows where all the kids can see the teacher,
43:51
SPEAKER_00: you get more on-task behaviour,
43:52
SPEAKER_00: you get more learning behaviours.
43:55
We know that time on task is very closely associated with
44:02
learning,
44:02
so it's a clear proxy.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: So why would you therefore be worried about
44:11
SPEAKER_00: about saying to staff,
44:12
SPEAKER_00: we actually think,
44:14
SPEAKER_00: from our understanding of the evidence,
44:16
SPEAKER_00: we want you to put your tables in rows.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: Why would we say,
44:19
SPEAKER_00: well,
44:19
SPEAKER_00: no,
44:20
SPEAKER_00: because you're a professional and you have your own professionalism,
44:24
SPEAKER_00: you need to make that decision for yourself.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: Even if we've got some fairly strong evidence over here,
44:30
SPEAKER_00: you need to make that decision for yourself.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: And it's not the case that, okay...
44:35
There's a particular task or a style of working that means that
44:39
we would want to
44:41
SPEAKER_00: use groups instead of rows.
44:42
SPEAKER_00: It's just whatever you reckon,
44:44
SPEAKER_00: you're the expert,
44:46
SPEAKER_00: you're highly accomplished,
44:48
you decide we shouldn't be centrally telling anyone about how
44:51
to arrange their
44:52
SPEAKER_00: furniture.
44:54
SPEAKER_02: It's this idea where people conflate professionalism with autonomy.
44:58
SPEAKER_02: That's what it is.
44:59
If you're a professional teacher and you're great and you've
45:03
been doing it for a
45:04
SPEAKER_02: while or you're really successful,
45:05
SPEAKER_02: you're highly accomplished,
45:07
SPEAKER_02: it means,
45:07
SPEAKER_02: well,
45:07
SPEAKER_02: you get to make your own choices in the classroom.
45:10
SPEAKER_02: And that's really what we do with it.
45:12
SPEAKER_02: And when those choices are taken away,
45:14
that's when it's almost viewed as a threat to professionalism
45:17
when in reality it's
45:18
SPEAKER_02: a case of
45:20
SPEAKER_02: No, this is what the evidence is telling us right now.
45:24
SPEAKER_02: If you're a good teacher,
45:24
if you're someone who genuinely cares about the students in
45:27
your classroom and
45:28
SPEAKER_02: their learning,
45:30
then of course you're going to do whatever the evidence is
45:33
suggesting is the best
45:34
SPEAKER_02: thing for them.
45:35
And again,
45:36
it's not that you're not making professional judgments in that.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: And I think nothing's guaranteed either.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: So,
45:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
45:46
it makes sense to me that kids facing the teacher are going to
45:48
be more on task than
45:49
SPEAKER_00: if they're facing their buddy.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: It just makes sense to me.
45:51
But it's useful to know that there's research out there that
45:54
has tested this and
45:55
SPEAKER_00: found that that's to be the case.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: But none of these outcomes are certain.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: Just because you've got your kids in rows,
46:01
it doesn't mean that kids are not going to be off task or doing
46:04
the wrong thing or
46:06
SPEAKER_00: getting distracted or things like that.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: It's all about playing the percentages.
46:10
And I think it makes us more professional to say,
46:16
to define these things.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: It's just a shame that it takes outside bodies to do this.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: If this was a profession like engineering or medicine,
46:26
SPEAKER_00: what we would be doing is saying,
46:28
SPEAKER_00: these are the standards.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: This is what we think the evidence suggests.
46:31
SPEAKER_00: These are the standards.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: This is what newcomers into the profession need to learn.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: That body would be led by teachers and
46:38
Whereas what we have instead is we have a teaching profession
46:41
that has this weird,
46:43
SPEAKER_00: as you say,
46:43
SPEAKER_00: slightly maladaptive idea of autonomy.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: And then because of that, external bodies, governments, governments,
46:54
SPEAKER_00: Other people decide,
46:56
SPEAKER_00: oh,
46:56
SPEAKER_00: well,
46:56
we're going to have to impose some standards on this group of
47:00
people because they
47:00
SPEAKER_00: haven't worked it out for themselves.
47:02
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't think that's necessarily the fault of teachers.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: I think it's the way that the profession has evolved over time.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: But I would want to get to a place where it's a lot more...
47:13
SPEAKER_00: ground up where we are taking control of that.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: We're saying this is what we think we should be doing.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: We're setting those standards.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: So it shouldn't be that some external body,
47:23
some very eminent and distinguished researcher writes a set of
47:28
professional
47:29
SPEAKER_00: standards for teachers.
47:30
That should be something that bubbles up from the classroom
47:34
floor as these are what
47:36
SPEAKER_00: we think our standards should be.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: Look, I actually, when I was reading this, it made me think back to 2024.
47:45
Rebecca Birch actually wrote for the Centre for Independent
47:48
Studies and spoke about
47:50
why these standards need to be a part of the initial teacher
47:52
education reform and
47:54
SPEAKER_02: speaks exactly to that,
47:56
SPEAKER_02: that what we need,
47:57
SPEAKER_02: if we are going to,
47:58
SPEAKER_02: like,
47:58
SPEAKER_02: if we're going to put so much...
48:01
So much into these standards and so much stock into whatever
48:05
our professional
48:05
SPEAKER_02: standards are,
48:06
SPEAKER_02: those standards,
48:07
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
48:07
SPEAKER_02: they need to reflect best practice,
48:09
but they also need to reflect the work of a teacher who's on
48:12
the ground every
48:13
SPEAKER_02: single day doing that.
48:15
That's part of where this tension exists between the two
48:18
competing ideas is
48:19
SPEAKER_02: teachers saying,
48:21
SPEAKER_02: oh,
48:21
SPEAKER_02: well,
48:21
SPEAKER_02: we're being told what to do.
48:23
It's not coming from us in the field and it's not to say that
48:26
there's not nuance.
48:27
I know that we could have a researcher in the field who hasn't
48:31
stepped foot in a
48:31
SPEAKER_02: classroom in years and they could stand up and say,
48:33
SPEAKER_02: well,
48:34
SPEAKER_02: do this,
48:34
SPEAKER_02: do this,
48:35
SPEAKER_02: do this.
48:35
SPEAKER_02: And I know that the practicalities of that as someone who,
48:38
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:38
SPEAKER_02: who works at a secondary school,
48:40
SPEAKER_02: works,
48:40
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:41
SPEAKER_02: like I work only with teenage boys.
48:43
SPEAKER_02: I know that some of the realities of that,
48:45
there are extra things that you need to consider and things
48:47
that you need to do.
48:49
SPEAKER_02: And we know that there are other considerations in a classroom.
48:52
SPEAKER_02: I think when people look at the mandates,
48:53
SPEAKER_02: they see it as this rigid set that you can't ever sort of deviate from.
48:57
SPEAKER_02: So,
48:57
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:58
SPEAKER_02: it's,
48:58
SPEAKER_02: oh,
48:58
SPEAKER_02: you have to have students,
48:59
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:59
they're on their mini whiteboards for the full lesson and you
49:02
can't leave them and
49:02
SPEAKER_02: you have to be at the front of the room and
49:04
They don't see the flexibility of the running over to work with
49:07
an individual
49:08
student briefly to give them help or the student who's come in
49:11
and they're hurt or
49:12
they're crying or they're feeling down and you're going to
49:15
prioritize their
49:16
SPEAKER_02: well-being.
49:17
I think that's where it's coming from is we've got this
49:20
confusion where it's almost
49:21
an overgeneralization of what the mandates actually are and
49:25
what people are saying
49:26
SPEAKER_02: or what this guidance is.
49:28
SPEAKER_02: But it's also the fact that a lot of it is coming from people who aren't
49:32
SPEAKER_02: necessarily in the field.
49:33
SPEAKER_02: So those of us in the field who are sat here going,
49:36
SPEAKER_02: okay,
49:36
SPEAKER_02: but I can tell you how that works in practice.
49:39
It's just,
49:40
it's not being reflected in what's being put out on a broader
49:43
scale.
49:43
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
49:44
SPEAKER_00: And the structural problem is that for many years,
49:47
the people that have decided what we should be doing are people
49:49
in university
49:50
SPEAKER_00: education faculties who are not classroom teachers currently.
49:56
Sometimes it was a very long time ago that they were classroom
49:59
teachers and
49:59
SPEAKER_00: sometimes they were never even classroom teachers at all.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: And so...
50:03
their ideas are not having to be tested against reality every
50:06
day,
50:06
which is why.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean their ideas are necessarily bad.
50:10
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean that people from outside the profession,
50:13
SPEAKER_00: like John Sweller,
50:13
SPEAKER_00: for instance,
50:14
SPEAKER_00: don't have a lot for us to learn from.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: But John Sweller can't tell us how to run a year nine maths class.
50:20
SPEAKER_00: It's just he can tell us things that will inform how we do that.
50:25
SPEAKER_00: But we have to work out those details as a profession.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: And if we do so as a profession...
50:29
They will be practical and they will be inactable in a way that
50:34
external things will not.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: You've also reminded me,
50:37
SPEAKER_00: I think,
50:38
SPEAKER_00: of,
50:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
50:39
SPEAKER_00: we've been talking about whole class explicit teaching.
50:43
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps what I said earlier was a little bit misleading.
50:48
SPEAKER_00: Because explicit teaching isn't just like one thing that you do.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps this is why people are concerned about,
50:57
SPEAKER_00: and I don't think,
50:58
SPEAKER_00: it's only the opponents of these things that call them mandates.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: I think most people call them guidance.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: I like guidance a little bit more.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:08
SPEAKER_00: What do they call them in New South Wales?
51:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:13
SPEAKER_00: And Victoria, it's called the teaching and learning model.
51:16
SPEAKER_00: That seems a bit friendlier than mandates.
51:18
But what I think people might be concerned of is they might
51:20
listen to this podcast.
51:22
SPEAKER_00: They might think, well, I've been asked to do explicit teaching.
51:24
That means that for all of every lesson in every subject,
51:28
I've got to stand at the front.
51:29
SPEAKER_00: The kids have got to be on mini whiteboards.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: Well, of course, that's not true.
51:32
SPEAKER_00: First of all,
51:34
SPEAKER_00: It varies a lot by subject.
51:35
SPEAKER_00: So explicit teaching in our art department here at Clarendon,
51:39
SPEAKER_00: it's explicit teaching but very,
51:41
SPEAKER_00: very,
51:41
SPEAKER_00: very different to what I might do in my physics class.
51:43
SPEAKER_02: We've got a lot of manual art.
51:45
SPEAKER_02: Totally different.
51:46
SPEAKER_02: Awesome to watch.
51:47
Like they do it so well because if they don't,
51:49
a kid's going to lose a finger.
51:50
SPEAKER_00: Like you have to do it well there.
51:53
SPEAKER_00: But also,
51:53
I think the idea of the gradual release of responsibility is
51:57
probably what I didn't
51:59
SPEAKER_00: really capture when I was talking about explicit teaching.
52:01
SPEAKER_00: That whole class,
52:03
SPEAKER_00: taking the kids all the way through it on many whiteboards,
52:06
SPEAKER_00: holding very close,
52:07
SPEAKER_00: is what I do when I'm teaching something new,
52:08
SPEAKER_00: which I do a lot.
52:10
SPEAKER_00: But there has to be a point,
52:11
SPEAKER_00: and this is where the homework comes in as well,
52:13
SPEAKER_00: where kids practice,
52:14
SPEAKER_00: where they get to do different kinds of problems,
52:18
SPEAKER_00: maybe a little bit of transfer to a slightly different type of problem.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: It's just that that would be further down the road.
52:25
SPEAKER_00: It's not what we would launch with.
52:27
Whereas Peter Liljidal would maybe give them a couple of
52:30
problems to boost their
52:31
confidence and then throw them into something that's a little
52:33
bit more complex that
52:35
SPEAKER_00: they don't know how to do and they have to figure out for themselves.
52:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: I would do a lot of teaching up front,
52:40
SPEAKER_00: quite a lot,
52:40
SPEAKER_00: a volume of that,
52:42
SPEAKER_00: and then gradually release that responsibility.
52:44
SPEAKER_00: So you would have lessons.
52:45
There'll be lessons towards the back end of this year in my
52:48
year 12 physics class,
52:49
where I won't be standing at the front and asking them to do
52:52
lots of stuff on mini
52:52
SPEAKER_00: whiteboards,
52:53
SPEAKER_00: where they will be working problems.
52:55
SPEAKER_00: But they still...
52:56
probably won't be asking me that many questions because most of
53:00
what they're doing
53:01
is practicing things that they know how to do rather than
53:05
getting stuck on problems
53:06
SPEAKER_00: that they've never been taught how to do.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: And that's the key thing for me about explicit teaching.
53:11
SPEAKER_00: So if people understand that explicit teaching isn't
53:14
SPEAKER_00: one size fits all for all subjects,
53:16
and also that it's a process that gradually hands over
53:21
responsibility to the
53:22
SPEAKER_00: student and does hand that responsibility over,
53:24
I think they will be less concerned perhaps about it appearing
53:28
in a teaching and
53:29
SPEAKER_00: learning model.
53:30
SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
53:31
SPEAKER_02: I think you've captured so much with that.
53:33
SPEAKER_02: I think it is that idea of as you move students through,
53:36
SPEAKER_02: whether it's through one particular concept,
53:39
SPEAKER_02: your goal is to get them to a point where you are,
53:41
you're pulling back and you're pulling back based on what
53:43
you're seeing in the room
53:45
SPEAKER_02: in that moment.
53:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:46
The entire time you're teaching,
53:47
it is focused on what are my students doing at the moment?
53:50
SPEAKER_02: How are they going?
53:51
SPEAKER_02: And it's trying to release that responsibility back to them,
53:54
SPEAKER_02: ideally as quickly as you can,
53:55
SPEAKER_02: because that's efficient.
53:56
SPEAKER_02: And if you get to that point,
53:58
SPEAKER_02: that's where they can do their independent practice,
54:00
SPEAKER_02: which again,
54:01
SPEAKER_02: for me is typically in their homework time.
54:04
SPEAKER_02: But it's where they can move on to do that.
54:06
SPEAKER_02: Or, you know, as we get them to the end of the year, we can do it.
54:09
Well,
54:09
sometimes I said to,
54:11
you know,
54:11
my year 12 methods class this morning,
54:13
I
54:13
They were doing a problem and I was like,
54:14
right,
54:14
you don't need me anymore.
54:15
SPEAKER_02: Here's the timer.
54:16
SPEAKER_02: Do it by yourselves,
54:18
SPEAKER_02: which isn't something that I think we expect when we're talking explicit
54:21
SPEAKER_02: instruction.
54:22
I gave them no help because I was confident at that point they
54:24
could do the entire problem.
54:26
But you didn't ask you a question and you walked away with a
54:29
smile on your face.
54:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that about wraps up our discussion for today.
54:37
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to When Will They Learn?
54:42
SPEAKER_00: And let us know what you think.
54:45
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
54:47
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening.
54:47
SPEAKER_02: And if you do have any ideas,
54:49
SPEAKER_02: things that you want us to address,
54:50
SPEAKER_02: if you found an article,
54:52
SPEAKER_02: a podcast,
54:53
SPEAKER_02: whatever it is,
54:54
SPEAKER_02: please send it through to either of us.
54:56
SPEAKER_02: You can check out our socials in the show notes.