What is 'great teaching'?

Monday 27 January 2020

What does 'great teaching' look like?

What is geat teaching? It sounds simple and obvious question but can we answer it? in spite of the intuitive conviction held by teachers that 'they know it when they see it' research would suggest that this is not the case. There is no one agreed response, not least because it is related to what students are actually learning and teaching students is not a single, unidimensional thing. Furthermore, it's not just about what teachers do it is also about the why, when and how, too.

A number of educational jurisdictions have created 'Certified Teacher' status: namely, an endorsement by an independent professional body that a member of a that professional has attained an advanced standard of professional practice. One of the most recent professional certifications is in the UK: the Chartered College of Teaching have produced the following Professional Principles.

Why not use this - or another iteration - as a starting point for your professional development reviews?

Dig deeper:

What makes great teaching? Review of the underpinning research, Coe,R., Aloisi,C.,Higgins,S.,& Major, L.E., CEM, Durham University & The Sutton Trust (2014). This report reviews over 200 pieces of research to identify the elements of teaching with the strongest evidence of improving attainment. It finds some common practices can be harmful to learning and have no grounding in research. Specific practices which are supported by good evidence of their effectiveness are also examined and six key factors that contribute to great teaching are identified.  The elements of effective teaching come down to: the teacher’s content knowledge; the quality of instruction; classroom climate (including relationships and expectations); classroom management (including student behaviour); teachers’ academic and pedagogical beliefs, and professional behaviours (including reflection and participation in communities of practice). The report also analyses different methods of evaluating teaching including: using ‘value-added’ results from student test scores; observing classroom teaching; and getting students to rate the quality of their teaching. Click here to access the report.

Teaching and Learning Toolkit. The Sutton Trust-EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit is an independent resource which provides guidance for teachers and schools on how to use their resources to improve the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. The Toolkit is an accessible summary of educational research. It currently covers 21 topics, each summarised in terms of their potential impact on attainment, the strength of the evidence supporting them, their cost, and their applicability. As they say in the toolkit “Just as doctors would not be expected to prescribe treatments without access to medical research, we believe that teachers should be supported with information about what has worked – and, just as important, what has not – in England and around the world. We hope that the Toolkit will help schools to identify which approaches are the ‘best bets’ for increasing the attainment of disadvantaged students and which approaches offer less promising chances of success.” Click here to access this toolkit.

 Links:

What makes teaching and learning effective? 

Teaching Culture 

How do you become an expert teacher? 


Tags: teaching, expert teacher