In the post covid-19 world the need for approaches to teaching and learning that better meet the needs of our students will be, perhaps, more necesary than ever.
[See Professor Geoff Masters’ piece - Time for a Paradigm Shift for a nice overview. SPOLER ALERT: put simply we seem to be trapped in a purgatory, status quo of teaching, with an age base curriculum, as opposed to a far more nuanced approach that seeks to target teaching for the various developmental levels of the stuent’s in our classes.]
Three inter-related approaches that are useful for thinking about how we might adapt our teaching & learning process to best meet the needs of our students include: Learning for Mastery, Assessment for Teaching, and Reponsive Teaching.
1. Learning for Mastery (Benjamin Bloom)
In the 1960s than Benjamin Bloom introduced the concept of “mastery learning”. Bloom (1968) suggested that the majority of students could master what was expected of them proposing that the purpose of instruction was to enable this. He also outlined that the fundamental task in education is to find and use strategies that take in account individual differences in such a way as to promote the fullest development of each and all individual students.
2. Assemssment for Teaching(Emeritus Professor Patrick Griffin)
Emeritus Professor Patrick’s Griffin’s seminal work leading the Assessment Research Centre (University of Melbourne) has advocated a developmental model of learning that draws upon the work of Robert Glaser, Lev Vygotsky, and Georg Rasch. Through his work Griffin has highlighted the undelying developmental nature of learning by which learners progress through increasingly layers of competence or along a developmental continiuum/learning progression. Griffin’s approach also advocates for teachers, working together collaboratively, to interpret student assessment data, generated from assessments that have been constructed to yield developmental insights, to inform next steps.
3. Responsive Teaching (Harry Fletcher-Wood)
Harry Fletcher-Wood’s recent book (2018) has expounded based upon his experiences and evidenced informed views regarding the failing of formative assessment to yield impact aligned with its potenital. A key concern raised relate to the confiusion that formative assessment is a collection of techniques to use as opposed to an underlying philosophical way of engaging as a teacher. In response, Fletcher-Wood has proposed Responsive Teaching as a reframed formative assessment that is enhanced by current advances in cognitive sciences. His definition resonated with me: “responsive teaching blends planning and teching, based on an understanding of how students learngin from cognitive science, with formative assessment to identify what students have learned an adapy accordingly” Fletcher-Wood (p. 9).
Concluding Comments
Implied, if not central to each of these approaches, is the notion that all student’s can learn (and succeed) if instruction is targeted appropriately. A key premise to Bloom’s (1968) learning for mastery is the obligation upon educators to find and utlise strategies to meet the needs of all students. Patrick Griffin’s (2014) work proposed the use of empirically derived assessments to situate each student in their lerning journety and support teachers in planning next steps. Finally, Harry Fletch-Wood (2018) has proposed Responsive Teaching as a way of conceptualising the use of formative assessment strategies and knowledge of how student learn teachers in the busyness of work.
Put together, these three approaches create a nice narrative. Indeed, Bloom reminds us of our moral imperative. Griffin provides a framework for conceptualising teaching (and learning) through a developmental lens. And, final. Fletecher-Wood provides the reminder of our moment by moment responsibilities to seek feedback and respond to meet the needs of all students.
Common to each of these approaches is a reliance on data. Whether it be ‘hard’ forms of assessment data (i,e. collected via tests and assessment tasks) or ‘softer’ forms of data gathered (i.e. collected moment-by-moment in the classroom) data the essential key ingredient in responsive teaching.
Would you like to know more? Get in contact!
Dr Timothy O’Leary
timothy.oleary@educaiotnaldatatalks.com.au
Readings/References
Bloom, B. (1968). Learning for Mastery. Instruction and Curriculum. Regional Education Laboratory for the Carolinas and Virginia, Topical Papers and Reprints, Number 1. Evaluation Comment, 1(2). Retrieved https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED053419.pdf
Flectcher-Wood, H. (2018) Responsive Teaching: Cognitive Science and Formative Assessment in Practice. Routledge: Oxon..
Griffin, P. (2014) Assessment for Teaching. Canbridge: Melbourne, Australia.
