Well, John C has provided most of what David asked us to do in relation to
the US case studies. Readers can see the full US report at:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/28/33/40046717.pdf 

 

The report contains more detail about the observations. For example, some
people have mentioned questioning - these are some of the questioning
strategies that I observed being used by the teachers in the study that
reflected a formative assessment approach.

 

*         Levels of questions: teachers pitched their questions at levels
that were both attainable, but also challenging.

 

*         Leaving reasonable wait-time for learners to respond to questions
so that they clearly understood that a response was expected from them and
would not be answered by the teacher.

 

*         Ensuring that the students 'did the work' by ensuring that they
answered the questions and not the teacher - "so is that sentence OK? -
anything that you would like to see changed with it?" (addressed to the
whole class).

 

*         Creating safe environments to ask questions: several instances
demonstrated that teachers were genuinely interested in hearing students'
responses - asking if anyone wanted anything explained further at the end of
a session, one teacher waited a reasonable time for responses (rather than
simply finishing the session without waiting for responses) and then when
one student asked for clarification about a topic, then spent some time
explaining it to the class.

 

*         Students were given realistic feedback on their answers along with
suggestions for reviewing why it was incorrect or incomplete - or additional
questions to elicit another response.

 

*         Promotion of critical thinking, for example by prompting students
to make fine distinctions between similar words (fixable and feasible).

 

*         'Tuning' of questions in response to learners' responses: teachers
often opened with a general, open question ("so what do you all think about
this?"), but then gradually focused their questioning both in relation to
more specific topics ("what do you think the writer is trying to do in this
chapter?") and also fine-tuning their questions in response to the learners'
responses ("you think that it's all about control in this case or something
else?").

 

*         There was quite a high level of student: student interaction in
most of the classes due at least in part to the amount of questions that
students asked each other, rather than being reliant on teacher-dominated
questioning.

 

*         Allowing for diversity of answers so that students received a
message that there are a number of ways to answer correctly.

 

One general point I would like to make in relation to what I observed: while
it is true that many teachers respond to this debate by saying "but I
already do that" I think we have growing evidence that many do not and that
most of us can do it better. There have been a number of observation studies
(both in the US and elsewhere) that clearly show for example that teachers
ask predominantly closed questions, wait less than 2 seconds for replies and
then often supply the answers themselves and so on (and that these
behaviours are different from what the teachers say they do). 

 

Many would say for example that they ask their learners at the conclusion of
a session if everyone understood what was taught, but this is often done
while everyone is packing up and heading for the door: the script here is,
'I am asking this question, but I don't really expect any of you to respond
to it'. The teacher I observed doing this, asked this question before the
'dismissal process' was underway and waited for some time for replies from
his learners (which one learner did and engaged in a conversation about what
he hadn't understood and involved the rest of the class) - there was a
'script' operating in this classroom that the question was genuine and it
was OK to seek further help or clarification. It is this sort of difference
that sets ordinary teachers apart from exemplary ones.

 

I'm enjoying the debates!

 

Regards, John

 

 

John Benseman

 

*   john.benseman at criticalinsight.co.nz

 

*   641 9 627 1882  Cell  027 454 0683

 

* 52a Bolton St, Blockhouse Bay, Auckland 0600, NZ

 

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