The question of how to help teachers become better at their jobs is central to the national discourse surrounding improving the quality of education in South Africa. It is a deceptively simple question that is extremely difficult to answer. Traditionally, generalities such as "set high expectations" or "ensure good classroom management" have been offered, which sound good, but are of little practical use to teachers trying to improve their craft.
Research published by Doug Lemov in his book "Teach like a Champion" is changing the way we are looking at this topic; and there is a buzz of excitement within the educational community surrounding the potential impact his work could have on the quality of teaching and learning in our schools.
Doug Lemov set out to observe teachers who had a proven track record of excellence, as evidenced by their students' outcomes over a number of years. Having identified a number of teachers who consistently achieved results that would be considered outliers on a graph of poverty level against academic achievement, he spent hundreds of hours observing and video-taping their lessons. He then looked for similar techniques that these teachers were all using, and slowly developed what he calls a "Taxonomy of Effective Teaching Practices". Essentially, this refers to a set of simple, yet powerful techniques that the best teachers are consistently using in their classrooms. He acknowledges that it is not simply the sum of a set of techniques that makes a great teacher, but rather the skilful blending of a range of competencies, including a set of these techniques.
The first technique I read about was called "cold calling", and I could immediately see the value of using this technique in my own class. Constant questioning during class is standard for most teachers as they seek to monitor the learning of their students. However, asking good questions in an effective manner is not easy. Ask a general question to the whole class and most switch off, knowing that the bright students will put up their hands first and answer. Ask a question to a specific student and the rest of the class switches off, knowing that they're off the hook for that moment. So how do you ask a question that forces accountability onto every student to come up with an answer? "Cold calling" achieves this. Tell your students that they may not put up their hands. Pose the question to the whole class and give everyone some quiet time to formulate an answer in their heads. Then choose one student to answer. An incredibly simple technique that can change the way a teacher questions their students. Doug Lemov identified 48 other techniques that are simple to understand and easy to implement.
The point is that some teachers naturally use some of the techniques anyway. In fact, they may say something like "But surely everyone does that!" Most good teachers have a set of techniques that form a natural part of their repertoire. Doug Lemov's research allows every teacher to extend this repertoire in a very practical way.
Having read the book, we were immediately excited at the prospect of how closer study may be of great benefit in our drive to improve the quality of teaching and learning at Pinelands High School. I realised that there were three aspects we needed to consider. First, we needed to contextualise some of the techniques into a South African high school setting. Second, we needed to test whether we felt they were valid, and added value in our environment. And third, we needed to extend the research to see whether there were other techniques that our excellent teachers at Pinelands High were using that could expand the taxonomy.
A small group of staff started the process in 2010, and immediately identified the value of Lemov's taxonomy. This was followed by our entire staff participating in a series of professional growth seminars around this work at the start of the year. Later on in the year, two smaller groups of staff have worked through the book during the two six-week progro modules that form part of our annual professional growth programme. We are certainly seeing the value at teachers share anectodal evidence of improved quality of teaching as they try to implement the techniques. Surrounding schools are also jumping on the bandwagon and the teachers' union NAPTOSA have included this research in their annual professional growth programme.
Very soon we will be hearing more and more teachers talking about how they combined "threshold" and "do now" to ensure high expectations from the start of the lesson, and the used "cold calling" and "no opt out" to raise accountability levels, whilst "strong voice" and "no warnings" created high behavioural expectations!
Jeremy Gibbon