{"id":9941,"date":"2020-06-19T15:27:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T15:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/discover.abre.com\/?p=9941"},"modified":"2023-01-16T15:32:36","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T15:32:36","slug":"what-works-in-education-what-doesnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/discover.abre.com\/blog\/what-works-in-education-what-doesnt\/","title":{"rendered":"What Works in Education (What Doesn’t)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Every influence has an effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This simple tautology sometimes gets lost in the many debates about what works in education. Nearly everything works \u2013 sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad \u2013 but the act of doing something produces an outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything might work. But is it worth it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Say, for example, that this amazing computer program was found to be statistically significant in changing student achievement. Sounds good, you\u2019d say to yourself, and you consider purchasing or adopting it. But then you learn that it only increased students\u2019 performance by 3 points on a summative assessment (and the research had data from 10,000 students). If it were free and easy to implement this change, it might be worth it for students to get a tiny bit better scores. But if it were time-consuming, difficult, or expensive, you should ask yourself it to go through all of this trouble for such a small gain.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That gain, quantified, is the effect size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

[The effect size] represents the magnitude of the impact that a given approach has. We think about it like the Richter scale, which is used to measure earthquakes. In California we have about 10,000 earthquakes per year. But we don\u2019t feel all of them because their impact is small. They register very low on the Richter scale. In the language of learning, they have very minimal effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visible Learning for Social Studies by John Hattie, Julie Stern, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As with many things in life, the question boils down to, \u201cHow should I spend my time?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time Consumption<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I once participated in a committee tasked with determining a change in the start times of schools. We held engagements, read piles of emails, listened to passionate parents who attended board meetings, and sank hours and hours into shifting start times by 30 minutes. The experience was not acrimonious (well, not very) and generally resulted in building better bonds within the school community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which would be fine if that was the point of the experience. But our stated goal was to make the change to improve academic performance for our students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was it worth the time when the effect size of modifying the timetables of school results in an effect size of .09 (recall that we generally view an effect size of .4 or higher to have a sizable impact<\/a>)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My point with this post isn\u2019t to stir up controversies. I believe it prudent to ask, before starting a process, \u201cIs it worth it? If so, why?\u201d Nearly everyone develops opinions about education through their experiences, shaped by time spent as a student, family member of a student,\u00a0 or through cumulative years of teaching. As humans, we form opinions based on these experiences.\u00a0 But learning is very human as well. We can change our views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Anything above a .4 is considered a strong effect size.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Top 5<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With all that said, there are a few significant areas that education spends an enormous amount of time, energy, and money on, which we should handle with caution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Homework<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The homework debate is legendary. We have books, articles, studies, and opinions examining all aspects of homework. Parents, students, and teachers feel incredibly passionate about homework (for and against). I suspect it\u2019s one of the top time-consuming discussion topics in schools. Just learning a million new homework policies every year with each new teacher takes forever. Some teachers, parents, and students expect massive amounts of homework. Some expect none to very little. Everyone has an opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Hattie, homework has an effect size of 0.29.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are nearly a hundred different influencers on favorable academic growth rates higher than homework. Whatever a person\u2019s stance on homework is, it should be weighed against the return homework delivers vs other important factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teacher Subject Matter Knowledge<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

A teacher may have graduated from Harvard, studied art history in Florence, and written a Ph.D. thesis on Henry the VIII. Yet subject level expertise does not translate into academic growth for students. The art and science of teaching is far more critical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teacher subject matter only has an effect size of 0.11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teacher Performance Pay<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

What about tying teacher pay to the academic performance of their students? Might teachers work harder if they know they\u2019ll get a bonus?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No. The effect size is a measly 0.05.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teacher performance pay is a controversial subject for a host of reasons. At a bare minimum, it takes a considerable amount of time to build consensus on its implementation. Given it returns very little, a school community may want to focus on what delivers better academic growth (see Part 1 of this series).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Student Control Over Learning<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Student control has a more nuanced meaning than simply giving students agency in their learning (which we correlate to a high effect size). Hattie defines student control over learning as providing students control of the next steps of learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider the classic \u201cwrite your own constitution\u201d teaching assignment. If a teacher simply says, \u201cYour assignment is to write a functional constitution,\u201d without any background knowledge, students will ultimately flounder. What does that mean? What does a constitution do? How are they written? What types of government are there? How might they operate?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

For most of us, when we reach the edge of what we know and can do, we need expertise to optimally help us work out the next steps. There are too many blind alleys in next steps and it is not efficient and, in some cases, can turn students off the challenge of learning, if we make them take too many blind alleys. While many teachers use the notion \u2018we want students to have control over their learning\u2019 they usually do this by offering (few) choices\u2014 what do you think about doing this or that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visible Learning MetaX<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Student control over learning has a small effect size of 0.02.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

School Calendars<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Much debate is given to a school calendar, as it affects many different areas of life, particularly child care. Interestingly, it only has an effect size of 0.09. During which months schools start and stop doesn\u2019t have much of an impact on academic performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teaching as a Science<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We continue to learn more about how our minds work and the most effective strategies for learning. No doubt we\u2019ll see some very insightful studies (for good or for ill) coming out of this pandemic period. Keeping an open and attentive mind to what works\u00a0better<\/strong>\u00a0in education helps the education community spend time prudently growing students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related Posts<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • What Works in Education. The Parent Guide.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • What Works in Education: A Guide for Teachers<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • What Works in Education: A way to Answer the Question<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Finishing up our series on “What Works in Education” with a focus on “What Doesn’t Work Well”. Using Hattie’s Visible Learning, we examine five influencers that do not return much of an improvement in academic performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[30],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Works in Education (What Doesn't) - Abre Discover<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/discover.abre.com\/blog\/what-works-in-education-what-doesnt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Works in Education (What Doesn't)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Finishing up our series on "What Works in Education" with a focus on "What Doesn't Work Well". 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