But John Hattie’s meta-analysis of over thousands of studies on what actually has impact on student learning (and what doesn’t). His conclusion is simple: know thy impact on student learning. When we become the ‘greatest evaluators of our impact’ we are then able to see how we, as a school community, can move forward to successfully support our students’ (and our own) learning.
Hattie’s 8 Mind Frames for Teachers Explained
And…for those loving the Infographic…
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Furthermore, as a school leader I recognize an enormous part of my responsibility is contribute to the culture of the school as what Fullan refers to as the ‘lead learner‘. We do this by developing strong relationships with teachers and students around what impactful learning looks like; we model it and expect it of ourselves. It is from this space of honesty and trust that we can best help our teachers to view their own professional practice as a work-in-progress, and address how we as teachers and learners need to re-assess how what we are doing in our classrooms impact student learning (i.e. assessment is about my impact on my student’s learning).
To this effect, we must strive, in Hattie’s words, to make learning ‘visible’ for all of our learners. We need to continue to cultivate and promote the language of learning not just to our students, but widen the dialogue to include our parents and community, too! I hold much faith that our teachers will become powerful advocates for our learners when we collectively decide to ‘talk more about learning than teaching’. Our school movement towards letter grade-free authentic assessment through the use of criterion-referenced rubrics is but one step in the direction of Hattie’s ‘visible learning’ with implementation of eportfolios for all learners.
The more I reflect upon the state of learning and education the more I am convinced that it is an exciting time to be an educator, and perhaps, even more so as a school leader!
Change Agents, UNITE!
GETTING CURIOUS 