The Evidence Based Education Podcast

In June 2020 we published the Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review, a credible evidence summary of the elements of great teaching practice. In this podcast series we talk to the team at Falinge Park High School as they use the Evidence Review and the model for great teaching as the focus of their professional development. The review provides a structured point of reference for the things teachers do, know, or believe (elements), which have been found to be related to how well their students learn. Staff at Falinge Park are each selecting an element from the review to work on as the focus of their professional enquiry. We are following the team to find out how they organise and structure their learning and how it unfolds as they seek to enhance their practice. In this first episode, we speak to the Headteacher of Falinge Park, Janice Allen, who gives us an overview of their plans and the professional development culture at her school. All of our podcasts are available in our podcast archive.

In 2011, frustrated by the current state of education, David Didau (aka the Learning Spy) began to blog. He charted the successes and failures of his classroom and synthesised 15 years of teaching experienced through the lens of education research and cognitive psychology. The blog became very popular, very quickly. With well over 2.5 million readers, David’s blog – The Learning Spy – is widely recognised as one of the most influential education blogs in the UK and has won a number of awards. In 2012, David left teaching. Over the last eight years he has spent a significant amount of time reading and thinking about teaching and learning, written books and blogs on the topic, and delivered training to thousands of teachers around the world. He recently launched the Learning Spy Academy, offering a library of resources and has started a YouTube show with Martin Robinson called ‘It’s your time you’re wasting’. You can tune-in every Friday to watch David and Martin discuss recent education events with their guests. After an eight-year break from teaching, David Didau has returned to the classroom as an English teacher. Our Director of Chatting, Jamie Scott, spoke to David to find out about his return to the classroom. They discuss: Why he left teaching? His time spent out of the classroom What it’s like to be back in the classroom Is teaching like riding a bike? What are the big teaching challenges – are they the same as before or different?   For his blog and to find out more about David’s work, visit https://learningspy.co.uk

Collective teacher efficacy, professional learning communities, collective professionalism… There are many similar but different forms and terms for effective teacher collaboration, and there is a significant body of evidence about their positive impact on teachers themselves and student learning.  There are gains to be made through effective and focused collaboration. In this second episode of the Evidence Based Education podcast mini-series on teacher collaboration, we catch up with colleagues from the Dulwich College International group as they seek to enhance collaboration across nine of their schools. We also hear from John Hattie on collective teacher efficacy and Dylan Wiliam offers some words of caution on teacher collaboration more broadly. Sadly, the audio quality in the conversation with Dylan is slightly poorer than normal due to technical glitches. However, they soon pale into significance once you are tuned into what Dylan is saying.   All of our podcasts can be found in our podcast archive, and you can listen to the first episode in this series there too. What's more, we have a host of free eBooks, videos and webinars in our Resource Library!

Collective teacher efficacy, professional learning communities, collective professionalism... There are many similar but different forms and terms for effective teacher collaboration, and there is a significant body of evidence about their positive impact on teachers themselves and student learning.  There are gains to be made through effective collaboration. This new episode of the Evidence Based Education podcast is the first in a mini-series on teacher collaboration. We are following the journey of colleagues from the Dulwich College International group as they seek to enhance collaboration across nine of their schools. We will also be offering some advice along the way! This podcast is designed to be useful for not only members of the Dulwich collaboration network, but to any education professional with an interest in teacher collaboration, particularly across schools. The themes within the podcast are applicable to teachers and schools in all settings. At this point, the Dulwich College International family of schools have established a framework for teacher collaboration across the group, forming almost 50 different subject, leadership or student services groups. Now the collaboration groups have the autonomy to innovate and overcome any shared challenges. In this episode Jamie Scott of Evidence Based Education (EBE) speaks to Dulwich’s Director of Senior school about the aim of the teacher collaboration initiative, two collaboration group leads about their role, and to EBE’s Dr Stuart Kime to hear how the notion of ‘problem identification’ might be useful in the early stages of the collaboration network.   All of our podcasts can be found in our podcast archive, and you can listen to the first episode in this series there too. What's more, we have a host of free eBooks, videos and webinars in our Resource Library!

If your school uses CEM assessment data generated from assessments such as MidYIS, Yellis or ALIS, then this podcast is for you – and your colleagues! In this edition of the EBE podcast, Jamie Scott chats with our CEM Training Manager, Matt McGinlay, about the effective use of data from the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM). Matt explains how different stakeholders in secondary schools, including governors, senior leaders, middle leaders and teachers can follow a three-part process when considering the feedback provided. Matt discusses his experiences from visiting schools around the world and shares examples of how to use baseline data for diagnosing pupil strengths and areas for development, goal setting data to consider potential outcomes for students, as well as value-added data to evaluate student progress and what seems to be working well.   We have worked with over 400 schools around the world to maximise the use of CEM assessment data. The key challenge all schools face is ensuring that the data are accessed and used by as many staff as possible. That is why we created an accessible online training course on the effective use of CEM assessment data that can be accessed by all staff. You can try a free sample of the online course here and find out more about our packages of support here.

On 19th June 2020, Evidence Based Education released the Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review - a credible evidence summary of the elements of great teaching practice. The review provides a structured point of reference for the things teachers do, know, or believe, which have been found to be related to how well their students learn. The overarching goal here is to help teachers take ownership of their professional learning and to help them enhance their practice for the benefit of students. In this interview, we speak to the review’s lead author to hear him describe the dimensions of great teaching and how the evidence informed their development.

In June 2020, Evidence Based Education will publish a report authored by Rob Coe. The report will provide a credible evidence summary of the elements of great teaching practice. This will provide a structured point of reference for the things teachers do, know or believe, which have been found to be related to how well their students learn. This is the first stage in an ambitious project to provide teachers with evidence-informed guidance and personalised diagnostic feedback for their long-term professional development. It is stage one of developing the Great Teaching Toolkit.   Why? The fundamental goal of everyone that works in education is to improve outcomes for students. While many personal, family, and cultural factors contribute to learners' academic performance, a large body of research indicates that teachers matter more to their achievement than any other aspect of their education. The quality of teaching is hugely important to the outcomes of students. We know that expertise develops over time and is an ongoing process. However, in the main, the current model of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is ‘Continuing’ in the sense that it continues to happen over a career, on an ad-hoc basis. It is not continuing in the sense that there is a set of key practices that are constantly developed over time, that you keep getting better at. By ‘better’ we mean more effective at facilitating students’ learning: helping more students to learn more. If you want to get better (or help your teachers get better) it’s difficult to know where to start. Your resources are precious, you have no time to waste. How should you prioritise your professional development? What are your best bets in terms of making the most difference to your students? To help facilitate learning, teachers gain an understanding of where their students are at and, with a clear goal in mind, what they need to do next. They illustrate the desired goal state – what it looks like, good and not so good examples. They provide guidance and opportunities for practice, and they provide feedback on progress toward the goal. There is a sad irony in that teachers rarely receive the same support and feedback for their own learning. We want to try and change that.   Autonomy, feedback and purpose A car’s satnav indicates where you are and provides information to help you arrive at your destination. It doesn’t tell you how to drive. You’re in control, but it does provide direction to help you along the way. In the context of this metaphor, the journey to improving teaching practice starts with a kind of map or model. In this case, it is the forthcoming report - a credible summary of the elements of great teaching practice, the kind that impacts most on learning. Following the publication of this report, we will develop and release a set of instruments to help teachers anonymously assess their strengths and identify their own development priorities. The same tools will provide diagnostic formative feedback as they work on specific goals to improve their practice. Although teaching is an extremely complex set of skills and definitely not just a set of techniques or recipes, taking a specific technique, skill or area of knowledge and practising to a high level of proficiency is a key way to improve overall effectiveness. Finally, in this endeavor, we aim to identify the kind of professional development that leads to improvement in specific areas of practice. This stage of the project will require a community of thousands of educators like you, working towards a shared aim. Our strong, overarching goal here is to help teachers take ownership of their professional learning and to help them enhance their practice for the benefit of students.   Find out more about the Great Teaching Toolkit You can find out more about the forthcoming Great Teaching Toolkit evidence review in an interview with Rob Coe,

Many schools in South East Asia have recently closed due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus, forcing them to move entirely to an online and distance learning environment in a matter of weeks. Those schools are now looking for answers to questions like 'how do you deliver assessment and feedback in an online context?' Not knowing how long this situation may last, schools and teachers have had to completely shift the way they're delivering an education to the students in their care. In recent weeks, we’ve heard several examples of how some have admirably adapted. Nevertheless, moving from the classroom to online learning presents new challenges. To lend support to schools, we were asked by colleagues at Dulwich College International if we could offer some helpful advice on the kind of assessment and feedback practices you could put to use in an online context. Here, Professor Stuart Kime, our Director of Education, and Jamie Scott, Director of Partnerships, discuss the challenges, as well as some strategies to help in this challenging predicament. Many of the effective principles of assessment and feedback can still apply to the online learning environment, it’s just that they’re re-framed and applied in this new context. In the podcast we explore how to apply strategies such as retrieval practice, self assessment and using hinge questions, as well as the key ingredients of effective feedback. All of our podcasts can be found in our podcast archive, and you can listen to the first episode in this series there too. What's more, we have a host of free eBooks, videos and webinars in our Resource Library!

In this latest episode, 'is teaching becoming more evidence-informed?', Sir Kevan Collins, the departing chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), is interviewed by Evidence Based Education’s Jamie Scott about his eight years in the role – taking the EEF from a small start-up with three employees (“and a decent bank balance”) to becoming a global leader in generating and using evidence to improve educational outcomes for children and young people. Sir Kevan Collins discusses the appetite for such research among teachers and policy makers, the EEF’s successes and challenges, and identifies the top five changes he’d make as education secretary. All of our podcasts can be found in our podcast archive and we have a host of free eBooks, videos and webinars in our Resource Library!

New Trialled and Tested podcast looks at improving Social and Emotional Learning. Effective social and emotional learning (SEL) can increase positive pupil behaviour, mental health and well-being, and academic performance. Indeed, evidence from the EEF’s Teaching and Learning Toolkit suggests that effective SEL can lead to learning gains of +4 months over the course of a year. However, despite being seen as one of their top priorities by almost all primary schools, only just over one-third say that dedicated planning for SEL is central to their practice. The recent EEF guidance report, Improving Social and Emotional Learning in Primary Schools, reviewed the best available research and offered school leaders six practical recommendations to support good SEL for all children. In this episode of our podcast series, Trialled and Tested, EBE’s Jamie Scott speaks to Jean Gross CBE, one of the authors of the guidance report, Liz Robinson, who sat on the advisory panel, and headteacher Mari Palmer for her views on implementing SEL strategies. Although the guidance is aimed at Primary Schools, both the guidance and the podcast is just as relevant to parents of young children. ‘Trialled and Tested’ is produced in partnership with the Education Endowment Foundation. For more podcasts be sure to check out our podcast archive!