Improving Teaching: new insight into how, right now
Hot on the heels of the EEF's new guidance report, Effective Professional Development, Roger Higgins blogs for Norwich Research School for about what its recommendations mean for schools.
“Changing habits can be challenging, yet our profession necessitates us forming habits, whether helpful or unhelpful. Professional development must trigger and sustain a helpful change in behaviour in colleagues, to have a chance of benefiting pupils. Mechanisms are elements in a professional development programme which are causal in behaviour change. For example, revisiting prior learning with teachers is just as powerful as it is with pupils. This doesn’t need to be complicated: many schools already include quizzing and carefully structured peer discussion when designing professional development.
My initial reaction on seeing 14 separate mechanisms listed in the report was dread: who has time to read this right now? However, don’t be put off: these fall into four groups, with the suggestion that we aim for at least one mechanism in each group when planning CPD...”