Purposeful Teaching
Effective teachers know how students learn and build on the knowledge their students already have. Teachers have a strong grasp of the content of their discipline. They use teaching strategies matched to the learning styles and needs of their students to engage them with that content. Purposeful teachers contextualise their teaching practices. They centre their teaching on the experiences of their students, equipping them with knowledge and skills they can use in everyday life.
Forming answers to the following questions may help to clarify how purposeful teaching looks in your school:
- Are there shared views about effective teaching and learning among the teachers and leadership group?
- To what extent do the teaching strategies and practices used in our school accommodate the variations in the learning needs and styles of our students?
- To what extent are the teaching strategies used in our school influenced by contemporary pedagogical understanding and practice?
Links to Blueprint Strategies/Initiatives
The development of purposeful teaching is supported through:
Flagship Strategy 1
The Curriculum Planning Guidelines encourage schools to plan their curriculum with a student centred approach. The whole-school model of curriculum planning is centred on the learner as an individual with specific requirements for learning. The Guidelines encourage teachers to draw on their skills, expertise and experience to experiment with the application of new teaching strategies and learning theories and new approaches to assessment. Additionally, teachers can access the Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12 through the Guidelines, providing a common language and set of expectations for the teaching profession.
The Victorian Essential Learning Standards are underpinned by a clear set of educational purposes and principles which reflects the community expectations for schooling in Victoria. The standards identify what is important for students to achieve at different stages of their schooling, set standards for those achievements and provide a clear basis for reporting to parents and for planning programs.
The Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12 provides a framework which assists teachers in developing clarity of purpose in planning learning experiences and to be adaptive in their practice. Teachers need to be committed to student learning. This will involve encouraging talking and thinking about how students learn best and about what learning in particular learning areas means. It may involve cutting back on content, being more flexible in planning sequences and focusing clearly on what is planned to be learned. Teachers also need to focus on significant outcomes and need to be clear what these are and why they are important.
Assessment and Reporting practices will assist students to learn more effectively if they develop students' capacity to reflect on their learning, develop deeper understanding and cultivate higher order thinking skills. Assessment for improved student learning and deep understanding requires the range of assessment practices to be used: Assessment for learning occurs when teachers use inferences about student progress to inform their teaching. Assessment as learning occurs when students reflect on and monitor their progress to inform their future learning goals. Assessment of learning occurs when teachers use evidence of student learning to make judgements on student achievement against goals and standards.
In reporting to parents, teachers communicate information on a student's achievement and also provide plans for the student's future learning as well as clear advice on how parents can assist their child's learning. Information from reports is made available to all teachers involved with the student during the year and is provided to subsequent teachers as the student moves through their schooling. This process supports teachers to become active investigators of student learning and increases their effectiveness by enabling them to have a longitudinal view of each students learning.
The ability to adapt to the needs and experiences of our students, in a variety of learning contexts, is fundamental to good teaching. To see the different ways that your colleagues are matching teaching strategies to the needs and learning styles of their students in a variety of learning contexts, visit Knowledge Bank, your online teaching and learning resource.
Flagship Strategy 2
Developing a new resource allocation model put students at the centre of education funding. The Student Resource Package provides better outcomes for all students by focusing on student outcomes and school improvement when targeting resources to schools.
Flagship Strategy 3
Coaching to enhance the capabilities of experienced principals will influence purposeful teaching through working on several of the other effective schools model characteristics including: professional leadership, accountability and learning communities.
Flagship Strategy 4
A Performance and Development Culture in schools sustains purposeful teaching through ensuring: the use of multiple sources of data including student learning outcomes, and professional learning programs demonstrating skill or knowledge transfer in the classroom which has a positive impact on students.
Flagship Strategy 5
Teacher Professional Leave proposals are focused on improving the teaching-learning relationship and lifting student outcomes. Whether it is pedagogy or subject discipline the aim is to build teachers' capacity to improve student learning outcomes.
Induction and Mentoring for Beginning Teachers encourages purposeful teaching in schools. They provide professional support by: assisting new teachers to understand how teachers learn, strengthening new teachers' grasp of the content of their discipline(s), and encouraging the use of teaching strategies which are matched to the learning styles and needs of their students.
Flagship Strategy 6
The Effective Schools Model provides a lens through which schools can think about their performance, plans and priorities. Blueprint Flagship Strategy 6 (School Improvement) provides a range of tools, processes and opportunities for schools to improve their planning, reviewing, evaluation and decision-making when they examine their school through the model.
Single Planning and Accountability Document
Staff, Student and Parent Surveys provide feedback to teachers and school leadership teams on teaching and learning arrangements.
Professional Reading
The following sites contain information from the following forward thinkers in education today. These sites contain relevant and new material and are easy to negotiate.
Howard Gardner & Multiple Intelligences
(www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm)
Bloom's Taxonomy (and associated resources)
(faculty.washington.edu/krumme/guides/bloom.html)
Teaching for understanding (David Perkins - Project "Zero")
(www.exploratorium.edu/IFI/resources/workshops/teachingforunderstanding.html)
Books and Journals
The following readings can be located in hard copy through the appropriate journals or educational texts. These readings have been influential in the thinking behind current educational reform in Victoria.
Blythe, T. (1998), 'The Teaching for understanding guide', San Francisco, CA:Jossey-Bass
Perkins, D. and Blythe, T. (1994) ' Putting understanding up front' Journal of Educational Leadership, vol. 51, No. 5, pp. 1-5
Murdoch, K. (1998), 'Making Classroom Connections: Strategies for Integrated Learning', Dellasta, Melbourne