QUALITY TEACHING IN NSW PUBLIC SCHOOLS

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QUALITY TEACHING IN NSW PUBLIC SCHOOLS

• Taken from the classroom practice guide
• NSW Department of Education Training

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Quality Teaching

• The three dimensions and eighteen elements of
  the NSW model of pedagogy represent a synthesis
  of solid and reliable research that empirically
  links these general qualities of pedagogy to
  improved student learning.
• The guide has been written to assist schools in
  building that shared vision, the eighteen
  elements of the model assist teachers and school
  leaders to talk about pedagogy and to understand
  what constitutes quality teaching
• Quality Teaching in public schools a classroom
  practice guide, NSW Department of Education
  Training

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Introduction

• Quality Teaching involves three main dimensions
  
• Intellectual Quality
• Quality Learning Environment
• Significance
• Within each of these three dimensions there are 6
  elements which construct the dimension

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INTELLECTUAL QUALITY

• Intellectual Quality refers to pedagogy focused
  on producing deep understanding of important,
  substantive concepts, skills and ideas. Such
  pedagogy treats knowledge as something that
  requires active construction and requires
  students to engage in higher order thinking and
  to communicate substantively about what they are
  learning

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INTELLECTUAL QUALITY

• ELEMENTS
• Deep knowledge knowledge is deep when it
  concerns the central ideas or concepts
• Deep understanding evident when students
  demonstrate their grasp of central ideas and
  concepts
• Problematic knowledge involves an understanding
  of knowledge not as a fixed body of information,
  but rather as being socially constructed
• Higher-order thinking requires students to
  manipulate information and ideas in ways that
  transform their meaning implications
• Metalanguage high levels of talk about language
  and about how texts work
• Substantive Communication- sustained interaction
  about the substance of the lesson

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QUALITY LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

• Quality Learning Environment refers to pedagogy
  that creates classrooms where students and
  teachers work productively in an environment
  clearly focused on learning. Such pedagogy sets
  high and explicit expectations and develops
  positive relationships between teachers and
  students and among students

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QUALITY LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

• ELEMENTS
• Explicit quality criteria identified by
  frequent, detailed and specific statements about
  the quality of work required of students
• Engagement identified by on-task behaviors that
  signal a serious investment in class work
• High Expectations teachers communicate the
  expectation that all members of the class can
  learn important knowledge and skills that are
  still challenging for them
• Social Support encourages all students to try
  hard and risk initial failure in a climate of
  mutual respect
• Students self regulation when lessons proceeds
  without interruption and when students
  demonstrate autonomy and initiative in their
  behavior
• Student direction when teachers have control
  over the choice and time spent on activities,
  pace of the lesson and criteria by which students
  will be assessed

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SIGNIFICANCE

• Significance refers to pedagogy that helps make
  learning more meaningful and important to
  students. Such pedagogy draws clear connections
  with students prior knowledge and identities ,
  with contexts outside the classroom, and with
  multiple ways of knowing or cultural perspectives

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SIGNIFICANCE

• ELEMENTS
• Background Knowledge evident when lessons
  provide students with opportunities to make
  connections between their knowledge and
  experience and the substance of the lesson
• Cultural knowledge when there is an
  understanding, valuing and acceptance of the
  traditions, beliefs and practices of diverse
  social groups
• Knowledge integration when meaningful
  connections are made between different topics and
  subjects
• Inclusivity- when all students in the classroom
  participate in the public work of the class and
  when contributions are valued
• Connectedness when learning has value and
  meaning beyond the school
• Narrative when the stories written, told or read
  help illustrate the knowledge that students are
  addressing in the classroom

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REFERENCES

• All information in this power point is taken from
  the Quality teaching in NSW public schools A
  classroom practice guide.
• Developed by the NSW Department of Education
  and Training. 2003