Building the Evidence Base Overview and key findings from year 1

1
Building the Evidence BaseOverview and key
findings from year 1

• Philippa Cordingley and Paul Crisp CUREE

2
Building the Evidence Base
3
Research reviews
4
The map of research reviews

• We started by mapping the relevant reviews of
  research
• The map identified 6 key trends
• The effectiveness of learning that is context
  based
• The importance of connecting curriculum with home
  and community experiences also parental
  involvement in childrens learning in the home
• The impact on pupil motivation and learning of
  structured dialogue in group work and of
  collaborative learning

5
Six Key Trends

• The need to create opportunities to identify and
  build on pupils existing conceptual
  understandings
• The need to remove rigidity to allow time and
  space for conceptual development
• The need for excellence and professional
  development in subject knowledge for curriculum
  innovation, especially in relation to
  context-based learning

6
The second review

• Several thousand studies covered by the reviews
  in the map
• 233 covered by the reviews that focussed in depth
  on 6 findings from the map
• These were then filtered (twice) for evidence re
  student impact, relevance to the six themes
  and/or the themes underpinning the new secondary.
  Seven were simply unavailable.
• Resulting in 63 remaining studies in this review

7
The second review

• Provides rich detail on the 6 key trends and
  several claims made by QCA for the secondary
  curriculum
• Establishes the maturity of the evidence base in
  relation to collaboration, context based
  learning, home/school links and building on
  students existing understanding
• Highlights effectiveness, in particular, in the
  context of science, maths, MFL and independent
  learning
• Identifies a need for further research into
  curriculum flexibility and cross-curricular
  learning

8
The Second review context based learning an
example

• 8/17 studies re real world contexts science
• Mechanisms for making connections in science
• Drama and role play
• Situating learning in everyday challenges e.g.
  ethics of genetics technology, traffic and
  safety, energy at home
• Simulation of science in context via ICT
• Mechanisms in other subject areas
• community service based learning, real world
  problems, students contributing their own
  information and contexts from home

9
The Second Review QCA Claims

• The curriculum needs to
• better reflect the world that young people are
  growing up in well illustrated through evidence
  re context based learning
• be more than a revision to the subject programmes
  of study well illustrated by evidence of the
  importance of connecting the curriculum with home
  and community based learning
• enable progression well illustrated by detailed
  evidence about how teaching has to build on
  existing understanding 
• personalise learning richly illustrated picture
  of curriculum initiatives in personalisation
  which have been successful to varying degrees in
  promoting student learning and achievement

10
The Second Review QCA Claims

• reflect the aims and values of the school
  moderately well illustrated
• emphasise key concepts as a means of enabling
  subject teachers to develop more flexible,
  inclusive and appropriate learning experiences
  moderately well illustrated
• emphasise key subject-based processes
  moderately well illustrated
• reflect interdependencies between content,
  teaching and learning moderately well
  illustrated
• provide contexts for learning (linked to map
  finding that the curriculum needs to be flexible
  and to enable cross curricular learning) scant
  illustration because the review is more subject
  based

11
The Second review implications for content,
learning and teaching via structuring talk and
group work an example

• A mature evidence base studies with strong
  evidence were extensive re structuring group
  work and talk and offered high quality evidence
  in a range of contexts
• Thinking skills 9
• Science 7
• ICT 3
• Maths 3
• Key features included
• Teaching group work skills explicitly
• Structuring tasks for interdependence
• The allocation of a range of structured and
  specific roles
• Plus a range of other strategies including
  reaching consensus, use of protocols including
  for Socratic dialogue and for open and probing
  questioning

12
The pupil survey
13
What were we interested in?

• Concerned with 4 curriculum domains derived from
  QCA policy interests
• Challenge and inspiration
• Flexibility and choice
• Student lifestyles and health
• Motivational influences
• Mile wide, inch deep
• Take the pulse
• Provisional and illustrative

14
Method of Data Collection

• Web bases survey in March and April 2008
• Over 3,000 participants from a representative
  sample of schools
• 8 focus groups used to
• Explore issues which could not effectively be
  dealt with via a survey
• Explore in greater depth interesting/ambiguous
  findings from the survey
• Draw out the views of some students who were
  unlikely to participate in the survey

15
Taking the pulse

• A majority of students (primary and secondary)
  feel positive about the curriculum they
  experience
• There were no significant differences in
  satisfaction between genders, ethnic or age
  groups
• Primary pupils were generally more satisfied with
  their school experience than secondary
• Older secondary students wanted more influence
  over and choice about their curriculum experience
  than
• they felt they got, and
• younger students

16
An Example
17
An Example 2
Do I eat healthily at school? Disagree Agree
Ive never been told about healthy eating at school 95.3 4.7
Ive been told about healthy eating at school 44.0 56.0
I have started eating more healthily because of what I have learned at school 57.8 42.2
I already eat healthily 47.0 53.0
Some of my friends are eating more healthily because of what they have learned at school 69.0 31.0
What have I learned about exercise? Disagree Agree
Teachers dont encourage us to take exercise 88.0 12.0
In my school we have a lot of encouragement to take exercise 21.5 78.5
Some of my friends have started to do more exercise outside of school because of what they have learnt about it in school 62.3 37.7
18
Some interesting points

• More students (primary and secondary) feel that
  their lessons are too easy than feel they are too
  hard
• Secondary students thought that maths was both
  the hardest and third easiest subject
• Focus group generally critical of the teaching of
  maths but recognised the importance of the
  subject
• Apart from maths, no strongly perceived
  correlation between the subject and the manner of
  its teaching
• Some of the secondary curriculum reforms being
  implemented formally in 2008 are already
  experienced by significant numbers of students

19
Some interesting points 2

• Drugs, alcohol and healthy eating education is
  well established in both primary and secondary
  schools
• But, for secondary students, the sight of
  overweight people on television and on the street
  had greater impact than school activities
• Dealing with stress was the least developed
  aspect of lifestyle and personal wellbeing
  education
• Secondary schools were felt to be more pressured
  environments than primary but parental
  expectations were high in both
• Substantial minorities of students felt they were
  under too little pressure from teachers or
  parents, although parents (at 24.5) did worse
  than teachers (17)
• Few significant differences in responses when
  examined by gender or Key Stage level. Age had a
  bigger impact but still not a very big one
  particularly in the areas of choice and autonomy

20
An example Challenge and Inspiration Primary

• 50 think lessons present the right amount of
  challenge, but
• 31.1 said they were too easy
• 17.1 said they were too hard
• The level of challenge in the primary curriculum
  may be less than the students expect or are
  capable of
• 60 thought their friends wanted them to do well
  at school, rising to 85 for parents expectations
• Around 30 felt that parental pressure was a
  bit/lot too much while 22 felt that parents put
  too little pressure on them

21
An example Challenge and Inspiration
Secondary

• More than 50 felt that
• They did a lot of practical activities
• They often used what they learned at school
  outside of school
• They did a mix of different things in lessons
• They used the internet often at school
• The biggest gaps (gt20) between student
  experience and aspiration were
• Opportunities to link lessons to experience
• Amount of practical activity
• Mix of activity
• Use of AV resources and the internet

22
The probes
23
The Work

• Multi site case studies of classroom level
  curriculum development in nine schools
• Three areas/issues within curriculum development
  identified
• Integration of assessment Group work and
  discussion
• Effective CPD

24
Methodology

• Videos of classes (probes 1 and 2)
• Observations of CPD or CPD planning sessions
  probe (3)
• Interviews with teachers, head teachers and
  pupils
• Interviews and analysis were structured around
• Evidence base e.g. EPPI reviews plus
• Stimulated recall of videoed or observed
  incidents
• Attempts to reach a grounded definition of
  curriculum development

25
Methodology

• Selection of cases
• Range of schools Socio-economic contexts, pupil
  entry level ability, school composition
• For CVA and evidence of closing gap
• History of sustained curriculum innovation
• History and/or trajectory of substantial
  development in the targeted area

26
The probe questions

• How are teachers, who are developing the
  curriculum in order to close the achievement gap
  while maintaining standards, balancing the
  opportunities and demands of different approaches
  to assessment?
• What challenges do teachers face when they try to
  get students to engage in more effective group
  work and talk while developing the curriculum?
• What are the characteristics of effective
  continuing professional development (CPD) for
  teachers undertaking curriculum development? What
  are teachers involved in? Who supports them, how
  and with what results?

27
The Outcomes

• Three reports each
• Contain vignettes and examples of practice
• Draw on existing evidence base to increase
  explanatory power
• Identify key characteristics, main themes, and
  illustrate good practice
• Identify implications and further sources of
  information

28
The assessment case study illustrated ways of

• recognising the centrality of pupils in learning
  and assessment processes
• providing clear curriculum and assessment
  structures to create space for innovation and
  creativity
• embedding assessment in engaging and relevant
  learning activities
• embedding assessment and feedback within a range
  of learning relationships
• integrating varied assessment approaches to help
  articulate, define and judge successful learning
• using the learning environment as part of the
  assessment infrastructure

29
The case study on talk illustrated ways of

• prompting and supporting students in their use of
  language and modelling productive and exploratory
  talk
• offering regular opportunities in different
  curriculum areas to develop and reinforce
  collaborative skills
• structuring groups to give everyone chance to
  speak, and managing the mix of personalities
• establishing and displaying ground rules for talk
• teaching students explicitly the skills to
  underpin the rules
• creating speaking, listening and ideas frames
• developing a clear rationale for linking group
  work, talk and curriculum development

30
The CPD case study illustrated ways of

• Making curriculum development a vehicle for
  powerful professional learning via CPD support
• Aligning professional learning, curriculum
  development and performance management to
  motivate teachers
• Facilitating curriculum development groups of
  practitioners across groups of schools when
  there is limited internal capacity
• Identifying and mobilising teachers with
  specialist curriculum expertise in new areas of
  the school

31
Assessment Regimes and Curriculum Innovation
MYTH Pressure of assessment regimes severely inhibit curriculum innovation REALITY Requires a safe creative space within a robust curriculum infrastructure FUTURE Develop these robust infrastructures within low capacity schools
32
Strand 4
33
Dissemination and Diffusion

• Collection of tools and activities
• Creation of summaries and activities, e.g.
• Practitioner summary of the map
• Summary and activity of the work of Jerome Bruner
• Activities for consultation seminars
• Telephone interviews with policy makers to map
  current activity
• Tasters and summaries year 2
• CUREE website www.curee.co.uk

34
Evidence Taster

• Tasters are
• Nuggets of intriguing evidence
• Mini enquiry tools to interest people in current
  realities for students
• Mini research and development tools for trying
  out new approaches
• Links to further resources

35
Assessment Regimes and Curriculum Innovation
MYTH Pressure of assessment regimes severely inhibit curriculum innovation REALITY A robust curriculum assessment infrastructure creates a safe creative space for innovation flexibility FUTURE Develop these robust infrastructures within low capacity schools
36
Personalisation and Curriculum Reform
MYTH Personalisation always requires major school level reforms to curriculum offer REALITY Pedagogic approaches such as dialogical learning provide a starting point FUTURE Some pedagogical approaches build capacity and space for curriculum innovation and personalisation
37
CPD and Curriculum Design and Implementation
MYTH Range of recent reforms have developed schools ability to link CPD and curriculum innovation REALITY Few schools have the capacity to provide integrated and holistic CPD FUTURE Developing robust school based approaches to curriculum re-design
38
Areas for development

• Which issues would you see as priorities for
  development via
• Tasters
• Further probes
• Further surveys
• Further reviews?