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Some aspects of the documents in this section no longer apply, however they have been archived for reference.
Current issues in effective teaching and learning
by Peter Westwood
From the proceedings of a forum conducted by the Board of Studies NSW on 26 October 1995
Return to the Nature of the Learner Forum Table of Contents
Constructivism: underlying assumptions
Constructivism: a theory or an approach?
The place for constructivist approaches
Do process approaches suit all learners?
Effective teaching is not a specific 'method'
The need for effective and adaptive approaches
Why aren't effective methods of instruction readily adopted?
Effective educational methods are available. They have been available
for a long time.
(Lindsley, 1992, p 21)
We can, whenever and wherever we want, successfully teach all
children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more
than we need to know to do that. Whether or not we do it must depend
on how we feel about the fact that we haven't so far.
(Edmonds, 1988, p iv)
In this paper I wish to address the following issues :
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the need to re-examine 'constructivist' theories of learning;
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the need to re-examine what we know about effective teaching;
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the need to ask why we don't use what we already know about effective teaching.
My major focus will be on learning in the early years of schooling and on what we usually refer to as learning the 'basic academic skills'. However, I believe that many of the principles and problems identified here apply equally to the education of older students (Campbell and Olsen, 1994), and to other areas of the curriculum.
Preamble
I would like to begin by describing some children I have observed closely in recent months. To place this in context, I must explain that at the moment I am supervising and working with twelve qualified teachers on an early intervention program for literacy learning in a local primary school. The twelve teachers working with me are enrolled in the Bachelor of Special Education degree course at Flinders University. They spend two to three sessions per week working one-to-one with fourteen children who need help in the beginning stages of learning to read and write.
Through working with these children and observing them in the classroom, it has become clear to me that, of the fourteen targeted children, only one has a genuine learning disability. The remaining thirteen children are responding very positively indeed to direct and explicit teaching. Unfortunately, they don't receive enough explicit teaching in their regular classrooms.
Although they are not learning-disabled, these children did not get off to a smooth start in reading during their first school year, and they are now well behind their peers. The children are losing confidence and they spend too little time successfully engaged in reading, writing and mathematical activities each day. Most of them have developed avoidance strategies in the classroom, such as taking a long time to find materials, choosing a practical activity rather than one which demands literacy skills, chatting with friends, disturbing other students, or just day-dreaming and not drawing attention to themselves. The absence rate is also very high in this group, with several of the children missing an average of one school day per week. These students are typical of the children described by Stanovich (1986) as suffering from the Matthew Effect ('the poor getting poorer'). In terms of attainment, their 'richer' peers are moving away from them at a rapid rate.
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Identifying the problem
From my perspective, the most obvious problem is the extremely small amount of time these children actually spend each day engaged in practising basic literacy and numeracy skills. Yet educational research has consistently indicated that the amount of time a student spends actively engaged in successful practice is a key element in effective learning (Bennett, 1987; Creemers, 1994a).
I am certainly not blaming the teachers for the situation I have described. They have large classes and they are simply employing, to the best of their ability, the student-centred, process-based approach to learning supported by the state education department. It is also the approach presented to trainee teachers by most college and university departments of methodology as the 'right' method to be used. The approach is linked closely with the 'cognitive-constructivist' theory of learning. We need to examine for a moment some of the underlying assumptions of constructivism.
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Constructivism: underlying assumptions
Constructivism presents the view that, rather than resulting from direct teaching, learning must involve students in acquiring knowledge and making meaning for themselves out of interacting with their social and physical environment (Merrill, 1992). The constructivist position challenges the view that true meaning and knowledge can be transmitted from a teacher to a student (Zevenbergen, 1995). Direct explanations and explicit instruction are frowned upon by the more extreme constructivists.
Socio-constructivism stresses the importance of the influences of others in the learning environment in allowing the student to negotiate meanings and develop multiple perspectives. Most classroom work guided by the socio-constructivist philosophy involves much group activity and cooperative learning. Walter Dick (1992), the instructional design expert, suggests that the constructivist perspective appeals to the current humanistic orientation of our public schools.
Primary teachers who have adopted a cognitive-constructivist philosophy usually use holistic approaches to learning. Specific skills and knowledge are introduced informally only within the context of larger, meaningful tasks (Bruning, 1993). Examples of the theory in practice can be seen in the current whole language approach to literacy learning, in process writing, and in process or activity-based mathematics.
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Challenging the assumptions
It is important, I think, to challenge some of the basic assumptions of constructivism. Is it really true that learners can only construct meaning for themselves? Is it not possible for new knowledge and meaning to be transferred directly from one individual to another? And is direct teaching not, at times, the most effective method of presenting new information and skills? Creemers (1994b) suggests that if you want students to learn something, why not teach it directly?
The recent OECD report on 'quality teaching' certainly recognises the importance of the teacher's role in effective instruction. It is stated in that report that knowing how to convey concepts, skills and information to others is what distinguishes good teachers from the rest (OECD, 1994). There is obviously still an important place for direct teaching in the learning process.
On the important role of the teacher as instructor, Yates and
Yates (1990) have observed that while learning does indeed occur
through exposure to resources such as textbooks, articles, computers,
apparatus and films, learning also involves:
exposure to a human being who organizes and presents new knowledge
to be assimilated and hence reconstructed in the mind of the student.
(p 253)
Presenting knowledge directly to a learner does not prevent the
individual from engaging in the process of making meaning. Indeed,
clear presentations of information may facilitate that process.
In defence of explicit teaching within any process approach to
learning, Pressley and McCormick (1995) state:
We emphasize that direct explanation is a decidedly constructivist
approach ... students do not passively learn from the explanations
but rather actively learn from them. (p 7)
And later in their text they observe:
we believe that good instruction that includes modelling, explanations
and scaffolded practice (ie high quality direct explanation) includes
a great deal of student construction of knowledge. Modelling and
explanation can stimulate constructive mental activity. (p 409)
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Constructivism: a theory or an approach?
According to Walter Dick (1992) some advocates for constructivism
would make it appear that the theory applies to all domains of human
learning. He raises the legitimate query:
What are the boundaries of the theory? And, is it really a theory,
or is it an instructional strategy for a particular type of learning
outcome? (p 96)
One is reminded of a comment made more than a quarter of a century
earlier by Richard Peters (1969), following the implementation of
the recommendations of the Plowden Report (1967) in Britain. In
describing some of the weaknesses in the extremely child-centred
learning approach advocated in that report for use in primary schools,
Peters said:
a method for learning some things has become puffed up into the
method for learning almost everything.
In Australia in the 1990s we seem to be in danger of adopting the very same child-centred, constructivist principles espoused in the old Plowden Report of the 1960s. For example, these same child-centred principles are clearly alive and well in the latest document on learning and teaching in the early years from the Department of Education and Children's Services in South Australia (1995). Yet, according to Bennett (1987), the methods advocated in the Plowden Report 'did not stand the test of time'. In Australia they are being presented as current 'best practice'.
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The place for constructivist approaches
Rather than being generally applicable to all types and levels
of learning, it is conceivable that constructivist strategies are
actually important at particular stages of learning. For example,
Jonassen (1992) presents a three-stage model of knowledge acquisition:
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initial knowledge acquisition
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advanced knowledge
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expertise.
He supports the view that initial knowledge acquisition may well be best served by explicit instruction, and that advanced knowledge acquisition leading to expertise may benefit most from a constructivist approach. For example, in the domain of reading acquisition, Stanovich (1994) suggests that the basic skills involved in early reading, such as word identification and decoding, may best be served by explicit instruction. Higher-order comprehension skills may represent advanced knowledge and expertise constructed upon the foundations created by direct teaching. However, there is evidence to indicate that in some Australian primary schools too little attention is given to the direct teaching of these early literacy skills (Prior, Sanson, Smart and Oberklaid, 1995).
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Do process approaches suit all learners?
As I have commented elsewhere (Westwood, 1993), on first impressions the classrooms where process approaches are used are busy and productive places. The general classroom climate is good. Children's independent and cooperative endeavours are most certainly encouraged and supported. The majority of children do well in process-based programs. So what is the problem?
The problem is that certain children do not cope particularly well with a process approach (Graham and Harris, 1994). Regardless of how they function outside school, they are not effective as independent learners in school. In many cases they do not have well-developed task-approach strategies and they experience much failure and frustration when left to tackle tasks on their own. They don't feel successful, motivation suffers, and they fade into the background. The busy teacher simply cannot give them the individual time and attention they require.
According to Stanovich (1994), some extreme believers in process and discovery approaches indicate that even direct teaching of effective learning strategies or task approach skills is not appropriate and that students should discover or create their own strategies or unique ways of learning. I am reminded of the cartoon that shows two young children standing at a sand and water tray, with one child saying to the other 'All I ever discover is that I don't understand it!'
Pressley and McCormick (1995) have observed that:
Not all children discover the many strategies that they need to know to negotiate the academic demands of school. For many students, discovery is inefficient at best, requiring far longer than it would to teach the same strategies to children using direct explanation. (p 9)
It could be said that instructional time is not being used to best advantage for this particular group of students. It would seem that the process approach is not meeting their needs. Bennett (1991) comments that the quality of learning for low achieving children in regular classes is not the same as that for average or high achievers. He states:
They tend to receive too little consolidation, their tasks tend to over-estimate their capabilities, poor presentation of work by teachers affects them more acutely, their work rate is often poorer, and inadequate assessment and diagnosis can lead to superficial understanding and less than optimal curriculum progression. It is of interest that those same features are apparent in mainstream schooling at every age range we have studied, from 4-14 years of age. (p 130)
The process approach is not necessarily perceived as helpful by some students who are mature enough to know when their needs and expectations are not being met. Recently Vaughn, Schumm, Klingner and Saumell (1995) have reported that most students in their study wanted more direction from the teacher, especially when dealing with difficult text material. On a similar issue, Delpit (1988) quotes one student as saying:
'I didn't feel she was teaching us anything. She wanted us to correct each other's papers and we were there to learn from her. She didn't teach us anything, absolutely nothing.' (p 287)
In a moment I will cite evidence to suggest that these children actually perform much more successfully if directly and effectively taught. They have already proved that without a great deal of high quality, effective teaching they don't make much progress; and they rapidly lose confidence, self-esteem and motivation. So let us for a moment explore what we know about effective teaching.
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Effective teaching
What do we know about effective teaching? The answer to this question is that if we focus upon the teaching of basic academic skills such as reading, writing, spelling and mathematics, we know a great deal. Comprehensive reviews of the research on effective teaching of basic academic skills include those of Rosenshine (1986), Kauchak and Eggen (1989), Waxman and Walberg (1991), Kindsvatter, Wilen and Ishler (1992), Barry and King (1993), Good and Brophy (1994), and Pressley and McCormick (1995). Virtually all of the reported research presents the view that when teaching basic academic skills an effective teacher exhibits the following attitudes and behaviours.
He or she:
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creates a supportive learning environment;
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accepts responsibility for actively and directly teaching the students;
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believes in his or her ability to instruct students successfully;
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believes in students' ability to learn;
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makes optimum use of available time through effective management;
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covers the curriculum content thoroughly, in manageable amounts, at a reasonable pace and at a high rate of success;
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uses explicit teaching procedures such as demonstrating, modelling, explaining, questioning and corrective feedback;
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provides abundant opportunities for students to engage in guided and independent practice and application;
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teaches adaptively, by closely monitoring the progress of students and providing re-teaching and extra practice where necessary;
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also encourages peer assistance and cooperative learning;
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revises and reviews previous learning at very regular intervals.
Based on the research evidence, Good and Brophy (1994) describe effective teachers in these terms:
They teach their students rather than expecting them to learn mostly
from interacting with curriculum materials on their own. (p 377)
As I have hinted above, there is some indication that student-centred,
'process' approaches may actually set some learners up for failure
since they lack the prerequisite knowledge and skills needed to
interpret and make sense of a new learning experience (Dick, 1992).
These students may need to be taught directly the appropriate skills
and strategies for effective learning in this particular domain
of the curriculum before 'process' approaches become viable. From
a special education perspective, Lloyd (1988) gives some support
to this viewpoint. Lloyd (1988) tells us that intervention research
has indicated that the most effective approaches for reducing student
failure rates have tended to be:
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structured - characterised by a great deal of teacher direction in the initial stages of learning;
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goal oriented - the students are clear about what is to be achieved;
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practice laden - new information and skills are repeated and applied many times to ensure acquisition and maintenance;
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strategy laden - students are taught how to attempt the tasks set for them;
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independence oriented - although highly teacher-directed in the early stages, the learners are expected to acquire knowledge and skills which will enable them later to work independently.
A number of studies have indicated that some students make much better progress in basic academic skills when directly taught (Lloyd, 1988; Thompson, 1992; Kameenui, 1993; Pressley and McCormick, 1995). In particular, slower learning students and students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds appear to acquire basic skills more rapidly when taught by explicit methods involving a great deal of teacher modelling and guided practice. This preference for more direct teaching may be a genuine individual difference among students which needs to be addressed by differentiated classroom practice. However, Kindsvatter, Wilen and Ishler (1992) suggest that direct teaching actually has a much wider application than merely working with children with special needs. They state: As to which learners benefit most from this systematic approach, research tells us that it is helpful for young children, slower learners, and students of all ages and abilities during the first stages of learning informative material or material difficult to learn. (p 231) Recently, Pressley and McCormick (1995) indicated that most of the key features of the effective teaching model, particularly demonstration, direct explanation and guided practice, have been incorporated into the new methods now used for teaching all students to apply appropriate self-regulatory and metacognitive strategies. In order to become effective independent learners students first need to be taught efficient ways of approaching any new task.
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Effective teaching is not a specific 'method'
Good and Brophy (1994) are quick to point out that effective teaching is not, in itself, a 'method'. Effective teachers don't use one particular method of teaching because they recognise that no single approach will serve all educational purposes. To teach effectively one must select appropriate methods, resources and strategies to suit the content to be taught, the type of learning involved, and the aptitudes and characteristics of the learners. It is possible, for example, for a teacher to approach literacy learning from a 'whole language', meaning-emphasis perspective, but still embed within that approach a great deal of explicit teaching of the component skills of reading and writing, such as word identification, phonics and spelling, specifically for the students who need such direction. (Spiegel, 1992; Stahl, McKenna and Pagnucco, 1994) Pressley (1994) has commented that:
experiencing more explicit instruction of reading skills and strategies in no way precludes the authentic reading and writing experiences emphasized in whole language. Rather, explicit instruction enables at-risk students to participate more fully in such literacy experiences. (p 211) The fact that some whole language teachers do not strike this important balance and place too little emphasis on skill building, is, I believe, one of the burning issues in early primary education at this time. It is unfortunate that the philosophy of whole language has been taken to extremes by a few teachers to the extent that some young children are virtually left to teach themselves how to read, write and spell. A warning has been issued by Pressley and Rankin (1994). They state:
There is a very real danger that an across-the-board acceptance of less structured and indirect approaches to literacy instruction, such as whole language, may not be in the best interests of at-risk and lower achieving students. (p 158) I am relieved to find evidence that perhaps the tide has turned. One of my most influential colleagues, the author Mem Fox, recently delivered an address to the Australian Literacy Educators' Association in Canberra titled Putting on the brakes: avoiding the wrecks in whole language. In her paper Mem Fox stated that children must have literacy basics in order to be able to function as literate members of our society, and within a whole language approach these basics must be taught explicitly and practised over and over again. She also indicated that too many teachers had stopped directly teaching in whole language classrooms, and had lost sight of the importance of demonstrations and feedback to children (Fox, 1995). Coming from one of the chief exponents of the whole language movement in Australia, this was a most significant address. Her message even made the front page of the Canberra Times of 30 July 1995.
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The need for effective and adaptive approaches
One of the most common statements made by teachers is that all children are different and all have different needs. Yet many of the very same teachers subscribe to a constructivist viewpoint of learning, which leads to a 'one-size-fits-all', process-approach to teaching (Milone, 1995). Surely, if students are different in their preference for style of instruction, a single method that emphasises independence in learning from the start is not going to suit the aptitudes of some students. Bartolome (1994, p 176) comments that sometimes these single methods are attributed almost 'magical properties' that render them in and of themselves capable of improving students' academic standing. We know from experience that this is not the case. It is important for teachers to recognise that teaching adaptively is a major part of teaching effectively. Rather than adhering to one teaching approach to the exclusion of all others, it is better to combine and integrate approaches (Zalud, Hoag and Wood, 1995). What we know about the effective teaching of basic academic skills suggests that, regardless of method or combination of methods used, the teacher needs to go about the task of instructing children in a systematic way. To achieve this, efficient use is made of the available lesson time and the teacher has firm control of the teaching-learning process. The specific knowledge, skills and strategies needed by the students are explicitly taught through demonstration, modelling, direct explanation and guided practice, rather than being concealed within the curriculum content for the students to discover. An essential feature of effective teaching is the emphasis given to practising new learning to the point of mastery. Yates and Yates (1990) argue that the basic principles of effective teaching, as described above, should be taught thoroughly to all beginning teachers. Upon this sound foundation they will be in a good position to build their own unique teaching styles and preferred methods. The same view is expressed by Kindsvatter, Wilen and Ishler (1992) who recommend: These [direct teaching] strategies and teaching behaviours need to be part of a teacher's information so that they can be tied to the accomplishment of certain goals, such as teaching basic skills to students who may react most positively to such teacher direction. (p 225)
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Why aren't effective methods of instruction readily adopted?
Several educators have commented on the obvious failure of many
schools to use the evidence from research on effective teaching
to improve their own classroom programs (eg Lloyd, 1988; Reith and
Evertson, 1988; Lindsley, 1992; Kessissoglou and Farrell, 1995).
We need to examine the possible reasons for this. Perhaps it can
be explained in part by the general reluctance of teachers to change
their established classroom practices in any domain, particularly
if the proposed changes are in conflict with their own beliefs about
children's learning (Fullan, 1991). If teachers believe strongly
in 'natural learning' and child-centred approaches, they are unikely
to accept any suggestion that they engage in large amounts of explicit
teaching. They interpret 'explicitness' as being old-fashioned chalk-and-talk
teaching. This is, of course, a total misunderstanding of the effective
teaching model. However, I doubt that 'reluctance to change' accounts
for our failure to adopt research-based methods. I question whether
our trainee teachers in the past decade have been exposed to the
research evidence, other than perhaps by way of very negative criticism.
Since 1974 my experience in colleges of advanced education and in
universities suggests that the information about effective teaching
rarely received a sympathetic hearing by academic staff in departments
of methodology and teaching practice, and was therefore not passed
on to trainee teachers. It did not sit well with the prevailing
humanist and constructivist philosophies. If the effective teaching
model was presented at all it tended to be done through departments
of educational psychology, rather than departments of teaching practice.
Many academics were critical of the process-product style of research
which had produced the data on effective teaching. These criticisms
(reviewed by Yates, Chandler and Westwood, 1987; Kauchak and Eggen,
1989; Duffy, 1990; Needels and Gage, 1991) included:
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the suggestion that the classroom studies were conceptually flawed since one cannot really focus on specific aspects of a teacher's behaviour and relate them to outcomes;
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the accusation that teaching behaviours can't easily be analysed because what a teacher does is perhaps more than the sum total of each part of what he or she is seen to do;
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the objection that correlational studies do not provide hard evidence of cause and effect, and that too much had been read into the data to infer that certain teacher behaviours directly influence students' learning;
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the comment that the process-product paradigm is too restrictive because it overlooks other factors which intervene between teachers and students;
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the fear that the research data would lead to simplistic cook-book recipes for classroom practice;
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the uncertainty of whether the findings could be generalised across age groups and across the curriculum;
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the complaint that the focus of the studies was too narrow in looking mainly at basic academic skills such as reading or mathematics. On the other hand, Kauchak and Eggen (1989, p 17) actually see this as a positive feature of the research since basic academic skills are, as they state, 'the backbone of the school curriculum'.
If you accepted all the above criticisms you would be most unlikely to encourage your teacher education students to adopt the practices reflected in the effective teaching studies. As one of my university colleagues who trains primary teachers said to me recently, 'I don't believe in all that effective teaching research stuff. It's not relevant in our schools. It's not how our teachers operate'. I encounter the same attitude quite frequently in many lecturers concerned with teaching methodology. I have also found the same views expressed by advisers and consultants responsible for in-service teacher development. To some extent the failure to adopt effective teaching procedures can also be blamed on 'bad press'. Pressley and McCormick (1995) place some of the blame on the early descriptions of effective teaching. Of Rosenshine's (1979) early work they say:
he made it sound so dreary ... for those educators who are child-centred or discovery-oriented, Rosenshine's description was grim. (p 247) Others have remarked that the picture presented by the early descriptions of direct teaching classrooms appeared to be one of rote learning and mindless drill. This deterred many educators from attending to the finer detail and adopting some of the structures (Kindsvatter, Wilen and Ishler, 1992). The current criticism that the topic of teacher effectiveness is now 'old hat' or passé would be acceptable if we had actually given effective teaching practices, as revealed in the process-product research, a fair go in our classrooms and in our teacher education programs. But, in general, we haven't done that. Rather, we have turned our attention in recent years to a much broader issue, namely that of effective schools (eg OECD, 1994; McGaw, Piper, Banks and Evans, 1992; McGaw et al, 1993; Hill, Holmes-Smith and Rowe, 1993; Reynolds, 1994). To me, the most interesting thing to emerge from the effective schools research is the finding that teachers do indeed make a very real difference to learning outcomes. This is also evident in the meta-analyses of school and outside school effects on learning, such as those of Wang, Haertel and Walberg (1994). In terms of actual teaching, Lezotte and Jacoby (1990) report that:
In effective schools teachers allocate a significant amount of classroom time to instruction in the essential skills. For a high percentage of this time, students are engaged in whole class or large group, planned teacher-directed, learning activities ... student progress is measured frequently ... the results of the assessments are used to improve individual student performance and also to improve the instructional program. (p 87) One of the conclusions in an Australian study of effective schools by McGaw, Piper, Banks and Evans (1992) is that:
Central to the concept of an effective school is the promotion of student learning, and effective learning occurs principally in effective classrooms operated by effective teachers. (p 68)
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Isn't that what we already knew in much more detail from the process-product and experimental studies?
Perhaps one of the main findings from the effective schools research, not so evident in the process-product research, is the importance of student-teacher relationships and teacher enthusiasm for student learning outcomes (McGaw et al, 1993; Hill et al, 1993). Factors in the affective domain were not easily addressed in the process-product work, but have certainly emerged in more recent surveys (eg Tobin and Fraser, 1991; Batten, Marland and Khamis, 1993). It is also clear from the study of effective schools that effective teachers can do much more than we once believed possible to overcome the inequalities and negative influences arising from disadvantaged home background and environment (Stoll, 1991; Hill et al, 1993). In the past, under the 'deficit model' of learning failure, we have been too ready to accept social disadvantage as an impediment too great for schools to overcome. Fortunately, we no longer subscribe to that viewpoint. The general messages from the effective schools research data are therefore very important and need to be presented clearly to both trainee and practising teachers.
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Conclusion
In this paper I have addressed three main issues. I have questioned some aspects of the constructivist perspectives on learning. In particular, I have suggested that constructivist principles may not be appropriate for some types and levels of learning. I also suggested that our current use of child-centred, process methods in the early years of schooling may not be meeting the educational needs of some children. Student-centredness, as reflected in process and immersion methods, began as a guiding philosophy but has become an orthodoxy that many now seem reluctant to challenge. I then explored some of the characteristics of effective teaching that have emerged from classroom-based research, and I suggested that trainee teachers and practising teachers need to know about this work in order to embed some of the features within their own teaching styles. Finally, I attempted to identify the reasons why the body of knowledge about effective teaching has been largely ignored so far in Australia; and I expressed my hope that in the long term the effective schools research may have more impact on current practices.
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