Evidence based education
What is teaching in the 21st century?
Sunday 2 November, 4.00pm until 5.30pm, Lecture Theatre 2

Things in schools certainly are changing. Countless education related inquiries (the Assessment Inquiry, the Primary Review and the Good Childhood Inquiry to mention just a few) – let alone the Children’s Plan - promise major changes in schools and what it will mean to teach in the 21st century. There is similarly a growing array of research programmes competing to try and influence educators and sell their evidence - often contradictory - as the most reliable guide to ‘best practice’. The ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme has suggested teachers follow evidence-based commandments (the ten principles of pedagogy).

These evidence-based policies now target an ever expanding number of people involved in the educational process. Education is increasingly ‘outsourced’ to learning guides, support assistants and other ‘key workers’ who facilitate and mentor children to create their own learning outcomes. Teachers working alongside them face new demands for ‘continuing professional development’ in childcare and identifying children’s needs, as well as pressures to consider ideas such as ‘neuro-linguistic programming’ to increase their effectiveness as ‘classroom practitioners’.

Such a confusing scene begs questions about what teachers are for these days. Is a teacher a distinctive academic professional anymore or just one of an array of caring neo-professionals supporting the welfare of the child? Is making teaching a more research-informed profession the best alternative to much-decried ‘here one day, gone the next’ policies and initiatives? Or is evidence-informed pedagogy too narrow and prescriptive an approach to allow for teachers’ autonomy and creativity?

Watch the session video...

 Speakers
Geoff Petty
Author of best selling teacher-training texts Teaching Today and Evidence Based Teaching.
Kathryn Ecclestone
professor of education, University of Sheffield; author, Governing Vulnerable Subjects in a Therapeutic Age (forthcoming)
Tony Neal
chair of policy and research committee, General Teaching Council for England; author, Managing Targets and Managing Value Added
Chair:
Dr Mark Taylor
vice principal, East London Science School; London convenor, IoI Education Forum


 Produced by
Dr Mark Taylor vice principal, East London Science School; London convenor, IoI Education Forum

 Recommended readings
There's much to be said for the old ways of teaching. At least they worked

How bad is it? Five million of us are leaving school without having mastered basic literacy

Howard Jacobson, The Independent, 9 August 2008

Forget the messy hair, tangle with the ideas

Phil Beadle separates facts from opinion on the subject of adult literacy

Phil Beadle, The Guardian, 5 August 2008

The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education

The silent ascendancy of a therapeutic ethos across the education system and into the workplace demands a book that serves as a wake up call to everyone.

Kathryn Ecclestone & Dennis Hayes, Routledge, 4 July 2008


Personalised Learning

General Teaching Council advice to Government and response to the 2020 Vision report.

The General Teaching Council for England, March 2007

Evidence Based Teaching A Practical Approach

Presents a coherent, evidence based view of teaching and learning and presents some radical new methods that are known to greatly improve achievement.

Geoff Petty, Nelson Thornes, 21 August 2006


Principles into Practice

A teacher's guide to research evidence on teaching and learning

Teaching and Learning Research Programme

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