3 minute read
Book Review
I recommend that every educator and administrator read Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning by John Hattie. Hattie synthesizes more than fifteen years of research with the largest ever collection of evidence-based research related to student learning success. What I liked best about Hattie’s book is that it provides teachers with data-proven strategies for optimizing student learning. Hattie encourages educators to put student learning at the forefront of all educational efforts by coaching students to bridge the gap from unknowing to knowing with this streamlined strategy:
1. Identify realistic goals and success criteria. 2. Implement and adapt strategies to meet the goal. 3. Assess success and determine next steps.
Hattie emphasizes that educators must “know thy impact,” and teach students rather than content adapting along the way to best meet the individual needs of every student.
His research also identifies powerful educational strategies such as collaborative learning, just-right feedback, assessment-driven goal setting and coaching students in “learn to learn” strategies and behavior. Educators will find that Hattie’s book affirms as well as challenges their craft and endeavor. Further, Visible Learning for Teachers will provide educators with the data they need to defend and implement best practices and teach children well.
- Maureen Devlin, Fourth Grade Teacher, Wayland Public Schools, Massachusetts http://teachwellnow.blogspot.com/
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Book Review When Can You Trust the Experts?: How to Tell Good Science from Bad in Education >>
Daniel Willingham is professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. He is a regular contributor to the magazine of the American Federation of Teachers, the American Educator. As such, he is uniquely qualified to write on the science of education.
Much of what passes for “research” in education is, in reality, advocacy. There are millions to be made by giving seminars on whatever “new” idea happens to appeal to teachers, who are always eager to learn promising approaches to improving learning by their students.
Willingham opens his book with a catchy treatise on the Golden Ratio, which is equal to 1.618... Given a series of rectangles of varying dimensions, the rectangle whose sides are in a proportion of 1 to 1.618 will be more aesthetically pleasing to most people. Actress Jessica Alba is thought to be one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. Many features of her face are proportioned by the Golden Ratio. Readers will find this discussion to be very interesting.
The author’s description of the Reading Wars is very compelling. He explains how generations of young children were deprived of effective reading instruction when teachers were diverted from using direct teaching of letters and sounds. Instead, students were expected to learn to read by memorizing whole words, since mature readers did not sound out words but read whole words at a glance. This was adopted wholesale by educators without any research evidence that it worked.
Willingham provides a lot of detail as to how one can identify valid scientific evidence and separate it from simple promotion of something that sounds good but lacks any real substance. If teachers were to follow his advice, they would put a lot of “professional development” seminar presenters out of business. The result, however, would be more good teaching and less faddishness in education.
By William L. Brown, PdD bbcllc@sbcglobal.net
Dr. Brown is a retired Educator living in Michigan and a frequent Amazon reviewer.
44th Annual EARCOS Leadership Conference
The East Asia Regional Council of Schools is excited to invite you and your a dministrative staff as delegates at the 44th annual EARCOS Leadership Conference (ELC2013) in Bangkok, Thailand scheduled for November 1-3, 2013.
