Visible Learning: Inspired Vs Uninspired Teachers

Visible Learning: Inspired Vs Uninspired Teachers

I recently obtained a copy of  "Visible Learning for Teachers" by John Hattie. Unlike several other education books out there, Visible Learning for Teachers uses research and data to examine the effectiveness of teaching strategies.  For instance, yes homework will help students marks, but is the effort worth it for all parties involved (spoiler alert: the answer is no). 

The book starts off with some general boiler plate information, but one section has caught my interest the most. It is titled "Visible Learning- Checklist for Inspired and Passionate Teaching", and it has a list of professional development criteria that has been shown to lend itself best to "inspired" teaching. I don't know if inspired is really the best term, so I just mentally translate it to "good" teaching. 

In the discussion after this list, there is a rather important string of sentences discussing what inspired teachers do NOT do.  I think I am a rather far distance from "inspired", but I think I can certainly avoid being "uninspired". Here is a list of "uninspired" teaching practices

Italics added for my own emphasis

• Use grading as punishment
• conflate behavioral and academic performance
• elevate quiet compliance over academic work*
• excessively use worksheets
• have low expectations and defend low-quality learning as "doing your best" **
• evaluate their impact by compliance, covering the curriculum, conceiving explanations as to why they have little to no impact on their students
• prefer perfection in homework over risk-taking that involves mistakes

*I'm not too sure what they are getting at here. Why is there a comparison between compliance and academic work, it seems like they are comparing apples and oranges.

Where I am falling short is the excuse making. I know there are students that are struggling in my class, but because I don't know what to do about it (beyond what I have already done), I make excuses. "They are not really trying" , "They don't study", "They did not have the skills required for the course coming into it". While these things may be true, they are not terribly constructive. It doesn't matter why the students are not improving, it only matters that they are not improving. I will admit, it is unlikely that they have made zero improvement, but with the constraints of the public education system as they stand, the improvement made is not sufficient to allow them to complete the course. 

So what is an aspiring inspired teacher to do? Keep reading the book I suppose!

-Mr. H