Whole Class Work - Research Summary: Difference between revisions

'''Interacting with the whole class'''

Whole-class interactive teaching has been identified by researchers as being effective in raising attainment. Early teacher effectiveness researchers in the USA, using classroom observation, gradually started to find patterns which indicated that more effective teachers (i.e. teachers whose students made stronger gains on standardised achievement tests) tended to teach the whole class actively, spending significantly more time than ineffective teachers explicitly lecturing, demonstrating or interacting with the class (Rosenshine 1979).

* giving high levels of praise and encouragement;

* using a variety of approaches, strategies and techniques.

'''Pedagogic approach and structuring learning'''

It has been recognised by contributors such as Olson and Torrance (1998) and others that, to be effective, teachers need to deploy a range of different pedagogic approaches and teaching strategies to meet the needs of the subject, to address the type of objective and to match the maturity of the pupils. Researchers such as Joyce et al. (2002) argue that there is a range of pedagogic approaches that not only are ‘tools for teaching’ but also provide ‘models for learning’. They separate the pedagogic approaches into different families, depending on the type of objective for a lesson or part of a lesson. The information-processing family, designed to meet objectives about acquiring knowledge and understanding, includes approaches such as inductive thinking, concept attainment, scientific enquiry and cognitive growth. The social family, designed to meet objectives about exploring perspectives on a problem and exploring solutions to complex issues, contains role-play, group investigation and social enquiry as approaches. A third family is focused on changing behaviours and includes direct teaching, mastery learning, social learning and simulation. These can help to meet objectives about acquiring new skills, learning procedures, applying ideas and developing knowledge.

These families of pedagogic approaches all have one thing in common: they are all highly structured with distinct stages, or episodes. Research suggests that, when a teacher designs a lesson, each episode in the sequence needs to be planned in advance, even down to the questions the teacher will ask at each point.

'''References'''