John Hattie

The article that I used is the one that Tony McArthur gave us on John Hattie, mainly because it was the most easily accessible and understandable one and the further I got into it the better it became. Firstly is what applies to New Zealand applicable to Australia, are the statistics that he presents the same or similar here in Australia. He demands higher quality teaching, higher quality results from students. But doesn't agree with the current approach the the education system is using with the big stick approach that it adopts. The fist part was all to do with stats, and graphs but it all heads toward a well presented case of five major dimensions of excellent teachers. The first point, expert teachers can identify essential representations of their subject, they have complete pedagogical knowledge and create interesting classes because of this. Secondly, expert teachers can guide learning through classroom interactions, they are very conscious of the classroom climate for learning. I noted in this area expert teachers needed to know about the ability, experience, and background of the students they were to teach, and they needed to know about the facility in which they would be teaching. I learnt this the hard way that this is really important. Thirdly, expert teachers monitor learning and provide feedback, if we learn to use Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner, Glasser to name but a few theorists, our skills will increase so that we assess using many theories to get good feedback . Fourthly, attending to affective attributes, this pertains to a teachers care and respect for all their students and how they can overcome barriers to students learning. Lastly, influencing student outcomes, by understanding surface and deep learning and how to achieve this with all students and how to increase their self esteem and enjoyment of learning.
Building Teacher Quality, John Hattie. University of Auckland , October 2003.