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Evidence Based Teaching: A Practical Approach
An evidence-based view of teaching presents new methods to improve achievement and includes coverage of school effectiveness and school improvement research.
382 pages, Paperback
First published August 30, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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January 3, 2011This was actually way better than I was expecting. The awful typesetting had me superficially seeing visions of Teaching for Dummies dancing in my head, but actually... I dunno I kind of feel that at the very least, this book has the right attitudes about things.
Things which resonated: (A) "right" objectives and values: in other words, this isn't about teaching to improve test scores [which is a side-effect], but going after Deep Learning, getting students to make sense and not just remember; getting students to pick up skills and proceses and not just concepts; getting them to move up the SOLO hierarchy (B) scientific-ish attitude to evidence. I'm not 100% sure, and I'd be a bit skeptical about Petty's grasp of statistics [I don't enough of a grasp myself to comment on it], but I think that Ben Goldacre would more or less approve, in that the process of inquiry is one which tries to guard against our naturally overwhelming capacity for self deception. The reason I say (B) is that Petty cites as a big mistake "evaluating something while forgetting to seriously consider its alternatives"... which may not be the whole story (importance of randomisation, blinded studies, etc), but is a hell of a lot more sophisticated than what you'd find in newspaper reporting. (C) pragmatism Petty cites the 80/20 rule, for example. Also in his introduction to whole class interactive teaching, Petty acknowledges the difference between cognitivist and behaviourist schools of thought and then basically says, "yeah, but so what?" After all these chapters extolling the virtues of constructivism, I've got this technique here that the constructivists hate, but you know what, it works, damnit.
This isn't a serious academic work -- Petty is a former teacher who seems to have gotten the teaching teachers bug and has gone on a private literature review quest -- and it's (rightly so) targeted at practising teachers more than people interested in the theory of education.
The book seems to be fairly well structured. You get exposed to some core ideas about learning, and then a catalogue of the techniques which seem to work best, then the core principles for effective teaching, and then the techniques again(!) from a different perspective [I think this may be skillful use of repetition, practicing what he preaches].
Good thing this book is on my housemate's shelf, because I'm not going to retain much of it. Key take-home messages. Teachers and students alike, success comes primarily from factors which are under your control, it's not what you have, or who you are, but what you DO that counts. Getting students to believe this is vital to their success. Need to break out of learned helplessness and need to smack down anybody who thinks that this is about talent (note that Petty would probably disapprove of said smacking down ;-)).
The 7 principles to retain:
1. Students must see the value of learning
2. Students must believe they can do it (see above)
3. Challenging goals - reasoning, not reproduction!
4. Feedback and dialogue towards goal - medal and mission
5. Establish the structure of the information and so its meaning
6. Time and repetition - important to let things sink in, to see them multiple times and from different perspectives
7. Teach skills as well as content
My head is awash with a bunch of other principles from this book, but these are probably the core.
Phew! All this enthusiasm and I don't even do any teaching!
(When I first picked up this book, I was tempted by the premise and irked by the typesetting. I certainly don't blame the author (this sort of thing is probably a specialist skill) and wouldn't expect an education specialist to be comfortable with LaTeX as opposed to an office suite. But couldn't the publisher have done something about this? Actually, maybe the typesetting is better than I'm complaining it is. Maybe the diagrams are in the most useful places etc. It just seemed amateurish and ugly. Maybe I'm just reacting vicerally against URLs without protocol specifications.)
Things which resonated: (A) "right" objectives and values: in other words, this isn't about teaching to improve test scores [which is a side-effect], but going after Deep Learning, getting students to make sense and not just remember; getting students to pick up skills and proceses and not just concepts; getting them to move up the SOLO hierarchy (B) scientific-ish attitude to evidence. I'm not 100% sure, and I'd be a bit skeptical about Petty's grasp of statistics [I don't enough of a grasp myself to comment on it], but I think that Ben Goldacre would more or less approve, in that the process of inquiry is one which tries to guard against our naturally overwhelming capacity for self deception. The reason I say (B) is that Petty cites as a big mistake "evaluating something while forgetting to seriously consider its alternatives"... which may not be the whole story (importance of randomisation, blinded studies, etc), but is a hell of a lot more sophisticated than what you'd find in newspaper reporting. (C) pragmatism Petty cites the 80/20 rule, for example. Also in his introduction to whole class interactive teaching, Petty acknowledges the difference between cognitivist and behaviourist schools of thought and then basically says, "yeah, but so what?" After all these chapters extolling the virtues of constructivism, I've got this technique here that the constructivists hate, but you know what, it works, damnit.
This isn't a serious academic work -- Petty is a former teacher who seems to have gotten the teaching teachers bug and has gone on a private literature review quest -- and it's (rightly so) targeted at practising teachers more than people interested in the theory of education.
The book seems to be fairly well structured. You get exposed to some core ideas about learning, and then a catalogue of the techniques which seem to work best, then the core principles for effective teaching, and then the techniques again(!) from a different perspective [I think this may be skillful use of repetition, practicing what he preaches].
Good thing this book is on my housemate's shelf, because I'm not going to retain much of it. Key take-home messages. Teachers and students alike, success comes primarily from factors which are under your control, it's not what you have, or who you are, but what you DO that counts. Getting students to believe this is vital to their success. Need to break out of learned helplessness and need to smack down anybody who thinks that this is about talent (note that Petty would probably disapprove of said smacking down ;-)).
The 7 principles to retain:
1. Students must see the value of learning
2. Students must believe they can do it (see above)
3. Challenging goals - reasoning, not reproduction!
4. Feedback and dialogue towards goal - medal and mission
5. Establish the structure of the information and so its meaning
6. Time and repetition - important to let things sink in, to see them multiple times and from different perspectives
7. Teach skills as well as content
My head is awash with a bunch of other principles from this book, but these are probably the core.
Phew! All this enthusiasm and I don't even do any teaching!
(When I first picked up this book, I was tempted by the premise and irked by the typesetting. I certainly don't blame the author (this sort of thing is probably a specialist skill) and wouldn't expect an education specialist to be comfortable with LaTeX as opposed to an office suite. But couldn't the publisher have done something about this? Actually, maybe the typesetting is better than I'm complaining it is. Maybe the diagrams are in the most useful places etc. It just seemed amateurish and ugly. Maybe I'm just reacting vicerally against URLs without protocol specifications.)
September 23, 2017
Very good practical book. I recommend this book for every teacher
March 9, 2017
Excellent, easy to understand, easy to apply summary of evidence-based techniques in teaching.
Summary tables of Hattie's and Marzano's meta analyses of what works and what doesn't.
Summary tables of Hattie's and Marzano's meta analyses of what works and what doesn't.
July 22, 2009
loads of interesting things about how brains record and access information in a computerised era. methods and ways to adress as a teacher or parent the young minds in an atempt to help them become independent thinkers.
February 26, 2022
I bought this because I'm a manager in education, and wanted ideas that would help staff improve their practice. This book is a good starting off point for this, and it suggests (researched) ideas that will help students improve their results if implemented correctly.
June 12, 2013
Outstanding!
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December 20, 2013i love this book
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews