Visible learning refers to making student learning visible to teachers so they know their impact; it
also refers to making teaching visible to students so that students learn to become their own teachers. (Hatti, 2009) The original research was based on over 800 meta-analyses of the impact
of educational interventions. Hattie found that the most effective interventions relating to
student achievement are: Student self-reporting grades (d= 1.44), formative evaluation (d=0.9), teacher clarity (d=0.75), reciprocal teaching (d=0.74), feedback (d=0.73), teacher-student relationships (d=0.72), meta-cognitive strategies (d=0.69), self-verbalisation/ questioning (d=0.64), teacher professional development (d=0.62), and problem-solving teaching (d= 0.61) (Visible Learning, 2014).
Reflective
Interpretive
Decisional
What did I learn from the idea of visible teaching and learning? How can I apply visible learning in my future practice and decision making? First of all, I must go beyond the numerical effect size in determining whether or not to implement the intervention. I have to examine all other aspects, such as learner’s group, difficulty level of contents, and choose the most appropriate methods for a specific teaching and learning situation. The idea of visible teaching and learning is revolutionary. It also brought the change to my mind frames. I am not evaluating the students, instead, I am evaluating my own impact and the effects of my teaching strategies. In the past when I planed lessons, my focus was on what the curriculum is, what topics “should be” covered according to it. To enforce the visibility of teaching and learning, in my future lesson planning, I should begin with collecting information, develop a deep understanding of what students already knew. And then I’ll decide on what to teach, what level of difficulty to teach at, and how I am going to allocate the class time. Visible learning also requires teachers to be adaptive. Being conservative in teaching, I intended not to make spontaneous changes. However I can predict when students will make errors (from past year’s teaching experience and information collected from colleagues), and plan ahead, such as how I adapt teaching in response. Bearing the belief of evaluating myself in mind would also urge my own reflections and personal development in instructional skills.
In the classroom, I will actively seek information and feedback from the students by listening more. What I need is not “tell me what I have just said, so that I can check you were listening, and then I can continue talking”, instead, it should be a genuine dialogue where students express their understanding, address their concerns, and provide information of their existing achievement. Listening shows humility. It models reciprocity and respect for students’ perspectives. Besides learning progress, I will also pay attention to students’ thinking capabilities, phases of thinking (surface or deeper), motivation levels, and overall competence levels (novice, competent, or proficient), so that I can intervene to optimize students’ next-step growth.
My feedback needs to help students better visualize teaching and learning. It will emphasizes on “where I am going” (goals), “how am I going there” (progress), and “what’s next” (the next most-appropriate challenge). In the past, my feedback is centered on the correct or incorrect answers. This didn’t convey enough information such as, goals, overall progress, or next-step strategy. I plan to incorporate these vital components into my feedback, and also help students improve learning strategies towards the learning goals, and urge students to reflect on their own learning. Another essential implication from visible learning is to make learning intentions visible. Besides ensuring explicit learning outcomes and grading rubrics, I also plan to involve students in making the success criteria. Everyone has the right to define their own success. It means, making progress, taking better control of learning, finding one’s own pace, and better time management. I will also encourage them to write down the goals at the beginning of the class and keep motivating and regulating themselves using their self-defined goals.
Last but not the least, I believe intelligence is modifiable. Teachers’ beliefs exert positive influences on student outcomes, not merely confined to improving scores. It is also on intentions of embracing challenges, development of mutual respect, learning strategies, and deep conceptual understanding of the world.
Although this forum has been discussed in PIDP3250 a few weeks ago, the concept of visible learning covers such a broad selection of topics which continued to trigger my reflection in every aspect of my teaching practice.
As many other educators, I often assume that students are responsible for why they can’t attain academic success– maybe because of their weak background, their lack of effort, their non-persistence, their complex busy life and so on. It is not completely uncommon to hear this kind of complaints in the staff room. Perhaps it is a human tendency to blame others before reflecting on oneself. But if we keep doing so, it is even more difficult to find the real cause of the problems, neither will we find the real improvement. Can’t we see ourselves as change agents who make a positive impact on our students through teaching? In Hattie’s research “teachers’ beliefs and commitments are the greatest influences on student achievement” (Hattie, 2012) – which we do have control of. We should believe intelligence is changeable and all students are able to succeed.
The next question comes to how we can help more students succeed in school. Student self-reporting grade, formative evaluation and feedback also play significant roles in student’s learning. These three teaching methods reveal the importance of making teaching visible to students. Students are more likely to succeed when they are very clear what the success criteria are, how they progress, and how they can improve in the next step. The finding also explained my recent endeavor of providing rapid formative feedback. This semester I have managed to grade all the assessments within four hours after the due time and wrote grading summary to the class which includes common mistakes, class’s overall performance, and my general suggestions of next step’s study plan. Students respond to this rapid feedback very positively and confirmed the helpfulness in their mid-semester survey.
Interpretive
Hattie’s study reveals that the influences that had largest effect, are most related to the teacher, such as teaching approaches, learning approaches, and teacher-student relationships. In order to make teaching visible to students, teachers should (Hattie's Concept of Visible Teaching and Learning, 2011)
- Make learning goals explicit
- Share challenging learning intentions and success criteria with the students
- Plan interventions that deliberately encourage mastery of these intentions
- Seek and give feedback
- Adapt teaching as a result of feedback from learners
In order to make learning visible to the teachers, students should be encouraged to
- Be committed and open to learning
- Be involved in setting challenging learning intentions and success criteria
- Seek feedback for learning
Assessment is feedback to the teachers and it is about “teacher’s impact” or “teaching’s impact” (Hattie's 8 Mindframes, 2012). It measures how successful instructional strategies are and whether or not students have attained the success criteria. It provides evidence to us so we can make the learning intentions worthwhile and appropriately challenging. Assessment also helps us to decide the next step of teaching.
Decisional
What did I learn from the idea of visible teaching and learning? How can I apply visible learning in my future practice and decision making? First of all, I must go beyond the numerical effect size in determining whether or not to implement the intervention. I have to examine all other aspects, such as learner’s group, difficulty level of contents, and choose the most appropriate methods for a specific teaching and learning situation. The idea of visible teaching and learning is revolutionary. It also brought the change to my mind frames. I am not evaluating the students, instead, I am evaluating my own impact and the effects of my teaching strategies. In the past when I planed lessons, my focus was on what the curriculum is, what topics “should be” covered according to it. To enforce the visibility of teaching and learning, in my future lesson planning, I should begin with collecting information, develop a deep understanding of what students already knew. And then I’ll decide on what to teach, what level of difficulty to teach at, and how I am going to allocate the class time. Visible learning also requires teachers to be adaptive. Being conservative in teaching, I intended not to make spontaneous changes. However I can predict when students will make errors (from past year’s teaching experience and information collected from colleagues), and plan ahead, such as how I adapt teaching in response. Bearing the belief of evaluating myself in mind would also urge my own reflections and personal development in instructional skills.
In the classroom, I will actively seek information and feedback from the students by listening more. What I need is not “tell me what I have just said, so that I can check you were listening, and then I can continue talking”, instead, it should be a genuine dialogue where students express their understanding, address their concerns, and provide information of their existing achievement. Listening shows humility. It models reciprocity and respect for students’ perspectives. Besides learning progress, I will also pay attention to students’ thinking capabilities, phases of thinking (surface or deeper), motivation levels, and overall competence levels (novice, competent, or proficient), so that I can intervene to optimize students’ next-step growth.
My feedback needs to help students better visualize teaching and learning. It will emphasizes on “where I am going” (goals), “how am I going there” (progress), and “what’s next” (the next most-appropriate challenge). In the past, my feedback is centered on the correct or incorrect answers. This didn’t convey enough information such as, goals, overall progress, or next-step strategy. I plan to incorporate these vital components into my feedback, and also help students improve learning strategies towards the learning goals, and urge students to reflect on their own learning. Another essential implication from visible learning is to make learning intentions visible. Besides ensuring explicit learning outcomes and grading rubrics, I also plan to involve students in making the success criteria. Everyone has the right to define their own success. It means, making progress, taking better control of learning, finding one’s own pace, and better time management. I will also encourage them to write down the goals at the beginning of the class and keep motivating and regulating themselves using their self-defined goals.
Last but not the least, I believe intelligence is modifiable. Teachers’ beliefs exert positive influences on student outcomes, not merely confined to improving scores. It is also on intentions of embracing challenges, development of mutual respect, learning strategies, and deep conceptual understanding of the world.
References
Hatti, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Related to Achievement. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Hattie, J. (2012). Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning. New York, NY: Routledge.
Hattie's 8 Mindframes. (2012). Retrieved from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xpcXobZF1k
Hattie's Concept of Visible Teaching and Learning. (2011, March 11). Retrieved from Research for Teachers: http://www.tla.ac.uk/site/SiteAssets/RfT2/06RE059%20Hattie's%20concept%20of%20visible%20teaching%20and%20learning.pdf
Visible Learning. (2014). Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_Learning
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