Ms Allison Lloyd, Deputy Principal at Gundagai High School, and Ms Casey Norden, Head Teacher at Illawarra Sports High School, reflect on how Teach Like a Champion teaching strategies go hand-in-hand with the Quality Teaching Model in NSW.
The Quality Teaching (QT) model (NSW Department of Education, 2003) is a framework that uses an objective lens to enable peer discussion for evaluation and reflection on teaching practice across three dimensions of pedagogy: intellectual quality; quality learning environment; and significance.
The QT model provides a framework for teachers to authentically and explicitly integrate intellectual, emotional and social learning opportunities into everyday classroom practice to improve student outcomes through 18 strands under the three dimensions as shown in Figure 1. Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR) is a method of implementing the practical use of the QT model into schools.
Teach Like a Champion (TLAC) is a teaching and learning movement designed to improve classroom practice through the implementation of explicit teaching techniques that can be singularly practiced, or combined with a cluster of complementary teaching strategies, throughout a lesson sequence (Lemov, 2012).
The Teach Like a Champion Field Guide (Lemov, 2012) includes strategy mappings of complementary teaching techniques. The mapping cluster focused on in our research was the No Opt Out cluster (Lemov, 2012) and included the central No Opt Out strategy and 13 complementary strategies.
These complementary strategies included Right is Right, Stretch It, Format Matters, Begin with the End, Cold Call, Wait Time, 100%, Strong Voice, No Warnings, Positive Framing, Emotional Constancy, Explain Everything and Normalise Error. These strategies were the focus of our trial and were seen as potentially linking effectively with the Intellectual Quality dimension of the QT model.
Our research sought to answer the question ‘To what extent can Teach Like a Champion strategies be aligned with the three dimensions of the Quality Teaching model to enhance classroom practice using Quality Teaching Rounds?’.
To seek an answer, our investigation firstly identified which TLAC strategies would be the focus of instruction, recognising that it would not be possible to sample a large number of strategies in a limited trial with only two teachers. TLAC provided the main suggestion of where to start as using No Opt Out and Cold Call “is likely to revolutionize the culture of academic expectations in your classroom more quickly than any other combination.” (Lemov, 2012, p13).
We sought to independently map the observed strategies from the No Opt Out cluster of teaching strategies to the NSW QT Model through their practical use during QTR.
Utilising TLAC strategies was seen as an opportunity to explicitly improve teaching in targeted areas against the QT model. The team then aimed to produce an alternative framework combining both the QT model and TLAC strategies for improved teaching.
Our methods and observations
Experienced in both the QT model and QTR, we used aspects of the TLAC resources in our teaching as part of a focused approach to improving teaching. We each hosted two rounds and involved planning and teaching a recorded lesson which was shared digitally with the other.
Video observation was effectively run as a blind trial as the TLAC teaching strategies chosen by the host were not discussed or divulged to the observer prior to the lesson being taught. QTR norms were established where we both used the QT model independently to code the filmed lesson content and made notes about the TLAC strategies observed. The TLAC strategies were then linked to the dimension of the QT model by individual researchers before peer discussion. Teachers arrived at a consensus regarding mapping of TLAC to the QT model during the peer discussion.
The classroom teacher delivering the English literature lessons planned to explicitly implement Stretch It, Cold Call, Wait Time and Begin with the End into the filmed classroom lessons. Stretch It and Wait Time were implemented successfully, and the observing teacher was able to clearly detect these teaching strategies through the filmed content.
As deliberately planned by the classroom teacher, the lesson sequence began with the teacher facilitating a whole-class Begin with the End discussion activity and complimentary visual mind-mapping technique to make a record of the discussion ideas. The activity centered on the big-picture goal of writing an individual student essay, but firstly introduced the students to the idea of beginning their essay writing with a conclusion as an explicit end goal for the overall writing response. Begin with the End was not noted as an implemented strategy by the observing teacher. In addition, Cold Call was employed to generate Begin with the End discussion and ideas during the lesson activity but was also not observed as intended in this instance.
The English literature lesson was also noted as successfully incorporating Circulate, Strong Voice and Normalise Error. These TLAC strategies were not explicitly planned when developing the lesson sequence, but organically occurred as part of the teacher’s natural pedagogy in conjunction with the range of strategies being trialled.
The classroom teacher delivering the Mathematics lessons on solving simultaneous equations planned to explicitly implement No Opt Out, Right is Right, Cold Call, Wait Time and Stretch It into the filmed classroom lessons. No Opt Out, Cold Call and Wait Time were implemented successfully, as the observing teacher was able to clearly detect these teaching strategies through the filmed content.
The observing teacher also noted the strategies of Warm/Strict and Break it Down. The observer and teacher both linked these strategies to the quality learning environment and intellectual quality dimensions of the QT model during the QTR peer discussion. As a result of rich post observation peer discussion, additional TLAC strategies were also incidentally mapped.
Mapping TLAC to the QT model can provide a useful scaffold for teachers to refer to when planning and implementing improvements in their lessons for improved professional practice. This investigation provided participating teachers with the opportunity to map TLAC strategies to some of the 18 elements of the QT model and use them as a reference guide for improving observation scores on areas of challenge for individual teachers’ practice.
The extensive experience of the teachers with previous QTR, QT model and TLAC knowledge allowed this to be a successful investigation. The success of this investigation indicates that a more in-depth trial using TLAC strategies would be a worthwhile area for further research. EM
This is an excerpt of a research paper by Ms Allison Lloyd and Ms Casey Norden. To read the research in full, contact casey.norden1@det.nsw.edu.au.
