8 takeaways after a day with John Hattie…

MINDFRAMES FOR LEADERS

1
Labelling has a negative impact. - Almost everything we do as teachers, impacts learning positively (95-98%). Labelling does not. It creates self-limiting beliefs and teacher bias. In turn, not labelling students has a positive impact (0.61)
Consider this when thinking about… 

• “floors not ceilings”
• the label “EAL students” 
• the use of data 
• setting / grouping​​

2
Everyone must move towards explicit success criteria - Students and teachers. Not the IB criteria on the wall- “that’s what we have to do, not how to be successful.” Clear goal intentions (0.44)
Consider this when thinking about…

• Setting students a task / giving feedback- rather than to the MYP / DP criteria, it should be specific to the student, subject or skill. E.g. 
• instead of : you need to analyse your own artwork to achieve a 6. 
• it becomes : To develop your reflection, you need to explain the impact of your decisions as you created your painting. One way to do this, would be to not only describe the composition, but explain why you composed it in such a way and what impact that has on the viewer's perception of the subject matter. ​
  

3
Every child needs to be challenged (0.6) - Typically this looks like 80/20 i.e. aim for students getting 80% of assessments correct. Tweak this according to students’ investment e.g. make it even more challenging for those that are very invested and would be motivated to learn from mistakes. “The worst thing a student can be is bored,” (-0.46)
Consider this when thinking about…

• the pitch of assessments and curriculum - if students regularly achieve 100% on tests, it is not challenging enough. 
• feedback - it only works when there is error and challenge -  if the majority of feedback that you’re giving is an extension task, consider raising the challenge of the work to allow students to fail more.
• relationships (0.62) and trust - students must have a safe space to be able to make mistakes and errors. 

4
We only see a small percentage of our own classroom - Self-reflection / evaluation of our teaching practices is not enough - “why would I privilege that small percentage as an account of the impact I have?” 
Consider this when thinking about…

• academic monitoring - triangulate feedback - peer observations / student voice / learning outcomes - as well as self-reflection. 

5
If there’s a lack of progress, someone has to call it - “Compare a student’s work from 3 months ago to today - have they made progress?” Evaluate the teaching - what did (or didn’t) have an impact? “Every student should expect at least a year’s worth of progress for a year’s worth of input.”
Consider this when thinking about…

• evaluating your own impact - try the “3 months of progress” check - evaluate your practice in light of students' progress rather than attainment
• work as a department / curriculum area to evaluate your impact collaboratively  

6
Prioritise Impact - “Come to school every day as an evaluator of your impact. If you don’t have time to do the things that significantly impact learning [e.g. giving timely feedback (0.89) to students with actionable next steps (1.01)], spend less time on the things that don’t impact learning." 
Consider this when thinking about…

• planning / time management 
• team management / assignment of tasks
• curriculum design 

7
Every assessment is feedback for the teacher - If you ask a student to predict how well they’ll do on a test- it’s usually pretty accurate. They already know. The assessments are for us - to highlight gaps and provide information that feeds into our planning.
Consider this when thinking about…

• assessment design - what do you need to know in terms of your teaching and the students’ learning?
• giving assessments back to students - Teach them that this isn’t the end of the process - instead it should be part of the dialogue. 
• Student : Where am I? Where do I need to be? How do I get there? 
• Teacher : Successes - evaluate T+L practices. Misconceptions / gaps - evaluate T+L practices. Next Steps…

8
Low expectations leads to low impact and high expectations does not mean multiple differentiated activities - Students know what our expectations are. We must expect everyone to reach our highest expectations (0.58) and when they don’t, reevaluate the impact of what we’re doing.
Consider this when thinking about…

• differentiating for INPs / EAL needs - do not provide “easier” work - support with strategies / flipped classroom (0.56)
• setting homework - prior vocab learning, pre-reading, reteaching
• giving feedback / setting targets - not “you did your best” - raise their game. 

Final mini-takeaway… “I cause learning”  - remember this when evaluating our impact. Own the learning that occurs in our lessons - the good, the bad and the ugly. 

Fig 1 Visible Learning Barometer of Influences. (c) 2019 Corwin and Osiris. 
Fig 2 Hattie, John, and Raymond L. Smith. 10 Mindframes for Leaders: The Visible Learning Approach to School Success. Corwin, 2021.