WHAT ARE THE ATTRIBUTES OF EXCELLENT TEACHERS?

John Hattie is a highly regarded and well known educator who is currently Professor of Education at the University of Auckland. In a recent (2003) publication commissioned by The Australian Council for Education Research, Hattie set out to discover what sets expert teachers apart from novice and experienced teachers. He postulates that it is indeed possible to ascertain the attributes of excellence and create a working model for formulating appropriate professional development for teachers.
Hattie’s research discovered that the greatest variance in a student’s ability to achieve their potential, regardless of their initial ability, was in fact the teacher! Probably no great surprise to most of us educators. Whilst Hattie states that most teachers do have a positive effect on their students, he almost laments at the wasted opportunity of teachers to impart an exceptional effect on those in their charge. As a teacher I wish for nothing greater than perpetual exceptional teaching standards. Wow! We could probably change the world, slash social welfare benefits by half; promote health and wellbeing for a lifetime.
Are exceptional teaching standards possible? According to Hattie’s research of over half a million studies, the great news is Yes!!
Our first aim should be to identify those attributes that have a marked and meaningful affect on students. Therefore, the focus is to have a powerful effect on achievement, and this is where excellent teachers come to the fore – as such excellence in teaching is the single most powerful influence on achievement.
'Expert teachers have deeper representations about teaching and learning.' Hattie.
Do you remember a teacher whose knowledge was so integrated and they had such a strong command over their subject matter that you still remember them vividly to this very day? I had one such teacher who taught me mathematics from grades 7-10. She was so passionate and inspiring that she insisted we all achieve A’s in our School Certificate and made it her task to recognize all learning styles, detect all possible errors, and have catch plans in place for those students who may need such guidance. Our class did all go on to achieve at the highest level and a large percentage were able to flow on to enrol in HSC 4 unit Math. Unfortunately, coming from a rural area it was at this transition that I had to change schools in order to achieve my HSC, and it was at this moment a great travesty occurred. Our class stuck together as a group and went from the highest order-learning environment with the best teacher to what must have been the absolute antithesis, including the worst teacher I have ever encountered to this day. He had a habit of writing on an overhead projector with his back to the class. Occasionally he would pause to reflect? and ask if there were any questions so far. The trouble was that if you were encountering a problem, and then had the audacity to verbalize it, he would first of all shout out that the facts were very clearly exampled on the overhead projector and then proceed to belittle and humiliate you in front of the entire class. Needless to say the drop out rate from that class was well over 90%. I actually changed schools to avoid having him as my teacher, preferring the cold comfort of boarding school to bellowing school.
'Expert teachers adopt a problem-solving stance to their work.' Hattie.
I remember the care and respect my math teacher took to acknowledge and attend to each individual students performance. Each student actually felt like the fulcrum of a mini universe, or to borrow a mathematical allusion from the great poet John Donne, the individual becomes the fixed foot of the compass, the teacher in both care and attention to detail, visits each student as the roving arm, arcing her class in a protective mantle. This obviously involves a certain flexibility on the part the teacher; ideally they will take advantage of new information and revised approaches to problem solving. Again, here we have the opposite methodology to ‘overhead’, the inflexibly, rigid destroyer of mathematical futures mentioned above.
'Expert teachers can anticipate, plan, and improvise as required by the situation.' Hattie
Anticipation and improvisation reassure students that their teachers are in command. These teachers use information feedback from exams and problems to really listen in and develop new strategies for progress. Often exam results are seen as a reflection on the student alone and not the teaching practices. An expert teacher will in fact seek and use such feedback to develop their teaching practices. This approach draws correlation with research currently being done within the scientific community on Salutogenisis; the study of wellness. Scientists now believe that if you can study what maintains and promotes health, they may be able to work back through certain reflective processes to observe the developmental processes involved in the pathology of illness.
'Expert teachers are better decision-makers and can identify what decisions are important and which are less important decisions.' Hattie
Expert teachers are confident decision makers. Their faculties are such that they have strongly embedded lesson plans which are applied in direct relation to their students’ questions and responses. They are skilful in keeping the lesson on track and accomplishing their objectives, while also allowing students’ questions and comments as springboards for discussions. Moreover, they achieved a balance between content-centered and student-centered instruction. I want to be in her lesson!



Guiding Learning through Classroom Interactions
'Expert teachers are proficient at creating an optimal classroom climate for learning. ' Hattie
Expert teachers are proficient in creating optimal classroom climates for learning, particularly to increase the probability of feedback occurring (which often involves allowing for, and certainly tolerating, student errors). You can see the contrast in the two learning environments I described above. The first approach encouraged the practice of students asking and answering questions, facilitating peer relationship and fostering, as well as valuing, a positive and safe learning environment. The ‘overhead’ environment was as destructive as it was terrifying, every day became a battlefield where error and inquiry was the enemy, and self-esteem and the joy of learning were eradicated.
'Expert teachers have a multidimensionally complex perception of classroom situations.
Related to the superior pattern recognition, experts are more able to deal with the multidimensionality of classrooms.' Hattie.
Expert teachers are more effective scanners of classroom behaviour, make greater references to the language of instruction and learning of students, whereas experienced teachers concentrate more on what the teacher is doing and saying to the class and novices concentrate more on student behavior. I have a wonderful example of a kindergarten teacher who was able to weave and adapt her stories to include and redirect all student classroom behaviours in a dexterous and impressive manner. For example, ‘Chitter -Chatter’, (students talking at listening time), became a little character, who learns through his deficits to overcome or redirect his attributes back to more socially harmonious and thus, classroom friendly, behaviour. In this way the child is not specifically singled out and the teacher, using the pedagogical premise that children under seven learn best through imitation, is able to gain significant direction and positive cultivation through the learning environment being created.
'Expert teachers are more context-dependent and have high situation cognition.' Hattie.
Here we develop an understanding of expert teachers being more motivated to seek from within a learning environment their primary direction, as opposed to seeking to impress their particular methodology from without, having no regard for changing context. I was recently directed to an inspiring website developed by the Board of Studies regarding direction for teaching within Aboriginal educational contexts. This website showcases examples of school-developed context-based teaching and learning projects collaboratively developed by teachers, Aboriginal education workers and local community members.
Rudolf Steiner developed an educational curriculum whereby each subject was timetabled at an age specific year in the student’s life. In class 10 students study the mathematics of surveying. In the past we have set students tasks in relation to the school site. Since working through the material provided on the BOS website I came up with the idea of approaching the local traditional custodial owners to see if there are any particular sites of local significance that could be surveyed. Together we could develop an interactive program including contextual classroom teaching units that connect learning outcomes and content with the needs and interests of students. I think this could be very exciting.