Introduction to TEACH Brilliantly
By James Nottingham
COMING SOON!
The latest & most comprehensive book by James Nottingham
Highlights include how to:
Boost engagement
Provide optimum challenge
Ensure students use feedback brilliantly
Lift expectations
Ensure all students make excellent progress
Make confident use of empirical data
(for delivery Jan 2024)
COMING SOON!
The latest & most comprehensive book by James Nottingham
Highlights include how to:
Boost engagement
Provide optimum challenge
Ensure students use feedback brilliantly
Lift expectations
Ensure all students make excellent progress
Make confident use of empirical data
(for delivery Jan 2024)
We only have a short space of time with our students (despite the sense that some lessons will never end!). So, we must be discerning. We must pick the approaches that work best not just the ones that work but the ones that work. Take the inputs we are given—students, resources, curriculum, time—pick some approaches, work our magic, and hey presto create some fabulous learning outcomes. Oh, how easy that sounds!
It’s not easy though, is it? It’s so complex that it is almost impossible to capture accurately. It’s what professors Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (1998) called the black box:
- [educational] policies . . . seem to treat the classroom as a black box. Certain inputs from the outside– pupils, teachers, other resources, management rules and requirements, parental anxieties, standards, tests with high stakes and so on–are fed into the box. Some outputs are supposed to follow: pupils who are more knowledgeable and competent, better test results, teachers who are reasonably satisfied and so on.
- But what is happening inside the box? How can anyone be sure that a particular set of new inputs will produce better outputs if we don’t at least study what happens inside?
- The answer usually given is that it is up to teachers: they have to make the inside work better. This answer is not good enough, for two reasons. First, it is at least possible that some changes in the inputs may be counterproductive and make it harder for teachers to raise standards. Second, it seems strange, even unfair, to leave the most difficult piece of the standards-raising puzzle entirely to teachers. If there are ways in which policy makers and others can give direct help and support to the everyday classroom task of achieving better learning, then surely these ways ought to be pursued vigorously. (p. 2)
Inside the Black Box (Black & Wiliam, 1998b) was published just a few years into my teaching career. The effect it had on my thinking still reverberates today. Back then, I wanted to know how to make the actions inside the black box as effective as possible. Today, I still want to know. With thirty years of teaching and consulting under my belt, I think I have a better idea.
A decade of speaking tours alongside professors Carol Dweck (expert on growth mindset) and John Hattie (creator of visible learning), as well as countless keynotes and workshops with other educational luminaries, have also afforded me a rare depth of insight as to what is likely to work best.
My first book, Challenging Learning (Nottingham, 2010), gave the Top Ten FACTS about Feedback, Application, Challenge, Thinking skills, and Self-esteem. This was also the first time I shared my concept of the Learning Pit®. Since then, I have written ten more books, each one giving an in-depth analysis of a single area of pedagogy.
Now, it’s time to return to the beginning by sharing the most significant insights on a range of important topics. Each one stands separately. Together, they are more than the sum of their parts. They form a significant part of what ought to be taking place inside the black box.
Questions still abound, of course, but this book shares much of what I have learned.
Chapter 1
When You Adjust Your TEACHING, It Transforms Students’ LEARNING
As a teacher, the way you think, and the decisions you make, lead to the biggest difference in your students’ learning. This chapter shares some criteria you could use to help make those decisions wisely.
Chapter 2
When You ENGAGE Your Students, Their Learning Gains PURPOSE
Student engagement has always been a concern, perhaps even more so now. How do you recognize it when you see it though, and perhaps more importantly, how do you improve it so that all students are ready to learn? The chapter also includes ways to use questioning and dialogue as ways to boost participation.
Chapter 3
When CHALLENGE Is Just Right, Students’ Abilities IMPROVE
Learning begins when students go beyond their current abilities. Unfortunately, many students actively avoid taking on challenges for fear of failure or ridicule. This chapter shows how to make levels of challenge ‘just right’ so that students more willingly step out of their comfort zone. It also includes Learning Pit approaches.
Chapter 4
When FEEEBDACK Is Used Brilliantly, It Adds Significant VALUE
Feedback is already one of the most powerful effects on student learning, so why write more about it? Well, firstly – its quality is so variable that one third of studies show negative effects! Secondly, too many school and faculty policies focus on how to give feedback whereas the ways in which students use it matters much more. And thirdly, timing is critical – give it too soon and you’ll stop students from learning but give it too late and it will rarely be used. This chapter shows how to put all this right – and more.
Chapter 5
When EXPECTATIONS Are High, Everybody PROSPERS
Every single student is capable of growing and improving. They won’t all achieve top grades, but they can all make excellent progress – so long as our expectations are high, and we teach them with this prediction in mind. What does that mean for classroom practice and interactions? This chapter explains all!
Chapter 6
When There is EQUITY, There is FAIRNESS
Digging ever deeper into the meta-analyses I used to create this book, I noticed how time and again, the outcomes for every strategy I recommend is even more impressive for at-risk students. They work for everyone – I wouldn’t have shared them if they didn’t – but they are even more effective in creating equity in the classroom This chapters tells you how – and why.
JAMES NOTTINGHAM
Consultant, Author, Keynote Speaker
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THE LEARNING PIT®
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CHALLENGING LEARNING
This is the name of the group of companies founded by James Nottingham (full details shown on the Contact Us page). It is also the name of his first book.