Tag: teaching

  • The Science of Learning verses The Art of Teaching

    The Science of Learning verses The Art of Teaching

    In the early 2020’s there became a real shift in New Zealand Education. Evidence Based Practice. The Science of anything. Every teacher was getting this thrown down their throats in a force-fed effort by every PLD provider in the country.

    It’s okay. Catch-phrases are fairly common to teachers.

    One large piece of popularised evidence was that of the Science of Reading. In it, researchers looked at how we learn to read. They identified core elements of reading that young children need to become good readers.

    How do children learn to read?

    As a fully trained teacher, I won’t even pretend to tell you that I know how children learn to read. I wouldn’t have a clue.
    I can show you methods and ways in which I encourage reading in my class.
    There are strategies to help students improve their comprehension and understanding of what they have read.
    I have a range of supports for students when they get to a word they don’t know how to read.
    But as for answering ‘How do we learn to read?’, I don’t know if I would even know where to start.

    I think this is why the Science of Reading took off so fast. Many teachers have no idea on how we learn to read. We are led to believe that knowing how we read helps us identify how to teach children to become better readers. Sounding credible and academic helps. Putting “The Science of” in-front of anything will do that. “The Science of Cupcakes” will sound far more academic and evidence-based than “Grans Cupcake Recipe”. However, we all know which one we would rather have!

    The Science of Learning sought to deepen our understanding of how the brain learns. It explores how to maximise memory, instant recall and long term cognition. We identify methods of teaching that enhances and “hacks” the way the brain learns best. Intertwined with things like Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), Scope and Sequence, and Working Memory, it provides a scientific basis for many things we generally take for granted.

    Putting “The Science of” in-front of anything will do that. “The Science of Cupcakes” will sound far more academic and evidence-based than “Grans Cupcake Recipe” – even though we all know which one we would rather have.

    Shift

    It has been a long time since such a shift in pedagogy has occurred. Certainly not since Tomorrow’s Schools in the late 1980’s. Teachers have observed students struggling with their reading for years. They implement a vast array of strategies and teaching approaches to address the decline.

    Along comes Structured Literacy, backed by the Science of Reading and supported hand in hand with the Science of Learning, and find themselves in the middle of a storm of teachers looking for answers. I’m not going to suggest that it was just happenstance. I believe early adopters saw positive results in the first instance. This placed confidence in the approach, allowing them to encourage others to adopt it and the word spread.

    Not Convinced

    I am naturally skeptical. It does make me mildly negative to be around at times. I question. I don’t just accept things at face value.

    Change is hard. I’ll admit. I don’t enjoy change.

    I’m not one to just keep doing the same thing and expect different results. Because of this, I try to keep my practice up to date with the latest insights and research. I’m often either the one giving new approaches a try, or being an early adopter with others.

    It is difficult to keep up with the latest insights and research. Especially when there is such an overwhelming amount of it. It feels like its changing for popularity sake – a fad. A trend rather than anything pedagogically sound. It is also very difficult when you see first hand the cons before you see any pros.

    Science of Reading, the Science of Learning, and the Science of everything else does not convince me. There are several reasons that it leaves me skeptical. Some may appear trivial to you, but no one said reservations had to be well founded.

    The Science of…

    The Science of Reading, Learning, Writing… what next – the Science of Science? There are at least two reasons why Science in general does not impress me:

    1. Society regularly juxtapose Science against my faith. Creation vs. Big Bang Theory is a decades old fight. ‘Evolution’ as a theory factors in our curriculum which I am never likely to teach due to my beliefs. The secular world sees ‘Science’ as the truth, or the pursuit of truth; seeking to understand that which we don’t yet understand. For me, the pursuit of truth is found only in Christ. My belief leads me to know that we won’t understand everything. It is only faith that allows us to bridge that gap between what we understand and what we can’t comprehend.
    2. Science and Art often appear on opposite sides of the curriculum. The main basis for this is that we use different hemispheres of the brain when dealing with them. Science based on facts, figures, experiments, data and logic. Art based on creativity, imagination, visual representations, emotions and ideas. My mind as a creative prefers to use the opposite side of the brain to what Science requires.

    Needless to say, chucking ‘The Science of…’ in front of everything doesn’t impact me the same way in which it does others. If anything it probably has the opposite affect. It allows me to question, where others feel like they just have to accept it, because they’ve been lead to believe Science is truth.

    The Art of…

    Guy Claxton, who we read more from later on in this article, puts it as such:
    “Another part of the problem is the gullibility of educators in the face of authoritative claims to scientific warrant by a small posse of overconfident, and in some cases ideologically-driven academics and consultants. A little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.”

    One of my biggest issues goes back to an anciently old adage that is still strong in education. It is, and always has been ‘The Art of Teaching’. Yet here we are, in the mid 2020’s, and we are being told that it is the Science of Learning. And maybe that’s where the two opposites meet. However, the way in which the Science of Learning then suggests how we are to teach in order to allow students to learn in the most effective ways, it is fast assuming that it has to be the Science of Teaching as well.

    Explicit Teaching: How We Teach Matters

    The Science of Learning says that the most effective way to teach is by explicitly teaching information and concepts. This has been widely adopted throughout education in this country and is the single biggest shift in how I teach. Explicit Instruction flips the script teachers have used for decades.

    An example of this would be when learning about Dolphins. In the past, I would have asked the class “Okay class – what do we know about dolphins?”. Of course, my ideal class would all put up their hands and wait their turn, but in reality, the answers come thick and fast with various students calling out louder than others. “They’re fish!”, or “They have flippers”.

    Example

    Explicit teaching doesn’t ask the question. It states the facts and then checks for understanding. Now, using an Explicit Teaching approach I would say “Okay class – Dolphins are fish and the have flippers.” – teaching the content that students need to know. Checking for understanding would then have me asking “What are dolphins?” and “What is something that they have?”
    We flip the script. The explicit teaching of a concepts happens first, and then the students can answer.

    To some extent this makes sense. If we were approaching a topic the students knew nothing about, asking them to tell me what they know about it is pointless. Getting them to guess answers isn’t the way we learn best. “I don’t know”, even if muttered internally, is a sure fire way to get a brain to shut down to new learning.

    However. I’m not sold.
    The good thing is I’m not the only one with reservations.

    The way in which the Science of Learning then suggests how we are to teach in order to allow students to learn in the most effective ways, it is fast assuming that it has to be the Science of Teaching as well.

    Simplistic Views on Complex Reality

    Guy Claxton is a UK based cognitive scientist who has a wide range of experience at a number of prestigious institutions in the United Kingdom.

    On his blog he has written about the Science of Learning and the Practice of Teaching. In it, he outlines shortcomings, misunderstandings, and areas of contention with the Science of Learning.

    One of his early points centres around the limitations of the research into the Science of Learning. The main issue is the limits on purpose or outcomes. He says that if you focus on superficial tests of understanding (i.e. “A dolphin has flippers – what does a dolphin have?”) then explicit teaching has positive outcomes. However, explicit teaching does not foster curiosity, independence, imagination, which are also incredibly important in developing functioning individuals and learners.

    It follows that there is no such thing as ‘good teaching’, only teaching that is good for certain purposes or outcomes. For example, if all you are concerned about is scores on relatively superficial tests of understanding , then there is a good deal of research that shows that explicit or didactic teaching – that which maximises Explanation (by teachers) and minimises opportunities for Exploration (by students) on the grounds of ‘efficiency’ – is perfectly good.

    If, however, you also value (note: in addition to, not instead of, ‘knowledge’) the cultivation of character strengths such as curiosity, independence, imagination, critique, collaboration or intellectual humility, then different kinds of teaching are needed. Indeed, relentless ‘explicit teaching’ may well stunt the development of such valuable strengths.

    One size fits no one.

    Claxton takes umbrage at the promotion of explicit teaching across all areas of teaching. Promoting the good version of explicit teaching and pitting it against the bad version of inquiry-based learning is bad faith.
    He says: “Any kind of teaching can be done ‘badly’. Explicit teaching can be dull and disengaging, just as inquiry-based teaching can be unfocused or pitched inappropriately. It is intellectually lazy to promote a ‘good’ version of one by attacking a ‘weak’ or caricatured version of the other.”

    Claxton continues: “In reality, the craft of teaching mostly involves a judicious and dynamic mixture of both explanation and exploration, depending on a whole variety of factors… to which good teachers are sensitive and responsive… To try to enforce a single template is bad education and bad science.”

    Claxton raises a good point here. It tends to be a bad trait of teachers in that we are one-trick actors. The research tells us that explicit teaching is effective. It is sold to us as ‘best evidence practice’, so we assume that we need to apply it to each and every situation, . It’s not that we can’t teach using multiple methods throughout the day, but that we’ve been sold a lie; because this is how brains learn, then this is how we must teach to be effective.

    Cognitive Load Theory

    This is exacerbated when we learn that the research behind CLT derives from work on high school mathematics and science teaching. These subjects are not valid prototypes for other subjects on the curriculum nor indeed for the many wider forms of out-of-school learning.” The Science of Reading has it’s podium crumbing under it. It wasn’t even a subject that was researched under CLT and yet we find it being used to promote specific teaching methods in Reading at primary school level.

    Not only that, but it is made worse by the insights of this cognitive scientist who points out that things like Working Memory and Long Term Memory, of which CLT leans on, were “…formulated in the late 1960s and [are] long past [their] sell-by date (except apparently in dwindling bubbles of cognitive and educational psychology).”

    In teaching circles, some of us are familiar with ‘Learning Styles‘, which even though were debunked, still find their way into public perception of truth because that’s what they were taught, and they sound completely plausible.

    Complexity and Consistency

    Another contention Claxton has with the Science of Learning is that teaching is such a complex task, juggling so many variables and consistently making judgement calls, that to over-simplify that task by whittling things like CLT down to the reason why students might be struggling with a learning task, when in reality, there are an incredibly wide range of factors that could be impacting on that student.

    The primary aim of CLT is to explain why some students find learning some things hard, and to derive teacher actions from this explanation. There are a host of reasons why a child is apparently struggling with a particular learning task, that may reflect preoccupations with emotional matters in or out of school, lack of interest, the ‘work’ being too easy and boring, or its difficulty (for a particular class) being misjudged, the desire to appear rebellious to peers, and so on. To leap to narrow cognitive explanations without taking account of these and many other possible factors, is facile and often unhelpful.

    Simplifying Complexity

    Closer to home, we have Prof. Stuart McNaughton, Chief Education Science Adviser to the Ministry of Education for 10 years and Professor at Auckland University since 1976. Earlier this year he wrote about the mandate of Structured Literacy across the county and expressed concern in it’s implementation.

    “Unfortunately some of our recent policies and practices suffer from simplism by markedly simplifying the complexity of teaching, learning and education,”

    His article outlined the concern that “…years of experimental studies found focusing on decoding words in the first years of primary school could raise decoding levels “but has limited (if any) impact by itself on medium to long term comprehension.”

    Radio New Zealand, 11 July 2026: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/education/698992/education-professor-pans-simplistic-school-reforms

    “Clearly you need a form of structured literacy in place in order to teach some of the basics… What I’m worried about is focusing only on those relatively simple components, the phonics components, and ignoring or at least not supporting an emphasis on the more complicated things like the role of self-regulation in early reading and writing and maths, or, like in the case of reading, enjoying reading.”

    I wrote about this earlier this year after seeing first hand the de-motivation of a group of students due to the explicit teaching approach in Reading.

    Dismissal of this View

    The supporters of Structured Literacy and the Science of Reading in this country were quick to dismiss McNaughton’s opinion – none more so that Sir James Chapman. Chapman was made a knight this year upon Stanford’s suggestion for his work in Structured Literacy in this country. You can read his rebuttal here: https://www.liftingliteracyaotearoa.org.nz/blog/the-flimsy-case-against-structured-literacy-in-nz-schools

    What I’m worried about is focusing only on those relatively simple components, the phonics components, and ignoring or at least not supporting an emphasis on the more complicated things like the role of self-regulation in early reading and writing and maths, or, like in the case of reading, enjoying reading.”

    Any Actual Reasons?

    But what reasons do I actually have from my own experience that the Science of Learning, Science of Reading, or Structured Literacy aren’t all they’re cracked up to be?

    Well, there are a few.

    Less Motivated

    Firstly, as mentioned above, I’ve seen first hand students becoming less and less motivated to read due to teaching using a structured literacy and explicit teaching approach to it. As a society, we’re ‘already battling the decline in students reading less and less in their own time, as their access to more entertaining alternatives chew up the time that our predecessors would have used for reading.

    Increased Results? Not yet

    Secondly, so far, I have yet to see any significant improvement in any reading, writing, or mathematics results in the standard tests. Over the course of 15 years as a classroom teacher, I’ve got a pretty good idea as to where students sit within the curriculum, and what level they are at for Reading. In the 2 years I have been beginning to teach using explicit instruction and following Structured Literacy guidelines to the best of my knowledge and ability, I’ve yet to see a significant shift in academic results in Reading.

    Now, that’s not to say that it won’t happen. 2 years is more than likely too soon to make any statements regarding its effectiveness, and I am prepared to give it more time. But it begs the question – how long before we should start seeing significant improvements? 5 years of implementing and effective practice? 7 years? 10 years?
    I’m just not seeing the results that I’ve have been lead to believe I would get.
    Maybe I’m doing it wrong!

    Supporting Struggling Learners

    My other reasons focus more on holistic views of teaching. One is the ability to adequately support students where they are at in their learning. Explicit Instruction has lead teaching towards a whole class model, where all students participate in the same lesson learning the same content.

    Providing additional support in smaller break out groups can happen at an earlier, or later time, but the main focus of teaching has shifted to having the whole class participating in whole class lessons. The idea would be to then set the class up with independent follow up tasks while you, the teacher, pull out small groups of students who need support. But this feels too targeted, and too obvious for it to not be detrimental to a students’ psyche and how they see themselves as a learner if they’re always getting pulled out and never get to do the independent work everyone else is doing.

    Increased Planning Time

    Another factor is planning time. I have begun taking to creating slideshows for my Reading and Writing lessons. This is in an effort to work smarter and have resources for the future as I begin to cover similar curriculum content over the next few years. Slideshows not only help present the content to the students, but assist in driving the lesson and prompting me as the teacher what my lesson sequence is, instead of having to refer to a lesson plan all the time. The slideshow IS the lesson plan.

    But this does not negate the fact that this is time consuming and considerably impacts on my time. Creating and making two slideshows each week, ensuring that the content is right, the formatting and layout is effective, for two curriculum areas each week can take upwards of two hours.

    And yes; the introduction of AI tools could enhance the use of this time; but I have several reservations about using AI at all, and being the graphic designer I am, I not only find enjoyment in making slideshows and formatting them to be graphically pleasing, but I simply don’t trust that it can format it in a way that follows the template of how I want it to look.

    Beyond that however, making the slideshow myself locks it into my memory on an intrinsic level that allows me to present the slideshow with confidence, knowing what I had planned to come next and knowing what parts get revealed and when, as well as what information or task or instruction comes up next. If I left the slideshow creation up to AI, I would have to then work to learn the slideshow myself, which wouldn’t be as intrinsically memorable as creating it is.

    Conclusion

    The Science of Learning sounds legitimate. Evidence based. Science backed. Popular and has a large base of promoters that celebrate it’s success across every curriculum area.

    But learning is complex. More complex than the implementation methods of The Science of Learning (such as Explicit Teaching) take into account. There are a myriad of factors that impact students in what they find difficult, what they find easy, what they already know, and what they have no experience of. And these are just scraping the surface of the things students are dealing with in their learning.

    Teaching is an Art. It requires creativity, engagement of emotion, relationship, nuance.

    And we mustn’t lose that.

    Further Reading

  • Edu-research: A new approach to evidence-based practice

    Edu-research: A new approach to evidence-based practice

    This may be an unpopular opinion. Brace yourself.

    There is so much research into education that it has become, at minimum, problematic; at most, toxic. There are five C’s to explore why educational research is writing itself into irrelevance. Call it the “C’s of Evidence” if you’d like.

    Clocking-In

    Teachers are already time poor. I can’t remember the last time I got the chance to sit down and read anything work-related, more than scanning through to read the lesson outline or writing resource to implement in my class that week. Much less any educational white-paper that someone came up with with new evidence that I should now be implementing in my classroom.

    And yet that is what teacher’s are expected to do.
    Evidence-based Practice became the catchphrase of the 2020’s in education circles as teachers sought to justify themselves and their classroom decisions.
    But how many actually look at the actual evidence?
    And how much of the evidence is actually classroom tested?

    Time to read white-papers is one thing. But it’s a whole other thing to implement the findings into your own practice, and apply it across multiple curriculum areas, whilst remaining within school policy and expectation. The time that takes is greater than you might initially think, especially when considering overviews, planning, guides and resource creation. Doing this while continuing to teach a class on a daily basis can often be measured in years rather than months.

    This can be sped up of course if the research has already been synthesized for the classroom, a resource developed, and the overview written in a way that classroom teachers can pick it up and run with it. However, in many cases, what this leads to are teachers following the research second hand – trusting the resource in their implementation of the research, rather than ever reading the research and what it is based off themselves.

    Conditions

    Research is like a Science experiment. You have a series of variables that you are observing and trying to test, with constants to be able to judge the variables against, and some control conditions that allow for baseline results to be compared against. Research in education is conducted with a series of conditions, with the likes of control groups, limited sample sizes, and narrow focuses. There are many, many issues with the way in which education research is conducted. It’s not so much an issue just with education research, but any research in which humans are the test subject.

    Multi-factor Generalisations

    There are simply so many factors that can contribute to the make up of a person, what they do, why they do it, and what we can learn from that. A child who scores 12 out of 100 in Maths can have a long list of reasons that can contribute to such a score. Did they wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Are they hungry? How long is their attention span? How much learning support at home have they had in the past two years? Are they struggling with a learning disability? Have they experienced significant trauma in their lives. Is this their first, second, third, or fourth school? Does their family hold a positive view of education? Has there been health issues that impact on their attendance at school? These are all variables, for which there are zero controls. None of these remain constant, and each impacts on a person to differing degrees.

    Of course, all of these factors are impossible to take into account for the research to be conducted. You can’t possibly control all of these, and so they are largely ignored.

    Don’t work with animals or children

    Children are notoriously inconsistent. They are still learning the world around them. Whilst this makes for some naivety and therefore a degree of honesty that adults tend to be able to mask or fake, children also are much more in-tune with the imaginary and make-believe that there are serious questions over the validity of any results involving them.

    Small Samples

    Along with the myriad of variables that are trying to be accounted for, these then get multiplied by the number of students in a class that a teacher has to work with. Research is inherently dealing with smaller sizes. Rather than try and conduct in-depth research using every student in the class, they might take a sample of 5 students at random. Rather than interview every class, they might select one or two at the school. Rather than go to every school in the area, they might select one or two. The list of ways that the research is limited in order to make it manageable.

    But when was the last time a teacher had five students where factors could just be ignored? Never. Each day, there are 20-30 students to account for in the class, any number of factors impacting on them.
    So how applicable is any research conducted in the name of education?

    Contradictions

    Recently the education community has jumped on the Science of Learning bandwagon (one in which I believe the wheels are falling off quicker than they said ‘click click’ to the horse). This brought with it the Science of Reading, which looked at ways in which we actually learn to read and therefore to direct effective ways in which to teach Reading.

    Marie Clay, one of New Zealand’s most honoured education researchers, was a world power in educational research. She single-handedly lead the drive for programmes like Reading Recovery in every school to support struggling readers in the 1980’s, and was a proponent of ‘whole-language’ literacy.

    However, with the influx of the Science of Reading, as well as, researchers from various universities (particularly in the United States), her methods are now criticised as being ineffective, showing no improvement and even purported to have negative effects later on.

    Yet, while looking through a pile of seriously old education books, I stumbled upon her book in which she introduces Reading Recovery. In it, she outlines her research and what she did in order to reach her conclusions (which was that early, specific and individualised intervention supported struggling readers to get back up to speed with their peers). The depth and detail in which she goes into, the considerations made and the testing of her intervention was evident in the brief skim through I had of her initial chapters.

    What it showed me was real proof that educational research is somewhat insignificant. Because here was someone who has been lambasted and rubbished in recent years for implementing a programme in many countries all in effort to support and raise literacy levels of students who find reading difficult. She conducted her own research in order to find out what it was that made the most difference. She was meticulous and her findings were evidence-based practice.

    Now I’m not saying research can’t be disproved, and I’m not saying that additional research can’t find shortcomings, or even find better, more effective strategies. Of course they can. But at the same time, who is to say that if the likes of Marie Clay, whose research is just as legitimate, can be tossed out and the proponents vilified, then in my mind; so can absolutely any other piece of research.

    The vile statements of utter contempt recent converts of the Science of Reading have for the very mention of Clay’s name is something to behold. ‘She’s a disgrace. Caused terrible disservice to an entire generation of children.’ and other similar comments.

    So we have one piece of research saying one thing. Another piece of research saying the opposite. Undoubtedly both with a different range of variables and an indeterminably amount of factors, and neither of which had the combination of students, needs, families, experiences as those in the classroom in front of you as the teacher today.

    Shortly after, this came across my social media feed, and I simply had to screenshot it.

    This statement was made, quoting the following aritlce about research carried out by Becky Taylor in the United Kingdom.
    https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2026/jun/comment-should-we-stream-school-students-based-ability

    It found streaming Year 7–8 students was beneficial for higher-ability students. These students made three months’ more progress in schools that streamed students for maths that those that did not. Streaming also did not damage the results or self-belief of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

    In fact, this study found students who were not streamed made only one month less progress overall than students who were, after two years. Students with disadvantage and students with low prior achievement made similar amounts of progress regardless of how they were grouped.

    These findings were surprising because they seem to contradict previous claims streaming can harm some students without benefiting others. This new study can and has been interpreted as showing streaming benefits some students while creating no harm to others.

    However, the findings do reinforce previous research suggesting streaming is inequitable and widens achievement gaps. The new study found high-achieving students made much more progress than low-achieving students when streaming was used.

    When presented with contradicting research, how are teachers meant to know which piece of research is correct? Which one do they listen to? The only way to really know would be for them to read both and take into consideration the sample sizes, the measures used and the methods applied for data retrieval and how the data was analysed and the evidence collated.

    And we’ve already found out that no teacher has the time to do that. By the time any teacher has been able to do that, new research would have been found and contradicted everything you’ve just read.

    When presented with contradicting research, how are teachers meant to know which piece of research is correct? Which one do they listen to?

    Count them All

    With the coining of the phrase ‘Evidence-based practice’, or ‘Evidence-based approach’, education now relies on there needing to be research in order to do anything in classrooms. It would appear to me that this is clearly a supply-and-demand issue. Teachers are wanting research conducted so that they can say they are following the evidence, and so research is conducted en mass.

    There has been a noticeable increase in educational research in the past decade.
    Is this true? Or does it just seem that way because everyone is talking about it?

    Well, I did a quick Google Search (with AI search disabled for the record!), and was thrown to this paper where researchers are now researching whether there has been an increase in research. Go figure!
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41979-026-00184-5
    I, of course, do not have time to read it in any depth.
    Instead, I simply jumped to the results tab which shows exactly what I suspected;
    The sheer number of research papers being published has exploded since 2020.

    Graph of increase in published research

    Not only do we not have time to read all the research, there is now so much of it to read through, that it has become an impossible task for any classroom teacher to keep up with the sheer amount of it.
    To be clear, what these numbers above show;

    • In 2009 (when I began teaching) there were about 150 journals of education research being published. That’s on average one journal published every two days throughout the year. I read a grand total of 0 of these at the time.
    • A decade later, in 2019, the total number of journals published had pretty much doubled, to over one for every weekday of the year. The number of these I had read to date had also doubled. Double nothing is still nothing.
    • Come 2020, and suddenly we have 750 journals published. That’s 750 journals in a year. That’s 3 journals for every workday that year.
    • It remains around 750 published journals for the next 5 years. That’s a mere 3,750 journals published. To be clear, that’s the same number of journals that were published in the 20 years from 1997 to 2016. I did the maths.

    Put simply, researchers have written themselves into oblivion. What I mean by that is that there is simply so much research that we simply cannot keep up with it and we are simply numb to all of it now. The sheer magnitude in the number of research papers in education is creating a saturation of the market, sending them into obsolescence and irrelevance.

    Teachers are routinely told ‘The Research says this…’, ‘The Research says that…’, and the vast majority blindly follow along, accepting of whatever approach we’re being told about. This is mostly because we don’t have the time, and simply because we can’t be bothered looking up the research, analysing the methods, and processing their conclusions. Let alone searching through the 750 journals published this year, which could be disproved within the next year at the rate that we’re going. It’s easier to nod our heads and just believe what is being told to us. We rely on our own experience of our classrooms, of teaching, our own understanding of how student’s learn, and the plausibility of what is being said as being true. If it sounds reasonable, there are many who will just give it a go until we’re told otherwise.

    All this research, where findings can vary, and just about any hypothesis can be backed, is essentially rendering research as completely unimportant. Evidence-based practice isn’t a status to be touting if research can back and support anything and everything. With so much research out there, not only is it obsolete because very few have the time to read it, but with so many articles out there, evidence can probably be found for anything and everything. The saturation of the education research market is like an empty glass that is being filled, yet once the cup is full, the tap was left on and the water is now overflowing. The value of the water is depleted and we are no longer thirsty.

    “The sheer magnitude in the number of research papers in education is creating a saturation of the market, sending them into obsolescence and irrelevance.”

    Cash is King

    Why do we need all this research? One reason is the ‘evidence-based practice’ rhetoric. And because of that, in order to push through any new resource, or any new approach to teaching, providers need to have evidence for which to claim their product as being ‘evidence-based’. What this leads to of course, is every large educational conglomerate as well as governments providing funds for research to be carried out.

    Education is big money. In 2025, the total income from education was a staggering $1,106,000,000.00. Yes. You read that right. $1.1 trillion. Of course, there is expenditure to take into account, but it leaves the country with $95 billion dollars in profit.

    And that’s just New Zealand.

    – Figure.nz: https://figure.nz/chart/kIpNw1H5r3cVIesv-O0u2toDAfNpAyifH

    This then brings in a whole other reason to be skeptical of research that is conducted. Which master is the research serving? The wider educational community, or the company that is funding them to find what needs to be found in order to push their products through?

    Concluding Evidence

    One of the key statements I will hold onto was from one such researcher; Steve Graham. I was lucky enough to hear a lecture about Writing Instruction in which he outlined some of his findings from his unironically named ‘Evidence-based recommendations for teaching writing‘ paper.

    You can view it here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03004279.2024.2357893

    Photo of Steve Graham
    Steve Graham

    Graham essentially said that upon reflection, any evidence, including his own, needed to be seen for what it is; evidence from a research environment.

    He said (in not so many words) that just because it happened in a research environment, regardless of sample size, “…does not mean it is going to replicate in every situation and circumstance.”
    In this one statement Graham made it clear that just because they found this in their research conditions, it does not mean it will translate into every classroom all of the time. Some classrooms may find benefit. Others may not. Some students will benefit. Some won’t.

    It is probably the single most self-reflective statement I have heard from any education researcher – a real, truthful, and down-to-earth statement about the reality every piece of research, including his own. It provided an unusual confidence in which one can stand on to challenge any research. It provided confidence to take on board research, but not make it the be-all and end-all that some try to make it.

    Moreover, I am of the opinion that each and every day, teachers around the world are conducting their own educational research. Observing, questioning, recording, planning, implementing strategies and lots of trial and error. It may not be published anywhere, and it may not carry with it the backing of a distinguished university, but that does not mean it is not important, nor less valuable. The evidence for my evidence-based practice? The 15 years I’ve spent in the classroom.

    That’s now my evidence based approach.

  • Reading for Enjoyment in the Age of Science of Reading

    Reading for Enjoyment in the Age of Science of Reading

    Background Reading

    These articles are what sparked this post. Check them out before reading my ramblings.

    The Science of Everything

    In 2020, a shift was beginning to happen in NZ schools. Schools were continuing to see the same story in their achievement data year after year, without much shift, despite increased efforts and implementations of systems like Learning through Play and Student lead Inquiry cycles. Schools began searching out something different.
    Many found this thing called “Structured Literacy”, a return to phonics based teaching in reading and writing that many of us received in our education in the 80’s and early 90’s. Teachers of the bygone era loved it; digging out their resources to revamp, update and digitise and sell to whoever came along, happy to see the old adage that everything goes in circles in education. Everything goes around and comes around again eventually.

    Structured Literacy was just the beginning of course. Minister Stanford hilariously coined the phrase ‘Structured Maths’ in an effort to put Maths into the Literacy bandwagon that most schools were now on. And even though many schools were implementing elements of Structured Literacy into their classroom programmes and developing consistency throughout, the government had to claim credit for it by mandating that every school implement this way of teaching.
    Now, what the Minister actually meant by ‘Structured Maths’ was simply applying a structured method to teaching Mathematics. One of the key aspects of ‘Structured Literacy’ Is that the learning has a scope and sequence. That means a beginning point and end goal, and a specific sequence of required knowledge that builds on each other with adequate review of new concepts built in throughout that creates a sequence from beginning to end. The method for teaching moved from getting students to guess answers based of what they know, to teaching the students concepts explicitly and getting them to practice what they have learned, so that they can apply it later.
    This is what has come to be known as ‘explicit teaching’. It is counter-opposite to the ‘inquiry’ based model schools have been operating with for the best part of 20 years.
    To get my head around the shift, I use the following:
    Instead of asking students “What do you think this colour is? How do you think you could make it?”, you would explicitly teach “This colour is Pink. It is made up of Red and White”.

    The proponents of Structured Literacy were all too happy to promote their ‘new’ way of teaching. They also had to back up their method with research.
    Cleverly, this was coined as “The Science of Reading”. Automatically, the whole thing sounds legitimate and unquestionable. It sounds evidence based, backed by research and the answer of truth. All because it has the word “Science” in it. It meant that it has been picked up and implemented very quickly, usually without question, purely because of it’s name.

    It all pointed to ‘evidence based practice’ that unpacked how the brain learns, was sympathetic to cognitive load, how the brain retains and recalls information and how this can all be implemented within the classroom.
    Explicit teaching became the norm, and with it a whole range of practices that were deemed to be ‘High-Leverage’ in being able to reach learners and be effective. Practices like whole class instruction, call and response, gradual release of autonomy, fast paced, roam and check, teacher arena and more would completely change the way in which teachers did their job. Teachers returned to the front and centre of the class, giving instruction and stating facts for students to sit and listen to – known as the ‘Teacher’s Arena’. Students returned to desks all facing the front and set lesson routines that chop through each part quickly with no time to allow for distractions, and expected to read along and quickly jot responses on individual whiteboard to show they have understood the concept being taught. The teacher speaks almost constantly, because if there is ‘dead air’ then the students will fill it with their own chatter, assumed to be off task. The pace of the lesson is snappy, in an effort to keep students engaged and no time to distract themselves.

    Before long, this methodology was expected to be applied across all subject areas, and the Science of Reading was supplemented with the Science of Learning and the Science of Writing. No doubt the Science of Mathematics exists somewhere, and eventually we’ll have the absurdity of the Science of Science and God-forbid the Science of Art.

    The explicit teaching model was no longer just being rolled out for phonics and spelling. Now the entire Reading programme was built around the method. Teacher at the front. Students listening and absorbing the information, responding to show they were paying attention. Quickly. Chop chop. Get it done. Onto the next.

    Then they do it all over again in Writing now. Same process. Different subject, but all linked and all the same.

    Then Mathematics.

    Skeptical at Best

    It became very clear to those of us with an ounce of skepticism that there are questions that need to be asked.

    Age Appropriate?

    One in particular that those of us in the senior school (Year 5-6, 7-8) were having was how long does this go on for? The phonics based lessons seemed incredibly young and well better suited to those in the earlier years of school. This may just be a case of early adoption and intervention, where by those in the senior primary school who missed out on the Structured Literacy lessons need to be caught up to speed with what they missed because it wasn’t taught to them earlier.
    But when spelling programmes are being developed up to Year 8, with increasingly difficult words, or instructions for using ‘age appropriate texts’, the expectation of continuing this for upper primary looks set to stay.

    Reading for Enjoyment?

    When the expectation was to expand the spelling and phonics into reading, I was immediately concerned about the Literacy well-being of students at the upper primary age.

    My reason is simple – In my 15 years of teaching this subject in low socio-economic communities, I’ve seen the importance of students needing to be able to read for enjoyment. Yes, they need to know how to read – but if they don’t see that reading can actually be enjoyable and valuable beyond just information gathering, then part of the intrinsic motivation to learn to read will not be there. They might know they have to be able to read because they see their parents struggling to read, or maybe there’s generations of (usually undiagnosed) dyslexia in the family, and they know they HAVE to learn to read; but if they can’t do it and enjoy it, then their struggle is only going to multiply and compound.
    My concern was immediate because I could see that the method of explicit instruction of Reading in the Structured Literacy model did not lend itself to enjoyment. Routine is all well and good to build consistency and certainty and predictability for students, but when it becomes repetitive in every single aspect of the day, the spark dies. The repetition becomes stale. Boring. Students switch off and enter the ‘why-do-we-have-to-do-this” mindset quicker than you can say “I do, we do, you do”.
    The ability for a teacher to foster a love for reading is severely diminished. Reading becomes a task and a chore. Reading becomes purely fact gathering about a topic we’re inquiring into as a class (and rarely something that the student is ACTUALLY interested in). There’s no enjoyment. There’s no entertainment. There’s no getting lost in another world of whimsy or relatable characters in gritty situations.
    These reservations were almost instant upon being encouraged to teach in this manner, and the writing was on the wall when it was mandated in the curriculum of HOW teachers should be teaching Reading.

    A mere year later, on the 20th May 2026, and an unsurprising headline came across my newsfeed.
    “Children’s enjoyment of reading, writing and maths drops”.
    Curriculum Insights did a study regarding students perceptions of the subjects, their interest in them and their perceived ability in them. They conducted one in 2018/19, interestingly and thankfully around the time that this Science of Learning movement was gaining traction but certainly wasn’t widespread. Upon comparing the results from 2025, there has been significant shifts in the way children see these subjects.

    “They showed the percentage of Year 8s who said they did not like reading climbed from 8 percent in 2019, to 11 percent in 2023 and 16 percent in 2025.”
    Thats no small feat. In the space of 6 years(the time it takes for a student to go through primary school) the percentage of Year 8 students who do not like reading doubled. Yes. Doubled.
    Then there’s the individual mentality. How do the Year 8’s perceive themselves as readers? In 2018/19, 6 percent of the Year 8’s did not agree they were good at reading. This dropped to 4 percent in 2023 before climbing to 13% just two years later.
There’s a similar story for the Year 6 students who were surveyed.
    
Sue McDowall, a researcher at NZCER surmises some of the findings. There’s a myriad of speculations as to why there is a spike in the lack of enjoyment in reading. She suggests Screen time as one of those possibilities. However, anecdotally, I’d say that screen time has remained vastly the same over the given timeframe. One thing is for certain, that one thing that has changed in that time, is how we are teaching those subjects. She stops short of pointing at Structured Literacy as a reason, but does lay out some important considerations for Reading in education moving forward.

    “It really matters. Let’s take reading again as an example. We know there’s a bi-directional relationship between being motivated to read and your achievement as a reader.”. This is what I have been outlining in the paragraphs above. Motivation and achievement are strongly linked in Reading.
    “So it’s really important that teachers not only focus on teaching children how to read texts and to make meaning of them and to critically analyse them and to use them to meet their own needs.
    “It’s also important that teachers provide children with opportunities to engage with texts and to read for pleasure, to read to meet their own interests and needs, to become motivated readers and see reading as something that they want to do in their own time.”

    Further down the article, some are willing to point at Structured Literacy and its possible impact on the enjoyment of reading. Ruth Boyask from Auckland University says “…she had examined the NMSSA data in depth and it showed that children enjoyed reading more if they had control over what they read and less direction from teachers.”
    “She said the government’s focus on structured literacy approaches to reading might be affecting that.
    “There are differences of approaches that are being promoted within the educational and school environment at the moment that perhaps are moving away from children being more actively involved and engaged in their reading.”

    Continuing down the article we see comments from Stephen Lethbridge, an outspoken and well renowned principal in the Auckland region, who I have respect for in my limited interactions with him, who says, whilst it is too early to place sole blame on Structured Literacy, the trends are there:
    The principal of Point Chevalier School in Auckland, Stephen Lethbridge, was critical of strict adherence to the structured approach but said it was too early to know if that was driving down children’s love of learning.
    “What we do know as good teachers is that having quality books, talking about what kids are learning, especially at Years 4, 5 and 6 we’re getting into talking about themes, talking about what’s going on in stories and that may not be happening as much in the senior school anymore as they are also doing structured literacy at the moment.”

    This is happening across the globe. Read this for yourself

    And that sums it up in a nutshell. Teachers are being pulled in the direction of “Science of Learning”, somewhat blindly (in that I don’t believe half the teachers ‘following’ the research have actually read any of the research – I’m in this camp!), and even more so now that HOW we teach Reading has been mandated in the curriculum (See under the heading ‘Structured literacy approaches’ here). And so, jumping in the pool with both feet, we are drowning the students in explicit instruction, unpacking vocabulary and asking search and find comprehension questions, focusing on fluency and reading out loud in a whole class setting, regardless of what level of reader you are, and completely eliminating any aspect of enjoyment from reading – or even suggesting that reading could be enjoyable at all.

    Void of Motivation

    Earlier I mentioned about reading for enjoyment and the motivation that comes with it.

    Motivation is such a huge factor in learning.

    Motivation isn’t something that science can measure. The evidence behind the Science of Learning looks only at what helps the brain to learn, and the most effective practices that utilises these pathways. But I would challenge this and say that those pathways are only open if the student is motivated to learn. A student who isn’t motivated simply isn’t going to learn, regardless of how effective your practice is or what shortcuts into the brain science we utilise.
    You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.

    Explicit instruction and High-Leverage practices can be implemented all they like, but all the talking from the teacher, the gestures and signals, the focus on the front, will only maintain the attention of the students for as long as they want to give attention.

    And attention is not motivation.

    I can tell you now, that the students in my class generally dislike spelling. They’ve learned to endure it, and put up and shut up. I’ve worked tirelessly on encouraging the right attitude, to try and circumvent the lack of motivation towards spelling lessons. But there is only so much you can do once they’ve made up their minds.
    This is a similar case in Reading, where students are genuinely engaged in their Inquiry and finding out about a topic and making a quiz or a presentation or any number of follow up inquiry tasks. In order to access that, they know they have to do the reading first. So it is done as quickly and reluctantly as possible.

    Even that term, ‘High-Leverage’ suggests there is an admission that there is going to be resistance from students, and they need to be ‘leveraged’ into the effective learning that the Science of Learning provides.
    You know what circumvents any need for ‘leverage’ with your class?
    Motivated students.
    And before you try to shift blame that I must not be teaching them enthusiastically enough, or setting the right tone in my class, or not making it interesting for them – It’s not that.

    In what seems like a previous life; even though it was only five years ago – I used to teach using a programme called Daily 5. It is a programme developed out of the United States by two teachers who had reached the end of their tether with the copious amount of planning that Reading groups required.
    Daily 5 centres around independent choice. Five activities that are designed to increase Literacy practice in students. And through that choice, comes motivation.

    It wasn’t perfect by a long shot, and there was a lot of room for opting out. But I’ve seen what motivation looks like. I’ve seen a struggling reader in Year 3, become a competent and independent reader in Year 4 and the only thing that changed was using Daily 5 as my Reading and Writing programme. But the biggest piece of evidence I have for motivation, comes from the students themselves, who on multiple years, have asked; yes, ASKED, to do Daily 5 on the last day of school. I can tell you now, that does not happen with any other reading and writing programme I’ve tried.

    Why?

    Motivation.

    Students had choice. They had agency in their learning. They could choose what they read. They could choose what they wrote. They could choose when they read, and when they wrote.
    Through that choice; through that agency – came motivation. In spades.

    What choice do students have in explicit instruction?
    What choice do students have in a teacher arena?
    What choice do students have in any high-leverage functions?

    Reservations

    These are just a few of the reservations I have about everything to do with the Science of Learning, the Science of Reading, the Science of Writing, the Science of anything and everything.

    Don’t get me wrong; despite these reservations, I am still teaching using these methodologies. I am still implementing this because having taught for as long as I have, I am not too proud to acknowledge that I don’t have all the answers. I will give most things a go, because over the course of many years, I’ve yet to find a way to teach that creates amazing progress in low-achieving learners. I do not wish to be a disservice to my students if the evidence and research is accurate and repeatable in many, if not every instance.

    But remember; Science is not always the truth.

    It’s well known that Science is the opposite of Art. And maybe it’s the fact that I’m a creative, an artist, that has me opposing this despite being told about the mountain of research that supposedly backs the Science of Learning.

    It may well be the Science of Learning, but it is, and always will be, the Art of Teaching.

  • Teaching Portfolios: How to set up a OneNote portfolio

    I’ve been using OneNote to build my teacher portfolio for a while now.

    Back in 2016 I wrote a quick how-to about building your teacher portfolio in OneNote. Back then, of course, there were 12 criteria, and so the template is no longer valid.

    However, since that time, I’ve also been adjusting the way in which I use OneNote to collect evidence and artefacts for the portfolio and how they’re organised. This means two things:

    1. Its okay to change as you go

    Don’t feel like you have to keep your portfolio in the same mode for all three years of your registration. If something isn’t working, don’t feel like you have to stick with it just because that’s how you decided to do it before you had even started.

    2. It’s flexible

    OneNote is completely flexible to keep up with however you want to organise it. If you want to have the years along the top sections, go for it. If you’d rather have each of the six standards along the top, you can do that too. However it works for your brain, OneNote is flexible enough to cope with it.

    Getting Set Up

    1. Install Microsoft OneNote

    Firstly, you will want to install Microsoft OneNote. Most Windows computers already come with it. However, there are TWO versions of OneNote. There’s the App Store version (which is an all-operating-system app for iOS, Android, and Windows Store), and there is the BETTER version that comes with Microsoft Office – OneNote 2016.

    You will want to get the OneNote 2016 version and ensure you pin the icon on your taskbar so you don’t open the other version.

    The main reason for this is the ability to install macros, and there is a LOT more control over things like tags, both of which you’ll want to utilise to make your portfolio.

    2. Get an Account.

    This isn’t a necessity to be able to use OneNote. However there are benefits to having an account, such as sharing, and accessing your portfolio on different devices. Luckily, Microsoft products are free for schools to use. Talk to your network administrator to get Office365 accounts set up for you and your staff.

    3. Create a New Notebook

    You’ll need to make a new notebook. I would call this something such as “Portfolio 2020-2022” or whichever year range you intend (I just use my registration years).

    The reason for this is that as you add evidence into your portfolio, the filesize of your notebook will get bigger and bigger, and cause things to take longer to load the more you have in it. By setting it to just three years, it keeps everything nicely in one place for one round of registrations. You can then save it off and begin a new one when your new registration begins!

    I’m not going to go into details on how to create a new notebook. You can find multiple tutorials for this online.


    OneNote Tutorial

    4. Set Up Sections

    The first decision you will want to make is whether you’re going to go with a date-based portfolio or standards-based portfolio. You can read more about that here.

    Along the top of OneNote 2016, you will see your ‘Sections’. Here you can see I’ve gone with a date-based section portfolio, but you could just as easily go with standards, or even types of evidence. Dates is just the one that made best sense to me, and it allowed me to try different things each year of the registration period without having to stick to one method of collecting evidence.
    Adding a new section is as simple as clicking on the white ‘+’ tab. You can add as many sections as you like, as well as, have groups of sections. So – for instance – you could have a section group for each year, and within each of those groups, have each of the six standards as sections as well. This essentially creates two layers of sections at the top. Like I said, OneNote is pretty flexible for however you want to structure your portfolio.

    5. Create Page Headings

    On the right hand side of OneNote are your pages (although you can completely customise this so that it is on the left).

    You can make up to three layers deep of pages by indenting them under parent pages.

    Here you can see I have an “Admin” parent page which holds my index, summaries, job descriptions, release records and anything else pertaining to my registration for the year.

    Then I’ve made an “Evidence” parent page which I dump all my pieces of evidence in it. I’ve gone through and put it roughly in chronological order, but this hasn’t always been the case. You could put it in subject order, or leave it in complete chaos. Once again – however your brain works!

    Below that is a quick screenshot of another way of setting out the parent pages. You can see that these are expandable with the drop down arrows. You can have anything as parent pages – you could even set up each of the six standards as parent pages that you then put evidence within.


    6. Create Custom Tags

    OneNote comes with it’s own set of pre-made tags (and many of these are useful to keep). It also allows you to add in your own tags, and this is where comes the power of OneNote.

    Remember: this is in Microsoft OneNote 2016 – not the App version.

    1. Under the ‘Home’ tab at the top, go to the tags part and open the drop down list of tags.
    2. At the bottom of this is a “Customize Tags…” button. In there, you can create six new tags, one for each of the six standards. You can select an icon for them – I’ve just used the six coloured squares.
    3. You can then order them and see them within your list of tags. You could even move them to the top so you have the shortcuts for them (I’ve got other tags that I use for teaching in those slots…)
    7. Macro It Up!

    This step is a bit extra for those who like to have a list of their evidence somewhere.

    In Microsoft OneNote 2016, there is a ‘Macros’ part under the ‘Home’ tab. You can download a range of different macros which are like plugins for OneNote that carry out different tasks systematically. The one that allows you to create an index page like the one above is called ‘Tag Summary with Page Names‘.

    Once you’ve installed it you can create a new page and then run it.

    It will ask you for the ‘Scope‘. Select from Current Section, or Current Section Group, Current Notebook, or All Notebooks. I usually just select the ‘Current Section‘ option.

    Under ‘Filter‘ make sure you select ‘All‘. The unchecked only and checked only are for the ‘To-Do’ tag which can be marked as checked or unchecked. Our tags are just tags.

    Click ‘Ok‘ and it will go through and create a list of the pages that include the different tags.

    It could take a while depending on how many pages are in the Current Section. It’ll go along and show you the progress and page it is up to, and eventually be all finished and show you a page like the one above.

    Now, bear in mind, you selected ‘All’ for the tags it would look for, and so it will also list the other tags as well. You can go through these and delete the list of pages under these tags, leaving you with just the six standards and the pages that include that tag on them somewhere

    Other Macros

    Another good macro to get is a TOC (Table of Contents) called TOC in Current Section and TOC in Current Notebook. Both of these will build a linked list of pages within your section or notebook and display it on its own page. It’s not dynamic, so it won’t update as you add pages, but is good to have at the end of the year for example.

    Some Examples

    And that’s it. Add your evidence as a page in the section, organise it and add it in a parent page, and you’re away laughing!

    Below are some examples of evidence I have added into my OneNote portfolio.

    A great thing about OneNote is it is quick and easy to add evidence. Just create a new page in the right section, move it under a parent page if you need to, and then start typing. The date of creation is added at the top (I believe you can edit this if you’re adding evidence in retrospectively) and then you can add in an explanation or annotation of the evidence. It is easy to add screenshots or images, photos, or other media. If you have an iPad you can even write and draw in the page with Apple Pencil or a stylus.

    In this example, you can see at the top of the page I’ve added in the tags for the standards I believe that the piece of evidence links to. This is the strength of using tags, is that you create the evidence ONCE, and attribute the tags to that one evidence. There’s no copying it to different sections and organising it everywhere making multiple copies or anything. Just add the tags at the top. You can see the star one, which is my icon for PB4L stuff, which this also pertains to.

    In Conclusion

    I hope that is enough to get you started in using OneNote to house your teaching portfolio. It is the best system I’ve found for keeping your portfolio, and I’ve tried most of them. In my opinion it is the best for because of the following:

    • Adding evidence is easy, with the ability to copy and paste images and text into it. It also saves automatically.
    • It fits with my other OneNote notebooks that I keep for my other teaching work, allowing me to quickly copy work I’ve already done over into my portfolio as well.
    • Tags. Need I say more?
    • Flexible organising to suit my needs. Whichever way I need to structure my portfolio, it has a way of making it work with different layers of sections, section groups, pages, parent pages, and more.
    • Being able to draw, take notes, and annotate evidence with my iPad and Apple Pencil in OneNote has been awesome. These are at an additional cost, but add to the whole experience, and part of the reason why I use OneNote for all the other areas of teaching as well.

  • Teaching Portfolios: How to set up a Blog based portfolio

    A blog based template is a good way of going about keeping a record of your portfolio. Many people are used to the system of blogging, and the key part of anything is it’s flexibility.

    Essentially, each piece of evidence is a new post. In that post you can include file links, images, and annotations or descriptions. Built in to every blog system is the use of categories and tags, which can be used to track the six teaching standards, subject of the evidence, type of evidence (image, photo, resource, video, etc…) and more. These can then all be used to create archive pages or collections to showcase in your portfolio.

    The big benefit to creating your portfolio online is its accessibility from anywhere, allowing you to add evidence no matter where you are. In addition to this, being able to easily share your portfolio with your principal in order to get your registration signed off is also a convenience. Another benefit is the ability to add comment, annotation, and descriptions or reflections to each piece of evidence and have it attached with the evidence permanently in one place.

    There are a couple of downsides to using a blog system. The first is a matter of privacy. The thing that makes it a great system, accessibility, is also it’s downfall. Unless you go through your evidence and black out names or blur faces in photos, and moderate any comments you make in annotations, all of these things will go up online for everyone to see. Of course, there are ways of making this work, such as making your portfolio private and password protected. You will have to provide your principal with an account to view it however if you wish to share it with them.
    Secondly, it requires extra work on your part. Each piece of evidence needs to be added as a new blog post, files and photos uploaded, and comments or descriptions added. This is slightly more cumbersome than just dropping files into a folder, or even adding it as a new page in OneNote – especially if you keep getting signed out!

    Pros
    • Accessible online from anywhere
    • Easy to share with others
    • Explanations, Descriptions and Reflections all easy to add to a piece of evidence and posted together.
    Cons
    • Privacy issues by being online
    • Additional work required to add pieces of evidence

    Creating a Teaching Portfolio in a blog

    Getting started is actually a lot easier than you’d first imagine. The hardest part is choosing a blogging system. There are several that I would recommend.

    In the end, choose one that works for you. If it’s too hard for you to use and get used to, then you’re not going to maintain your portfolio very well. The other factor to take into account is the privacy capabilities of the system – does it have private mode? Can you make posts password protected?

    I’m not going to go into details of how to use each of these systems. Most of them have a simple tag and category based system, especially the first two. Instead, I’ll go through the basic setup of what you need to build the structure of your portfolio.

    I’ve actually made an entire website for this purpose. You can visit it below:


    Wordpress.com PTC Portfolio

    Please go through and have a look at this site. It takes you through the whole set up with you, and addresses each of the issues outlined above.

    Examples

    Here are some examples of some blog based portfolios I’ve come across or made myself.

    PTC Portfolio Template

    Not only is the WordPress tutorial I built above a walkthrough, but also serves as an example of what your portfolio could look like. I’ve also put in some example evidence. Go ahead and have a look through it.


    PTC Portfolio

    ePortfolio – Google Site


    Here I used a combination of Google Drive and Google Sites. Essentially I would just add evidence into relevant folders in Google Drive and the Site would link to those folders. I could then create some featured posts to showcase some of the better pieces of evidence.

  • Teaching Portfolios: Standards Based Portfolio

    One way in which you can build your teaching portfolio is to use each of the six standards as a different ‘category’ for which to organise your evidence into. This can be done easily in both hard copy portfolios as well as online or computer based portfolios.

    Whichever way you decide to go in setting up your portfolio, you should consider each of the steps in this guide.

    Hard Copy Portfolio

    For hard copy portfolios, use a set of file dividers to break your folder into sections.

    You could also use an expanding folder and set aside six pockets to put the evidence into.

    Keep the front divider page and use this as either a title for each section, or as a contents / index page for what you put into each section.

    Computer Portfolio

    If you plan on using Google Drive / OneDrive / Dropbox or even just Windows Explorer / My Documents, simply create a folder for your portfolio, then inside it, create six folders – one for each of the six standards.

    You could also use OneNote and create six sections along the top for each of the standards. Then each new piece of evidence just becomes a page within that section.

    See our article on OneNote portfolios for more info.

    Evidence

    As you collect evidence of your teaching practise, simply take a copy (photocopy or Ctrl+C) and put it into the relevant section. If it fits under more than one of the standards, then put additional copies into those sections. In Computer based portfolios this is very easy, as you just continue to paste each file into each relevant folder as many times as you like. For hard copy portfolios you’ll need to make additional photocopies.

    Don’t forget to date each piece of evidence as it comes in. Computer based portfolios will do this automatically for when the file was created.

    Keep Track

    It is a good idea to keep a contents page of what has been placed in your portfolio. There are several ways you could do this, but the simplest way would be to draw up six columns and each time a piece of evidence is added into the section, you add it to the column / columns that pertain to each standard. You could also use the index card of the dividers set that you purchased for your folder and add each piece of evidence as you go.

    It is also interesting to keep track of how many pieces of evidence you have in each of the standards. A simple file count in each folder will tell you in a computer based portfolio. A tracking sheet could be used for both systems as well so you can see what areas you might want to work on or focus on for the next term or two.

    This is a tracker from a bullet-journal, but one could easily adapt something like this for keeping track of the number of artefacts you have in each of the six teaching standards.

    This is just the beginning steps of setting up your Standards based Portfolio.

    Another way would be to set up your portfolio using dates as your organiser. You can see how this is done in the next article.

  • Teaching Porfolios: Date Based Portfolio

    One way in which you can build your teaching portfolio is to use each of the years for your registration as a structure for folders and dividers for your portfolio. This can be done easily in both hard copy portfolios as well as online or computer based portfolios.

    Whichever way you decide to go in setting up your portfolio, you should consider each of the steps in this guide.

    Hard Copy Portfolio

    Essentially you just need a divider, or section, or entire folder for each year. You could choose to group your years together for the three years of your registration, though this is not necessary.

    Then its just a matter of putting each piece of evidence into the relevant year as you teach. I would keep each one dated and keep them in the order they happened in. Then at the end of the year, close it off, and open up the next section ready for the new year.

    Computer Portfolio

    In Google Drive / Drop Box / Windows Explorer / Finder create three folders inside your portfolio. Label these as the years of your registration. Obviously, you could just continue, or keep your registrations together in a folder themselves.


    One big melting pot

    Obviously if you just add each piece of evidence into a folder for each year it will begin to resemble a dumping ground of teaching stuff or one big melting pot of evidence rather than a well organised portfolio.

    One could merge the standards based approach outlined here into each of the year folders in order to add another layer of structure to your portfolio in an effort to keep it more organised. But this would require six folders, all named the same, created three times for each of the years. It would work, but it wouldn’t be very elegant. But, if this is how your brain works, then its a viable option. However, a better way would be by using tags.

    Tags for each teaching standard

    You can create a set of six tags, each one relating to a standard.

    Tags can be used throughout most file systems, but in particular if you use OneNote I would highly recommend this. If you set up a blog for your portfolio, categories or tags can be used for this purpose. I believe both Windows and MacOS have the ability to tag files. I’m not sure this is possible in Google Drive or Drop Box, but I could be wrong.

    If you’re building a hard copy portfolio, then stickers are your friends! Choose six coloured stickers to use, make a key of which standard each colour relates to, and then in the corner of the piece of evidence, place a sticker for the standard or standards that it relates to.

    Multiple Standards

    The biggest benefit to using tags is that it becomes very easy to attribute multiple standards to one piece of evidence. This is something that happens more often than not. Using tags saves on the doubling up of evidence as you copy a piece into multiple standards folders of other systems. Instead, you merely add as many tags as is suitable for the evidence, and it is “added” to those standards straight away.

    OneNote is free to use. Whilst the online and app version is very good, I find the OneNote 2016 software to be the best.

    For syncing, you will need an Office365 account, which costs. However, it is free for all schools thanks to the Government schools agreement with Microsoft.

    The Best Method

    The best software I’ve found for building a portfolio is Microsoft OneNote. In particular is the ability to use tags. These can then be searched for, and using different macros it can also build a contents / index page for each of these tags.

    I used to use a blog type approach, with each post being a different piece of evidence, but with some privacy issues being that it was online, as well as the fact I was having to create posts as a piece of evidence, rather than just using the file, it became cumbersome and extra work with the doubling up. I did however appreciate the use of tags and categories to be able to organise the evidence while still maintaining a date based approach.

    I will write an in-depth article about setting up your teacher portfolio in OneNote soon.

  • Teaching Portfolios: Making them Work

    Even though they are not required by the Teaching Council, many schools use Teaching portfolios to show evidence that a teacher is meeting the criteria and standards for registration, and therefore can be signed off when their registration comes up for renewal.

    The format of appraisal and the keeping of portfolios has been a bug-bear of teachers for a while now, with the increase of workload in collecting evidence and putting it in a portfolio for something that is not actually required.

    However, I argue that portfolios are a good way of keeping records of your teaching career and can help make you a more reflective teacher in the process. I think that they would be worth maintaining even if they are not required.  While I acknowledge there is a bit of work required to keep it, there are several ways in which you can streamline the process so that keeping a portfolio is no longer a burden or a time-sapping exercise.

    The following are several keys to success that I’ve found along the way so that keeping and maintaining your teacher portfolio.

    Rule 1: Make it work for you; instead of you working for it…

    The number one thing you need to do when making your portfolio is to make it work for you.

    What does this mean?

    Put simply, choose a system, a method of keeping evidence, resources, materials, artefacts that is natural to you. If you’re a hands on person who prefers hard copies of things, then use a clearfile or lever-arch folder, or even a cascading folder.
    If you keep a lot of your teaching work in Google Docs, or use Google Drive a lot, then create a folder for evidence and put all the files in there.
    If you put a lot of your teaching work online, then you could set up a blog or website.

    Choose a system that works for you

    • Clearfile
    • Lever-arch File
    • Cascading Folder
    • Cardboard Box
    • Google Drive Folder
    • One Note Notebook
    • Google Site
    • Website
    • Blog

    You can find out more about each of the main ways to organise your portfolio at the following articles:

    Date Based Portfolio

    Standard Based Portfolio

    Organise it how your brain works

    Following on from the previous point on making it work for you: Setting up your portfolio in the way that your brain operates means that organising and maintaining your portfolio will be second nature to you rather than battling with yourself internally each time you come to update it.

    There are two main ways in which you can organise your teaching standards portfolio:

    • Date Based
      This consists of folders or sections labeled by date (ie. 2018, 2019, 2020). In each folder you put evidence of your teaching practise as it happens.
    • By Standard
      This consists of creating a set of six folders or sections, one for each of the six teaching standards. As you create each piece of evidence, simply put it in the folder that it best suits.

    Obviously there are other ways as well. I’ve found the best to be a combination of these two ways. It doesn’t matter really how you choose to organise it, as long as whichever way you choose is how your brain best processes a portfolio of this kind.

    Robust yet Flexible

    It wouldn’t be a blog about teaching without a bit of an oxymoron in it. When you set up your portfolio, make sure whatever system you choose to organise it in is robust. Stick to it, and keep it consistent. At the same time however, be flexible enough to adapt it to fit your needs as you go. Don’t be afraid to try new things, reorganise it or adjust it as you need to. Remember, the first rule is key: this HAS to work for you. As soon as it doesn’t, you’re working for it and it become cumbersome.

    Tags Are Your Friend

    One thing I have found the more and more portfolios I have made over my years as a teacher is that you need a way to tag or categorise each piece of evidence. Regardless of whether you go with a date based or standards based approach, having a system of tags will save you a lot of time. Using tags avoids the problem mentioned next.

    Avoid doubling up

    There is nothing more demoralising to a teacher (or anyone for that fact) than having to do something twice.

    Therefore, ensure that you only have to enter evidence into your portfolio once. The use of computer based portfolios certainly helps with this, especially with evidence that fits under multiple standards.

    Avoid doubling up

    There is nothing more demoralising to a teacher (or anyone for that fact) than having to do something twice.

    A very good portfolio will find a way in which you can keep your work organised when you create it AND enter it into your portfolio at the same time. This is somewhat of a pipedream, though definitely possible. Essentially this is where flexibility of your system is key, as this wouldn’t be possible for every piece of evidence, but definitely a possibility for some.

    Keep an eye out for more…

    We will be adding more Teacher Portfolio ideas, tips, tricks, and how-to guides in the near future. Check back here for more!

  • Teaching Portfolios: Do we need them?

    Ever since I became a teacher in 2009 I’ve been keeping everything I’ve done. For the first two years as a PRT (Provisionally Registered Teacher) it was pretty much part of the process of what was expected to keep track of my progress, my teaching, and my career. After that, it had become somewhat second nature and with the appraisal process becoming much less trustworthy with the introduction of the Education Council (renamed Teacher’s Council), schools and principals were encouraged to tighten their systems of appraisal and were expected to have their staff collect evidence that they were meeting each of the 12 criteria at the time.

    On top of this, teachers were also encouraged to carry out what has become known as “Teacher Inquiry” where teachers inquired into their own practise and how they might be better teachers for their classes and students.

    Although I’d known no different and all of this was second nature and just part of the job, it is a lot of work on top of what we have to do day in and day out – the core business of teaching. It quickly became one of the number one pieces of paperwork and time consumers for teachers.

    Along came Labour, winning the 2017 election and swiftly removing the ‘Education Council’ and returning it to the teachers. With the pay negotiations came the agreement to address the workload. And with that the appraisal process, of which teacher inquiry and portfolios had become synonymous with.

    In September 2019, the following paragraph was released from the Teaching Council website in regards to it’s requirements around portfolios and inquiry.

     

    The Teaching Council would like to clarify what it expects for the issue or renewal of a practising certificate.
    The issue or renewal of a practising certificate will be based on an endorsement made by the professional leader, based on the teacher’s participation in a system that includes:

    • an annual summary report that states whether or not the appraisee meets the Standards or Ngā Paerewa
      • the annual summary report is the only teacher documentation that is required for the purposes of the audit ERO undertakes on behalf of the Teaching Council
    • that appraisees have been observed once annually and involved in two conversations ideally with an appraiser who is familiar with the day to day work of the teacher
      • the Council has listened to the profession and accepts that one observation may suffice for fully certificated teachers.

    We do not ask (nor do we require) to see copies of the annual summary report, or any evidence. We rely on the professional judgement of the appraiser and the leader making the endorsement.

    While schools and centres are free to design their appraisal processes there is no requirement in law or by any agency that an appraisal system must include:

    1. an inquiry to be undertaken by teachers

    2. reports to be kept of all the professional development teachers do

    3. a portfolio of evidence compiled by teachers

     

    So essentially, it is not the Teacher’s Council that requires you to collect evidence, or complete an inquiry, but your school and/or principal. However, schools and principals feel that they have to get teachers to do these in order to have something to sign off on for the annual summary report. They don’t, but they might feel that they have to have some kind of evidence that teachers are meeting the criteria when signing off the annual summary report.

    Regardless, I return to my first question: Do we need them?

    The short answer is no. Not legally.

    But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have them or keep them, as professionals and learners. Portfolios are a good way of collating experiences, celebrating successes, recording failures, and building a collection of your career as a teacher. They provide you with opportunities to reflect, question, and develop your own skills as a learner, and when done well, can be incredibly insightful and important to the practise of teaching.

    The long answer is yes. Yes definitely.

    But… but…. but they make so much more work! Yes. You’re right. But there are two things I say to that.

    Firstly: There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going.

    Secondly: Make the portfolio work for you, not you work for it.

    I have several ways of doing this which I plan on sharing over the course of the next few months. This is because I believe there are ways to make them easier to create and collect. I also believe they are worth maintaining even though they are not required legally. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother writing about this now when there is a chance that schools will start dropping the expectation that teachers maintain them. I believe that even if my school dropped them as a requirement, that I would still continue to collect and reflect on my teaching practise in the form of a portfolio.

  • The Foundation: Relationships Matter

    The reality of it is, building without a foundation is somewhat pointless. If you start with the finished product without laying the groundwork, you will ultimately fail.

    The same can happen with teaching.

    You can have all the best learning intentions with well paced lesson plans and resources developed and prepared, but if you don’t put in the hard work first, all of it will be for nothing.

    So what is the groundwork for teaching? What is the foundation from which to build everything else from in your classroom?

    Relationships.

    Relationships.

    Relationships.

    The relationship between the teacher and the student is vital in making a difference in that student’s ability to focus, to trust, to experience, and ultimately to learn. Some students thrive on this more than others, but that does not make it any less important that you build a relationship and rapport with each and every student.

    Without it is pointless.

    The Māori proverb is often bandied about around many schools, and yet many overlook it.

    “He aha te mea nui o te ao. He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata”

    What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.

    And although we often refer to them as students, pupil, or children, it is important to remember that these are all young and growing people. They each have heartbeats. They each have spirit. They each have fears. They each have strengths. They each have backgrounds. They each have futures.

    Students who can trust you will follow you. Students that feel valued will value what you say. Students that have a place to belong will do anything to be a part of that. Students who feel they are a part of something will welcome in new ideas and new learning. Students who feel relaxed also feel comfortable. Students who are comfortable become confident, and confidence leads to taking risks. Learning new things always requires a big risk.

    Relationships do not happen overnight. They take time. Little moments can go a long way over the course of a year. Do not give up on them and just jump into the curriculum, all the lessons, assessments and the “learning”. Instead, focus on the relationship building each morning, each afternoon, and use each lesson as not only a learning experience but an opportunity to share time with your students. Get to know them. Get to know what makes them tick and what ticks them off. Get to know what their fears and dreams are. Get to know what they find funny and what upsets them. Understanding these things is like mixing and laying the concrete foundation for your building.

    By building relationship we can engage. By building relationship we can inspire. And by building relationship we can unleash.

    Next Part:

    The Foundation: Building Relationships