Geoff Petty. That's the name.
You can never single out his contributions in the education world and you will easily find his name attached to the following keywords:
Evidence-Based Teaching
Active Learning
Improving Teaching
Feedback & Formative Assessments
Professor John Hattie's Effect Sizes - He put it into layman's terms and offered practical details over which teaching methods work best and how to execute them.
When I first dabbled on my CICTL (Cambridge International Certificate in Teaching & Learning) back in 2011, one of his publications that I have studied was Evidence-Based Teaching: A Practical Approach. One of the most memorable sections that I still keep close to my heart and mind is Teaching Intelligence. I had a revelation through my reading at that time because, throughout my whole life, I always have this firm belief that in order for someone to be good at something, they must be a born genius or inherently talented. Imagine the lost opportunities flashed before my eyes when I started looking back at how I evaluated my own potentials and values since I was in secondary school.
One absolute truth that I embraced in life is the only constant thing in life is change. I feel reassured by what I read from his book and I never looked back ever since. After the completion of my CICTL, I then moved on to working on my CIDTL (Cambridge International Diploma in Teaching & Learning) and I aced a distinction for my overall grade. I always had to stop and second guess myself in everything I do and for most of the time, it restricted me from seeking the answers and clarity that I am yearning to have when it comes to justifying my set of beliefs as an educator and a practitioner of teaching and learning.
The more I learn, the more I acknowledge how little I know. I then moved on and studied for my Master's Degree in Teaching & Learning because I realised that the more I uncover the knowledge, the closer I get to unveil my true self as an individual as well as an educator. The most valuable discovery I had come to uncover when I was studying at that time was I am a humanist. Finally, I am able to put a word to what I am advocating in the classroom parallel to who I am as a person. I have never felt closer to my mental freedom as I did at that time but the reality of working on my Master's Degree as a part-time student mirrored the exact opposite. I came back at night past 11.00 pm and I need to work the next day, caregiving both of my lovely parents and keeping my sanity intact was indeed arduous tasks for me to deal with at that time.
Is it worth it?
Yes.
Why?
Because intelligence is a range of skills that can be taught. I am not dumb (this is what I keep telling myself more and more now). I just didn't have it in me to trust myself enough to actually go after what I wanted. If only I could turn back time and tell the 13-year-old me this powerful statement...
Thank you to #BrightonBangkok for organising this year's #FOBISIA's Teaching Community eConference: FOBISIA's #LoveOfLearning via #WHOVA.
Geoff Petty led a workshop titled:
An Invitation to Join a Revolution in Teaching Methodology
I am super hooked by the workshop description when it stated that any teacher can become an outstanding teacher, they just need to learn how to use outstanding teaching methods well. Teaching is about to embark on a revolution, and like medicine, abandon both custom and practice and fashions and fads, to become evidence-based.
When I stop and think about this, more often than not, I got swayed very easily into trying out the new apps or games for learning out there since it is flashy and gives real-time interaction and results and all but fundamentally, teaching is all about how deeply rooted I am into practicing pedagogical practices that will offer my students a challenge that they need cognitively while establishing a good classroom relationship and earning their trust in me as their teacher (hint, hint I care more about relationships and inclusion as I am indeed a humanist). Fads and fashions aside, hardcore evidence-based practice must come first.
One question he asked the participants during his session was:
How does your teaching skill improve in your career?
The first thing I have in mind at that time was, what do I justify my answers with? How truthful I will be and how do I ensure that I am assessing my own teaching skills without any biasness or self-preservation? I know the answer is to compare what I have practiced in class with the Average Effect Sizes from Professor John Hattie's publication about Visible Learning. That much is true. But the biggest challenge I have seen here is how to approach it objectively as I am confronting myself without having to hurt my feelings and motivation simultaneously. Well, this is my homework for next week ;)
Average Effect Sizes Examples:
(From an update of Visible Learning by Professor John Hattie - 0.6 is high)
Medal & Mission Feedback (0.66)
Master Learning (0.61)
Graphic Organisers (0.64)
Note Taking - Making Notes (0.51)
Challenging Goals (0.59)
Rehearsal & Memorisation (0.73)
Speed Practice - versus Masses Practice (0.65)
The same methods will create the same outcomes. Your skill will plateau unless you try something new. The key here is deliberate practice. I have come to understand that it is a red flag when I feel settled and reusing the same planning and materials I have for the upcoming academic year without making some fine tuning to it and inject one small, yet new strategy when teaching it again. The key here, according to him is to deliberately try a new approach and strategy and when trialling, allocate a short time slot for it and practice it again and again.
Geoff Petty also outlined a list of step-by-step guide when practicing teaching methods that are new to you:
Try the method 5 times to decide whether it will work for you
Reflect and improve after each trial
Try it 25 times to use it really effectively
TALK with others about your experiments with the method. This is vital.
Keep trialling the method until it works, or doesn't.
Then try another method
One teaching method that I am keen to trial is Advance Organiser. Today I learned that Graphic Organisers have a very high effect-size as a student activity. Graphic organisers are powerful because only vital content is shown, the relationship between pieces of contents is made clear and the structure of the information is clear. There are 3 different functions of graphic organisers:
To Describe (Atomistic Mindmap & Venn Diagram)
To Compare (Venn Diagram & Comparison Table)
To Sequence (Flow Diagram & Storyboard)
The evidence-based teaching revolution that I experienced today suggests that in order for me to improve my teaching skill, I must use teaching methods that have a high effect-size that are recommended by cognitive science and are used by the very best teachers :)
Some general cognitive science findings are:
We learn and remember what we have thought hard about
We understand new things by connecting new learning to old learning
Students create their own meanings, they don't just remember yours
Students' meanings need to be checked and corrected
Learning needs to be reused about 6 times to be remembered well
Teachers need to look for any errors and omissions in student learning, and correct these
There are many things yet to be explored on his website too: https://geoffpetty.com/
Despite the riots that my body is experiencing today in terms of chills and fever (courtesy of the Pfizer Booster shot I had yesterday), I feel super duper happy and accomplished :)
He may not know me at all. But his work, his words have transformed my life greatly.
Ah, I can finally sleep well tonight now that I have uploaded this post (hehehe).
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