Research School Network: The tensions of CPD Part 1: Generic vs Subject Specific Considering whether we should focus on general pedagogy or subject development

If you have ever led on professional development in a school, you will be no stranger to some of the tensions that exist. With so many things that you could do, it is hard to balance all priorities. In this post, we explore whether we should spend time on generic pedagogy or take a subject specific approach.

Undoubtedly, there are some generic teacher behaviours and skills that can be worked on collectively in teacher CPD. There are a number if ways that you might decide what is worth focusing on. You may have identified whole school priorities through your own understanding of your context or you may look for sources of information recommending effective approaches.

One source of effective approaches is Barack Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction. This is an evidence-informed set of recommendations on what makes effective instruction, and is a good place to focus when looking to improve teaching. In a list of 17 principles emerging from the research, here are a handful:

• Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning
  
• Provide a high level of active practice for all students
• Think aloud and model steps
• Reteach material when necessary
• Limit the amount of material students receive at one time

Effective generic CPD might focus on one or several of these areas of instruction. You might spend a series of sessions looking at effective modelling, perhaps exploring recommendations from the EEF’s Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning guidance report. There are certainly areas like this where a broad overview might be helpful or necessary, before teachers then apply to their own contexts. You might look at the principles of long-term memory and some of the ways findings from cognitive science could apply more generally before looking at their application in Maths or P.E.

There are many areas where this ​‘funnel’ approach can work. A whole school focus on vocabulary could look at general strategies for vocabulary development before looking at the vocabulary in specific subjects. (For a good summary of strategies read this blog from Daniel Wright, Coordinator of Research and Development at Horton Park Primary School). 

However, there are also considerations that mean a ​‘one size fits all’ approach to literacy might not be optimal. Recommendation 1 of the EEF’s ImprovingLiteracy in Secondary Schools guidance report – Prioritise ​‘disciplinary literacy’ across the curriculum – offers some clear examples of what this looks like, and suggests some questions for subject teams to consider:

• What is unique about your subject discipline in terms of reading, writing, speaking and listening?
• What is common with other subject disciplines?
• How do members of this subject discipline use language on a daily basis?
• Are there any typical literacy misconceptions held by students, for example, how to write an effective science report?
• Are there words and phrases used typically, or uniquely, in the subject discipline?

The uniqueness of each subject is a crucial element when deciding which CPD to focus on. The Sutton Trust, in their What Makes Great Teaching report, say the following about Pedagogical Content Knowledge:

If you take that idea of misconceptions, the whole school model of CPD would not be particularly useful. Knowing that pupils have misconceptions in all subjects is something that should be discussed, but it is only at the subject level that the specifics can be identified and addressed. A great example of a resource for this is The American Association for the Advancement of Science. It has a comprehensive list of scientific concepts and possible misconceptions that accompany them.

Effective teaching is grounded in the subject, and excellent CPD will allow teachers time to focus on this. An excellent blog comes from our colleagues at Durrington High School, home of Durrington Research School. They have a brilliant set of questions that can be used to develop effective CPD in subject teams, and their departments meet fortnightly to ask such question as as: 

• What are the key topics/​concepts/​ideas that we are teaching over the next fortnight?
• How do we teach these concepts/​ideas well?
• What are the really hard bits of this topic? How can we explain these well – particularly to students with a low starting point?

Next: The School vs the Individual