Teacher Expectations: Impact on Student Academic Outcomes

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Teachers' expectations impact student achievement. Christine Rubie-Davies explores differences in expectations for Maori, Pacific Island, Asian, and New Zealand European students.

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Institution: University of Auckland

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Teachers’ expectations impact student achievement. Christine Rubie-Davies explores differences in expectations for Maori, Pacific Island, Asian, and New Zealand European students.

Image courtesy of interviewee. December 13, 2023

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This video video discusses the significant impact of teacher expectations on student learning and outcomes, highlighting how low and high expectations lead to different educational experiences. Students with high expectations receive challenging and stimulating learning opportunities, while those with low expectations are often subjected to repetitive and mundane tasks, resulting in divergent learning paths. This video video disparity is compounded by ability grouping practices, which often disproportionately place minority and low socioeconomic students in lower groups, even if their initial achievement levels are similar.

This video video emphasizes that teacher interactions vary based on their expectations, with higher expectation teachers providing more engagement and opportunities for critical thinking. Furthermore, students can discern these differences in treatment, which can lead to diminishing motivation and engagement over time, particularly for those placed in lower groups.

Empirical studies cited reveal that teachers often hold lower expectations for Māori students compared to others, such as Pacifica or Asian students, despite the lack of differences in initial achievement. This video video is often attributed to deficit theories and stereotypes about students from different backgrounds.

This video video outlines the characteristics of high expectation teachers, who foster supportive and positive classroom environments, set clear learning goals, and employ varied teaching methods that promote collaboration and self-regulation among students. These teachers also ensure that all students, regardless of their backgrounds, engage in high-level questioning and learning activities.

Ultimately, the text underscores the importance of training teachers to develop and maintain high expectations for all students, as such interventions have been shown to foster significant academic improvement. The author advocates for further research and equity-focused interventions in education to improve teacher practices and student outcomes.

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So when teachers have high expectations for some students

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and low expectations for other students,

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they treat them differently.

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So high expectation students often get really advanced,

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exciting, challenging kinds of opportunities to learn.

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Whereas children

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for whom teachers have low expectations often get very

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skill-based, mundane, boring, repetitive types of tasks.

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And over time, just

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because the two groups

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of students are getting different opportunities to learn,

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then they learn different things.

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This should not be surprising, but it seems that it is.

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And this is often compounded by the fact that,

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students in many, in many,

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countries are put into ability groups.

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Sometimes these are between classes,

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sometimes in Europe, even between schools,

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often in New Zealand, especially in primary schools, they're

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between, they're within classes.

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So students are grouped within classes.

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And again, this becomes an equity issue

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because consistently the research tells us that

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minority group students end up disproportionately

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in the lower groups even when achievement is the same

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between two lots of students.

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Um, and similar thing happens

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with students from low socioeconomic, environments.

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So if you get two students,

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one from a middle class environment

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and one from a lower class environment for whatever reason,

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a teacher has high expectations of the middle class student

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and low expectations

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for the student from a low socioeconomic area,

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then even though their achievement may be the same

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initially, over time there a gap will begin

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and will become exacerbated.

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So you end up with large gaps often between students

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who were originally the same.

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Um, another problem in terms of teacher expectations is

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that there's a lot of research as well that shows

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that teachers interact differently with students

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for whom they have high expectations than with those

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for whom they have low.

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So they'll often ask more questions of students

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for whom they have high expectations

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because they expect them to be able to an,

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to answer the question.

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Um, but over time, of course, what that means is

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that consistently high expectations,

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students are getting more opportunity to answer questions,

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but also to think at higher levels,

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particularly when the questions are,

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are more open than closed.

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And low ability students

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or low achieving students aren't getting those

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same opportunities.

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But in addition, there are lots of ways in which

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teachers interact differently

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and students notice those differences.

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So there's been research with students as long as young

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as first grade, and they can tell you in explicit detail

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how teachers treat high expectation students

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differently from lows.

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And again, over time,

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you can imagine if you arrive at school at five years of age

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as you do in New Zealand,

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and you are bouncing with enthusiasm, you want to go

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to school, you want to learn,

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and suddenly you find yourself in the bottom group.

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Unfortunately, these groups tend to be fixed.

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And so you're in the bottom group in year one,

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you're in the bottom group in year five,

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you're in the bottom group in year seven.

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And over time, it's not surprising

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that students lose motivation, engagement and self-belief.

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And these are often the students

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who end up dropping out of school.

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And they certainly are not necessarily students

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who had low ability

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or low achievement when they began school.

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So expectations overall matter a lot

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because they can have such large effects on student

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outcomes, not just academic,

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but also, psychosocial outcomes as well.

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Socioeconomic status is the one

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that has the most influence on expectations in terms

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of student characteristics.

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So student, teachers perceive that students

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who come from poor socioeconomic backgrounds don't have

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the resources at home.

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Um, teachers often have quite deficit views of

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what their families are like,

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what their home environment is like.

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Um, there are reports of teachers saying

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that students from lower class backgrounds,

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their parents have low aspirations for them.

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But actually, when you interview parents,

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they have very high expectations for their,

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for their children or high aspirations.

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So I think often the biases are driven by stereotypes.

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And similarly with, ethnic, different ethnic groups

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as well, the perceptions around

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ethnic minority groups are often similar to those around

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students who come from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds.

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At the beginning of an academic year,

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teachers completed their expectations

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for Maori Pacific Island, Asian

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and New Zealand European students,

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and they had to rate them from very much below average

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to very much above average in terms of

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where they thought they would be by the end of the year.

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And that was then compared to their achievement.

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And what I found was that expectations were lower

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for Maori than what they were for any other group.

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Interestingly, at the beginning of the year,

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Maori achievement was not any different from that of Asian

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and New Zealand European students.

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And another interesting finding at the beginning of

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that year was that Pacifica achievement was actually below

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that of Maori and was below that of Asian

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and New Zealand European.

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And yet teachers expectations

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for Pacifica students were quite high.

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Um, but at the beginning of the year, as I said,

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there wasn't a difference in achievement with New Zealand,

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European and Asian for Maori students.

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But by the end of the year, their achievement was lower than

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that for New Zealand of New Zealand, European and Asian.

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So the teachers had lower expectations

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and that gap exacerbated over the year.

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We did a similar study, to that one

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with secondary school students.

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'cause that initial one, they were primary age.

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So another study was secondary school students,

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and these were with maths teachers.

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And we got exactly the same results.

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So again, low expectations for Maori, lowest for Maori

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and lower than for Pacific.

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But again, Pacific, were

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performing at much lower levels than

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any of the other groups.

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So, you know, really interesting findings.

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And in the second study it, one, it was conducted by one

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of my master's students, she went back

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and actually talked to teachers about why they had lower

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expectations for Maori than for Pacifica students.

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Largely it was around deficit theorizing.

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So they had very negative views of Maori

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and of their families.

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Whereas there was a perception with Pacifica that a lot

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of them had come to New Zealand to get a better education

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for their, for their children and,

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and also that they were good churchgoing people.

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And so they were, much stricter on their children

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and they made sure that they completed homework and so on.

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Of course, I always think it's interesting when,

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teachers comment about students' homes

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because it's highly unlikely

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that they've actually ever visited the homes

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to know what's going on in Maori homes

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versus Pacifica homes.

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I identified what I called high

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and low expectation teachers.

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So this research had never been done before.

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So I was a teacher myself

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and I had taught a lot in low socioeconomic areas

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'cause I like teaching those kids.

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And one of the things that I consistently noticed was

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that in some classes,

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students made huge learning gains over a year,

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whereas in other classes, they just seemed

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to vegetate really, they didn't make much progress at all.

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So I was interested in

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what the differences were in those kinds of classes.

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But because that research hadn't never been done,

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I first had to be able to identify high

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and low expectation teachers.

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And I did that by identifying,

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teachers whose expectations were well

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above the students' achievement at the beginning

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of the year, versus teachers whose expectations for end

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of year achievement were well below.

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Um, and at the end of the year, we could then measure

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what the effect sizes were of,

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student achievement over the year.

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The learning growth that they made in classes

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of high expectation teachers,

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the effect size was 0.97.

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If you know John Hattie's work, he says anything

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above 0.4 is pretty, you know, is good.

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Point nine seven is higher than anything really

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that he's found at all.

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It's the equivalent

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of more than two years learning in one year.

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Whereas in low expectation teachers classes, the effect size

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of student progress was only 0.09.

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So they made almost no progress in a year.

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And I then interviewed the teachers

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and I also,

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the conducted classroom observations as well,

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and found of course very different environments

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because expectations in themselves aren't magical.

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It's obviously what teachers do in classrooms that has to do

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with their, that reflects their expectations.

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So for example, one of the things that

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really astounded me more than anything else was

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that there wasn't a single high expectation teacher

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who used within class ability groups in their teaching.

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And in New Zealand, this is an entrenched practice.

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It's something we are trying to get rid of at the moment,

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actually, but it's something that we've done forever.

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So for teachers not to do that is really kind of outside

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of what's expected and what normally happens.

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But none of them ability group, they used flexible groups,

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so they would bring different students out for different,

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just little workshops and things like that.

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But they also used lots of mixed ability groupings.

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And that meant that the students worked

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with a variety of the peers.

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So they had high level modeling as well.

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Um, and also over time they changed the group.

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So the students got used to working with all different

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ones of their peers.

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They were also given choices in their learning experiences.

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So often the learning experiences would be graded within

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them and the students,

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but the students could choose what level they wanted to do.

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It wasn't like, no, you're in the, in the bananas group,

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so you have to do these low level activities

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and you're in the astronauts, so you can do these ones.

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Although those activities existed like that,

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the students could often choose,

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but they also often did collaborative activities as well.

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Um, the teachers,

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high expectation teachers also formed very clear,

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clearly defined learning goals with their students,

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something that Lowe's didn't do at all.

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And so they tracked how students were progressing,

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very regularly

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and frequently gave students feedback on

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how they were going,

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and where to next, what they needed to do next.

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The students had quite a lot

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of responsibility for their learning.

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They learned to monitor their own

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learning in terms of goals.

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So even in one of the year two classes,

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they were easily able to tell the teacher

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that they were ready to go onto the next goal

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'cause they, they'd mastered whatever it was at the time.

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Um, they also had responsibility for their learning in terms

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of choosing the activities that they did

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unless they were collaborative.

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And even then often there was choice

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among the kinds of activities.

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Um, one of the things that I thought was quite interesting

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as well was that high expectation teachers

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asked high level questions of all students in the class,

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not just high achievers.

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And I kind of touched on this earlier,

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but it was more than that as well.

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So they asked high level questions,

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but then if the student couldn't answer the question,

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then they would tend to scaffold them to an answer

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by giving them clues or, and,

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and helping them basically to get to an answer.

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Whereas in low expectation teachers' classes, classes,

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they asked huge numbers of, closed low level kinds

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of questions that were mostly either right or wrong.

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And then if the student didn't know the answer,

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they either gave them the answer themselves

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or they'd go, no, you answer that question, Mary,

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or whoever, you know.

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So the actual feeling for a student was very different

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when you're supported

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to answer a question versus basically being dismissed.

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Um, another difference between these two types of teachers

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was that perhaps not surprisingly,

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high expectation teachers spent a lot

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of time actually teaching.

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So they gave extended explanations of new concepts,

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and then they asked lots of questions of students

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to check whether they actually understood the concepts

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before they went off to do any tasks that were related

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to the new learning.

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Whereas in low expectation teachers classes,

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there was actually not a lot of teaching going on.

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There were a lot of tasks.

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So the stu our teachers would hand out tasks,

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but they didn't very often explain carefully

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what the tasks were about why the students were completing

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the tasks, all of those kinds of background things that,

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high expectation teachers did cover.

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The students in high expectation teachers classes were very

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highly intrinsically motivated, very self-regulated as well,

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because they got used to, as I said,

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are monitoring their own goals.

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But because all the activities that the students were doing

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were exciting and challenging, they were enjoyable.

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And so the kids enjoyed being at school

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and were highly motivated.

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Um, and then another thing

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that was interesting in the these classes as well is

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that the teachers in high expectation classes

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had really positive, positive expectations,

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but also very positive supportive relationships

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with all their students.

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Not just the students who were the high achievers

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as, as often the case.

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So they went out of their way to form

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close supportive relationships with students, but also

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because they changed student groups often.

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And because they had them working in cooperative

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and collaborative groups quite often.

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Then students were also support,

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supposed to support each other.

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So they were actively encouraged to support each other.

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And it created a very warm positive class climate as well,

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where the students felt safe.

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They, they felt, supported. They enjoyed being there.

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And when students enjoy a learning environment,

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their learning increases.

16:43.425 --> 16:45.525
And I mean that, that, that kind

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of played out in those classes

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with high expectation teachers.

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The expectations were high for all students,

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but they were high relative to achievement.

16:56.485 --> 16:58.165
And I think that's the important part.

16:59.065 --> 17:02.605
So they, they have a belief

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that all students can make large learning gains,

17:06.625 --> 17:10.285
but they won't necessarily be the same for all students.

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When teachers have,

17:12.315 --> 17:14.845
when teachers are high expectation teachers as well,

17:15.555 --> 17:17.005
they're very confident,

17:17.195 --> 17:20.085
they have a very clear teaching philosophy.

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They understand how to help students learn and,

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and they achieve that with them.

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So their, their attitudes are very different

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to say a regular teacher saying, yes, I have

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to have high expectations.

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I need high expectations.

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But they're not really understanding what

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that means in terms of enhancing student learning.

17:45.965 --> 17:50.325
I did an experimental study a few years ago where

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I had identified three key principles that were different

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between high and low expectation teachers.

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And then we used those.

17:59.545 --> 18:02.325
We had a random sample of teachers

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who were in the experimental group

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and a random sample in the control group.

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And the idea was, can we actually train any teachers

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to implement the practices

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of high expectation teachers?

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And the answer was, yes.

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Ultimately, at the end of one year, students in classes of

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teachers in the experimental group outperform those

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in the control group by quite a significant margin.

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So I think that's an important study in that it does show

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that we can intervene in teachers and expectations,

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and they need to obviously be accompanied with

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this is what high expectations look like in practice.

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So I'm not saying

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that my intervention is the be all and end all.

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I would like to see more equity focused kinds

18:59.025 --> 19:02.705
of interventions in the field, other, other interventions

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where teachers are trained to have high expectations,

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but also using practices that are going

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to help students succeed as well.

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So I see that as an important future area for research.

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