A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Designing Effective Development: Lessons from the Eisenhower Program - December 1999

Chapter 2

Pedagogy and High Standards

Section Findings

• Science teachers, elementary school teachers, and teachers in low-poverty schools report using more nontraditional pedagogy compared to mathematics teachers, middle and high school teachers, and teachers in high-poverty schools.

• Teachers who emphasize concrete performance goals for their students, such as memorizing, tend to report using traditional, teacher-centered pedagogy. Teachers who give more emphasis to abstract performance goals for their students, such as understanding concepts, tend to report using active, project-centered pedagogy.

To this point, we have focused on the content of instruction: the topics and performance goals that teachers emphasize, and how they compare to high standards for content. However, the delivery of instruction?the pedagogy?also is important to effective teaching. Students learn best when they are actively involved in learning, when assessment tools are used to tailor the lesson to the students? individual needs, and when students have access to a variety of tools and modes for learning. However, according to the literature, traditional instruction tends to be led by the teacher and de-emphasizes student-initiated activities other than highly structured individual seatwork (for example, completing exercises in a text or on worksheets) (Gamoran, Secada, & Marrett, 1998). Traditional instruction entails at least two dimensions: an emphasis on teacher presentation and highly structured lessons using traditional materials (e.g., texts). Conversely, nontraditional instruction revolves around student-initiated activities, including projects and discussion, and the use of innovative materials (e.g., manipulatives). Research suggests that teachers are beginning to explore nontraditional pedagogy, and to use a mix of traditional and nontraditional pedagogy in their instructional practice (Spillane & Zeuli, 1999).

In this section of the chapter, we describe and analyze the pedagogical approaches of teachers in our sample. We conducted analyses on a series of six questions in the Longitudinal Survey about teachers' pedagogical strategies. Based on these analyses, we first describe these teachers' classes: the average percent of time teachers and students spend in various types of activities, the average relative emphasis on different types of tasks and grouping of students. Next, we identify pedagogical patterns in the class activities, such as didactic instruction or active, project-centered instruction. We look at patterns within our sample, for example identifying where elementary, middle, and high school teachers differ in their pedagogical approaches. (See Appendix D for details on analysis methods.) Finally, we look at the relationship between pedagogy and content, in order to establish empirically whether certain pedagogical approaches are more consistent with high standards for content than others.

Class Activities

Class activities provide a picture of students' learning experiences. To some degree, the emphasis on some types of activities can show how consistently teachers are using the types of activities advocated by the research.

The teachers in this study spent one-third of their instructional time on teacher-led activities such as lecturing or providing demonstrations, and two-thirds of their instructional time on activities that could actively involve students, such as whole class discussions, small group and individual work, and hands-on experiences. Exhibit 2.11a shows that a high percentage of teachers (23 to 60 percent) have students do traditional activities, such as working on homework, pencil-and-paper exercises, and taking quizzes, in most or all lessons. Exhibit 2.11b shows that a lower percentage of teachers (12 to 31 percent) have students work on nontraditional activities, such as independent long-term projects or problems for which there is not an immediate solution, for most or all lessons.

EXHIBIT 2.11a
Percent of Teachers Using Traditional Activities in Most or All Lessons (n=355)

EXHIBIT 2.11b
Percent of Teachers Using Nontraditional Activities in Most or All Lessons (n=355)

Pedagogical Patterns

Research suggests that teachers tend to favor particular approaches to pedagogy, with certain types of class activities occurring together (Peterson, Fennema, Carpenter, & Loef, 1989; Stein, Baxter, & Leinhardt, 1990). While professional development can focus on changing individual classroom activities, such as seatwork, professional development is more likely to have a lasting impact if it targets the teacher's broader pedagogical approach (Hyde, Ormiston, & Hyde, 1994). Therefore, in this section, we identify general pedagogical approaches that represent the ways teachers organize classroom practices.

We conducted a factor analysis on the survey questions noted above to identify pedagogical patterns in instructional activities. Consistent with the research on pedagogy, we found four distinct patterns of activities.

We developed a set of four scales to measure the extent to which teachers rely on these four pedagogical strategies. Each scale is scored to have a mean of 50 for the teachers in our sample. Two measures capture traditional strategies: ¹⁶

1. Didactic instruction: Didactic, or teacher-led, instruction includes the following activities: lecturing and having students take a passive role; de-emphasizing group work, reading, writing, and student presentations; and not using concrete models or interdisciplinary lessons.

2. Individual seatwork: Individual seatwork includes the following activities: working on homework in class, working on pencil/paper exercises, reciting or drilling orally, taking quizzes, and having students work individually, or in pairs.

Two measures capture nontraditional strategies:

1. Active, project-centered instruction: This factor includes the following activities: students working on independent, long-term projects, problems with no immediate solution, and technical writing skills; using hands-on activities; de-emphasizing paperwork and individual work.

2. Discussion-oriented instruction: This measure focuses on discussion only.

The pedagogical approaches we identified here are consistent with the research on pedagogy, giving us confidence that the pedagogy of the teachers in this sample is fairly representative. The national standards, as well as research on pedagogy, indicate that effective instruction calls for an increased emphasis on nontraditional pedagogical approaches, without fully abandoning traditional approaches. The degree to which individual teachers emphasize those pedagogical approaches is one indicator of their consistency with national standards.

Pedagogical Patterns within the Sample

According to the research, pedagogy differs substantially by type of school and subject. For example, high schools tend to have more highly structured lessons, with greater emphasis on individual work, compared to elementary schools. However, national mathematics and science standards consistently emphasize active instruction for all students, regardless of school level, school poverty, or subject. Therefore, it is useful to understand how subgroups of schools and students differ in their use of effective pedagogy. To examine these questions, mean scores were computed on the four pedagogy scales by school level (elementary, middle, and high school), subject (mathematics and science), and poverty level (high and low).

We found some differences among types of teachers and types of schools in the pedagogy favored, as shown in Exhibit 2.12. Mathematics teachers are significantly more likely to use seatwork (traditional) and science teachers are significantly more likely to use active instruction (non-traditional); this is consistent with findings from the observed sites, where mathematics lessons sometimes revolved around textbook work and science lessons often involved labs. Compared to elementary school teachers, high school teachers use more didactic instruction and individual seatwork (traditional), and less discussion-oriented instruction (nontraditional). Low-poverty schools are significantly more likely to use didactic instruction (traditional) than high-poverty schools; otherwise, there is no significant difference between high- and low-poverty schools in types of pedagogy used.

EXHIBIT 2.12
Mean Teacher Use of Four Pedagogical Approaches (Standard Deviation),
by School Level, Subject, and Poverty Level (n=355)

+ n=342

Source: Longitudinal Teacher Survey, Spring 1998. How to read this exhibit: The group of three cells at the upper left of the table (scale score means for teacher-centered instruction by school level) shows that high school teachers use significantly more teacher-centered instruction than middle school teachers and elementary school teachers, and middle school teachers use significantly more teacher-centered instruction than elementary school teachers. The table should be read by columns, focusing on each pedagogical strategy separately. Note: Results in table are scale scores, with a mean of 50 for the teachers in the sample. The arrows indicate significant differences between groups (p<.05), with the head of the arrow showing the direction of the difference.

The Relationship between Pedagogy and Content

Both pedagogy and content are critical for successful instruction, and teachers who tend to have high standards for one also have high standards for the other. In this section, we examine the relationship between teachers' pedagogical approaches and the content of their instruction to determine empirically whether certain pedagogical approaches are consistent with high standards for content. We explore this premise by correlating teachers' pedagogical approaches with the content of their instruction. Teachers whose instruction is well-aligned with NAEP tend to emphasize seatwork and discussion, and de-emphasize active, project-centered instruction (see Exhibit 2.12).

We also focused on one of the two components of content: teachers' performance goals for students (see Exhibit 2.13). It may be that teachers expect a certain level of performance from their students, emphasizing more concrete or more abstract performance goals, and that they choose pedagogical approaches to help their students reach those types of performance goals. We examined the relationship between teachers' performance goals for students and the pedagogical approaches they favor. We found that traditional, didactic instruction emphasizes the more concrete performance goals, such as memorizing and performing procedures, and de-emphasizes performance goals that involve abstract thinking, such as generating hypotheses, collecting/analyzing/interpreting data, and making connections.¹⁷

EXHIBIT 2.13
Correlation's between Pedagogical Approaches and Elements of Content (n=355)

+ * ** *** ns

n=342 statistically significant at p<.05 statistically significant at p<.01 statistically significant at p<.001 not statistically significant

Source: Longitudinal Teacher Survey, Spring 1998. How to read this exhibit: The first cell shows that didactic pedagogy is significantly correlated with the performance goal of memorizing; in other words, the more that teachers emphasize memorizing, the more that they present or lecture. The table should be read by columns, focusing on each pedagogical strategy separately.

Nontraditional, active instruction, on the other hand, emphasizes complex performance goals including generating hypotheses, collecting/analyzing/interpreting data, and making connections, and de-emphasizes more concrete performance goals, including memorizing and performing procedures. In other words, teachers who would like their students to develop more concrete performance goals, such as memorizing, tend to use traditional, didactic pedagogy and teachers who would like their students to develop abstract performance goals, such as making connections, tend to use active, project-centered pedagogy. This finding is consistent with the literature on pedagogy, as well as national pedagogical standards for mathematics and science, which advocate using active instruction to help students develop complex thinking skills.

Summary: Pedagogy and High Standards

Traditional and nontraditional teaching strategies can be, and are, part of instruction that meets high standards. Some teachers incorporate seatwork with discussion, and the results indicate that both seatwork and discussion are related to high content standards. Some, but not all, teachers incorporate nontraditional pedagogy that actively involves students into their teaching. Professional development can play a key role in helping teachers learn to integrate traditional and nontraditional teaching strategies, and help them improve the quality of student-centered instruction. For example, in-class observations and feedback, following professional development experiences, can help teachers understand whether they are using the tools of active instruction on a superficial level (e.g., discussions that are geared to identifying the "correct" answer) or pushing students toward more complex understanding (e.g., discussions that encourage students to surface underlying concepts). Later chapters in this report will examine the extent to which Eisenhower-assisted activities offer active learning opportunities, as well as other characteristics of high-quality professional development. We also will examine how the design and characteristics of Eisenhower-assisted activities are related to teacher outcomes.

¹⁷ Contrary to expectations, the performance goal of students' understanding concepts is related to traditional instruction. It may be that teachers see this performance goal as concrete (e.g., students can recite a research theory) rather than abstract (e.g., students can explain a research theory).

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[Content Coverage and High Standards]

[Summary and Conclusions]