Effective Teaching: some contemporary mythologies

Davis, Andrew; Simon, Brian

doi:10.2304/forum.2001.43.1.10

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…If these 96 teachers tend to dress smartly, for example, then an argument could be advanced that dressing smartly can lead previously less successful teachers to improve. This is, of course, nonsense but it is a very popular kind of nonsense (Davis, 2001). The effective teachers were largely selected by asking other people who is 'effective', and so the ensuing description of the attributes that led to their identification is that of other people.…”

Section: Political Control and Relevancementioning

confidence: 99%

Political Control: A Way Forward for Educational Research?

Gorard

2002

British Journal of Educational Studies

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Educational research in the UK has for some time been criticised in terms of both its relevance and its quality. Indeed, these issues of relevance and quality have been presented by some critics as linked with each other. One way forward that has been suggested is greater political (and thereby user and practitioner) control of research and its funding. This would presumably ensure the immediate practical relevance of future work, encourage flexibility of approach, and remove some responsibility from the 'dead-hand' of academic departments of educational research. This paper considers some of the counter-arguments, and contrary evidence, to this approach. It presents examples of projects by teachers, a large-scale study of teacher effectiveness contracted to consultants by the DfEE (as it then was), and of political self-censorship by intellectual fields. On this basis the paper suggests that the link between quality and relevance in research has been exaggerated, and that increasing political control of academic research alone is unlikely to lead to a marked improvement in quality.

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Section: Political Control and Relevancementioning

confidence: 99%

Political Control: A Way Forward for Educational Research?

Gorard

2002

British Journal of Educational Studies

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“…I have argued this type of point for many years, e.g. in Davis, and Davis, . Others offer related arguments in different terms.…”

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confidence: 97%

A Monstrous Regimen of Synthetic Phonics: Fantasies of Research-Based Teaching ‘Methods’ Versus Real Teaching

Davis

2012

J. Philos. Educ.

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In England, Higher Education institutions, together with the schools whose staff they train, are being required to incorporate synthetic phonics as one of the key approaches to the teaching of reading. Yet even if synthetic phonics can be identified as one of the component 'skills' of reading, an assumption vigorously contested in this paper, it does not follow that it can or should be taught explicitly and independently of reading for meaning. Imposing such a 'method' is, at a deep level, incompatible with teachers acting as teachers and potentially constitutes a kind of abuse of early readers. Moreover, because of the conceptual difficulties confronting any attempt to specify synthetic phonics as an approach, there cannot exist, in principle, empirical research that actually supports its value. Current policy in England since the Rose Report, at least, assumes the opposite. All this cannot be dismissed as a little local difficulty for England concerning the teaching of reading English with all its spelling irregularities: there are broader implications for the relationship between research and teaching, together with continuing tendencies to impose 'teacher proof' approaches on schools and their staff in many countries. bs_bs_banner

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“…At least some of the current inspection criteria assume that we can know which methods`work' in terms of teaching and learning. Davis (2001) discusses the belief held by Reynolds and others in a`technology of effective teaching'. If the very existence of the latter is open to question, as that paper argues, then substantial elements of so-called expertise turn out to be baggage, and inspectors cannot possess authority of knowledge based on it.…”

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confidence: 99%

Accountability and School Inspection: In Defence of Audited Self‐Review

Davis

White

2001

Journal of Philosophy of Education

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Accountability involves not only schools answering to society, but parents and governments doing the same. In particular, governments should answer for the appropriateness of the educational aims they seek to promote. Making schools accountable to society through examination results is fundamentally flawed. Teachers must be able to account for how the specifics of their job relate to wider educational and social aims. The best approach to holding schools to account through external inspection is that of ‘audited self review’. The notion of an agency of inspectors who are ‘superior’ to those they inspect is fundamentally inappropriate.

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Effective Teaching: some contemporary mythologies

Cited by 7 publications

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Political Control: A Way Forward for Educational Research?

Political Control: A Way Forward for Educational Research?

A Monstrous Regimen of Synthetic Phonics: Fantasies of Research-Based Teaching ‘Methods’ Versus Real Teaching

Accountability and School Inspection: In Defence of Audited Self‐Review

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