John Hattie entered education after realizing he lacked skills in his initial apprenticeship as a painter and paperhacker. He chose teaching because it offered paid training, allowing him to escape a small rural town and pursue a career he enjoyed.
'Visible Learning' focuses on meta-analysis in education, examining the magnitude of effects and moderators of various teaching strategies. It highlights that 95% of interventions enhance student achievement, with a focus on scaling up teaching expertise.
Hattie emphasizes studying excellence because educators often focus on fixing problems rather than scaling up successful practices. He believes there is abundant expertise in teaching that should be studied and replicated to improve educational outcomes.
Meta-analysis allows educators to aggregate data from multiple studies to determine the magnitude of effects and identify moderators. It provides a high-level view of what works in education, helping to prioritize high-impact strategies.
Teacher expectations significantly impact student achievement. Teachers with high expectations for all students achieve an effect size of 0.96, while those with low expectations have an effect size of 0.06. High expectations lead to better outcomes by fostering a growth mindset.
Hattie sees AI as a transformative tool in education, particularly for creating lesson plans and coding classroom observations. However, he emphasizes the need to teach students skills like evaluative thinking, probative questioning, and making wise choices to navigate AI effectively.
The sequel shifts focus from presenting data to telling a story about effective teaching practices. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the 'why' behind educational strategies and includes insights from implementing visible learning in schools worldwide.
On this wide ranging episode, Susan finally gets the chance to speak with famed education thinker and author John Hattie, Ph.D. Hattie has authored dozens and dozens of books. He’s best known for his book, Visible Learning, which now has a sequel. In this episode, he discusses his career and shares with Susan some of the biggest takeaways from his work. He also explains what meta-analysis is and discusses some of the biggest takeaways from meta-analysis in the education field. They both also delve into the importance of successful implementation. And, finally, Hattie shares his thoughts on AI and the future of education. This episode offers many practical tips for educators to realign with their mission and dig into why they do what they do and how to best make an impact.**Show notes: **
Quotes:“Your job is not to get through the curriculum, your job is not to get kids engaged in authentic, real-world, exciting tasks. Your job is to have an impact across those many notions.” —John Hattie, Ph.D.
“We're very good at finding problems and fixing them but we're not as good—we're not having the courage—to study expertise and scale it up. And that's my mission. Scale up the expertise we have.” —John Hattie, Ph.D.
“I'm an evidence-based person. Sometimes I don't like the results, but that doesn't mean you get to deny it. Some people want to deny it. Some people want to get angry with it. And sometimes evidence does get in the way of a good opinion.” —John Hattie, Ph.D.