Reflective Practice and

Research: the Fair Go

research program

MTeach (WSU): Researching Teaching

and Learning 1 2020

Wayne Sawyer
Origins of program
Key theoretical concept: MeE framework
Motivation self-efficacy, mastery Work with individual
orientation, valuing of students
school, persistence,
planning, and task
management.

‘e’ngagement classroom experiences high cognitive

high affective
high operative

‘insider classroom’ conversations, feedback,

processes self-assessment,
reflection

message systems knowledge, ability,

control, place, voice
‘E’ngagement larger commitment to classroom
education as a project
that has value for them whole-school programs
now and in the future
Two slides for later perusal:
• ‘eE’
• Message systems
Classroom experiences
high cognitive
high affective
high operative

‘Insider classroom’
processes – helping
students see
themselves as an
important part of a
reflective learning
community
Lingard & Renshaw: ‘Researchly’ disposition

Research-based Research-informed
profession profession Considers teacher
Evidence-based Evidence-informed professional
profession discretion
profession

Translators or
interpreters of Researchly disposition Pedagogical
research done among teachers disposition among
elsewhere researchers
Teachers and academics as ‘co-researchers’

Objects of research
 Key points
• 2000-2004: School is for Me
• 2008-2010: Teachers for a Fair Go
• 2012-2014: Schooling for a Fair Go
 School is for me
• Action research project
• Teachers in 10 PSP schools in SWS
• UWS researchers
• Teachers implementing and
evaluating changes to their classrooms
through a focus on student
engagement
• Developed MeE Framework
• Principle of teachers as researchers
Teachers for a Fair
Go
• 28 teachers across
NSW
• PSP schools
• K-12
• 10 rural/ 18
metropolitan
• Teachers-as-
researchers
‘…identify those practices used by
teachers who are successful in
engaging those students who live in
poverty with their education’
Teachers researching in TFG
 Co-authoring case studies
• Teachers were asked to meet with us at the end of every day of the case
study week.
• We presented them with what we thought we had observed, talked this
through and made any adjustments following discussion and explanation.
• At the last meeting of the week, we discussed and agreed on the ‘big
themes’ of the case study.
• The research assistants then had a week to write up the case study –
which was done to a common pro-forma across all of the cases.
• This report was then negotiated with the teacher.
• Co-authored case study reports were placed on the research project
intranet for other teachers to read.
 Cross-case analysis
Day 1
• Review their contextual factors
• Challenges
• How challenges being met / creating
success
• What is challenge?

All in the context of the data before them

 Cross-case analysis
Day 2
• Having the kids buy into high expectations (going beyond
the mantras, eg‘high expectations’, ‘explicit teaching’,
learning trumps behaviour)
• Cognitive /affective/ operative within the stages
(Early/Middle/Later)
• Insider classroom: student community of
reflection/teacher inclusive conversations/teacher
feedback/student self-assessment
All in the context of the data before them
 Cross-case analysis
Day 3
• Individual support strategies within the
stages
• Leadership : led by selected teachers
• Metaphors/sayings/stories

All in the context of the data before them

 Cross-case analysis
Day 4
• Indigenous groups: urban/rural;
majority/minority
• Non-Indigenous: culture/community
• Haberman: mapping against Haberman’s
‘good teaching is…’

All in the context of the data before them

 Cross-case analysis Day 5
• Divided groups:
Literacy/technology
Creativity
• Individually mapping professional journeys (pre-
determined):
family and friends/ societal and work experiences/
primary school/secondary school/Uni-teacher ed/first
year teaching/third year teaching/years 5-10 of teaching
10+ years of teaching
• Writing an anecdote about an incident around
engaging messages - becomes data in itself
Most in the context of the data before them
 Cross-case analysis Day 6

• How can pedagogy be exclusively

authentic, esp with 100+ kids

• Terminology, eg routine/structure/
explicitness/ education

All in the context of the data before them

So…what were we doing as co-researchers in cross-case work?
1) Reviewing data eg the contexts, professional journeys

2) Defining key issues eg challenge

3) Defining key terms eg routine, structure

4) Interrogating the taken-for-granted, eg high expectations

5) Code and categorise and re-consider previous categorising eg

cognitive/affective/operative, insider classroom

6) Interrogating the model’s explanatory force, eg

cognitive/affective/operative, insider classroom

7) Take different ‘cuts’ through the data: eg leadership, creativity, literacy and
technology, Indigenous (rural/urban)

8) Re-conceptualise the data, eg metaphors, sayings, narratives

9) Map findings against literature, eg Haberman

Three slides for later perusal:

Findings from Teachers for a Fair Go

Cognitive Affective Operative
High Cognitive
• Classroom experiences are intellectually challenging
• Teaching and learning are the focus of sustained and ongoing
classroom conversations
High Affective
• Classroom practices build a community
• Classroom environments are such that students feel able to take
risks
High Operative
• Learning is prioritised, which in turn targets and minimises
student resistance
• There exists a thoughtful repertoire of practices (scaffolding.
group collaboration, discussion, role-play, thoughtful use of ICTs)
 Insider classroom
Student community of reflection
• Learning as shared responsibility
• Support and time for reflection about learning
• Whole class responsibility for self-regulation of behaviour

Teacher inclusive conversations

• Conversational tenor - balances foregrounding (clarity) and backgrounding (support)
• Task design invites conversations across the learning community
• Focus on learning over behaviour is supported by task design

Student self-assessment
• Whole class focus on reflection through an environment of questioning
• Conscious building of cooperative learning processes involving peer support for each other’s work
• Encouragement of, and support for, personal task assessment processes

Teacher feedback
• Positive focus on learning with high expectations
• Learning focused, refocused and extended
• Emphasis on reflection and self-regulation.
 Engaging messages
Sharing the experience (knowledge)
• Use of scaffolds
• Use of guiding questions
• Endorsement of, and drawing upon, students’ knowledge
• Use of technology for learning and to present new knowledge
You are capable (ability)
• High expectations for all students
• Provision of reinforcement for individual students about their ability
• Praise frequently heard.

Focus on learning not compliance (control)

• Explicitness about tasks so students knew what and how to achieve success.
• Provision of clarification of tasks when required
• Expectations that students would behave

A sense of belonging (place)

• Respect of students and their community,
• Encouragement of links to the wider community beyond the school.
• Classrooms as places for learning: students had the capacity to learn through authentic tasks
• Students feel valued, relaxed, and productive

We have a say (voice)

• Use of collaboration
• Sharing of information, time, attention and space.
• Reflections, discussions, and sharing of responses to learning.

 
 Schooling for a
Fair Go
• 24 teachers/ schools
across Met South-West
• PSP schools
• K-12
• Teachers-as-researchers
• Mentoring (1-to-1)
• Instructional coaching
(whole school)
 TFG/SFG
• TFG set out to investigate the practices of
teachers in low SES contexts who were
regarded by their peers as highly effective in
engaging their students. The most fundamental
research question was that of the academic
research team.
• In SFG teachers in low SES contexts were
actively seeking out answers to a research
question of their own in terms of their classroom
practice. This was action research on their own
teaching, partnered by UWS team.
 SFG structure

• 24 schools in SWS
• Mentor/mentee rollout model between
schools
• MeE Framework
• Teachers as researchers
One set of Phase 1 questions:
Secondary (Alice as mentee)
Students, though largely compliant, not fully engaged :
some capable, but silent.

Her beginning focus question was:

•What can I do to improve the learning outcomes of students
using the MeE Framework? In particular, how can feedback be
used effectively?
Her contributing questions were:
•How can feedback influence students’ attitudes to learning?
•How can I develop good teaching practices about the use of
feedback through collaboration and mentoring?
•How can I give critical feedback without damaging esteem?
•How can teacher feedback enable more student ‘voice’?
 (Mentor) Alice on Ellen’s classroom (1)
• I was thrilled to be in the position of mentor this
time around, with a passion for the real differences
the MeE framework was making in South Western
Sydney schools, a framework that greatly
informed my teaching methods.
• Ellen was coming up against several “road
blocks” to achievement and learning in this
classroom: not being formally trained in
Geography, the school’s timetable which meant
only seeing them a couple of times a fortnight,
high absence rates in the class and a lack of value
placed on learning in previous years meant that
most students were disengaged and trying to
survive lesson by lesson.
(Mentor) Alice on Ellen’s classroom (2)
 REFERENCES
Fair Go Project Team (2006) School is For Me: Pathways to Student
Engagement, Sydney: Priority Schools Programs, NSW
Department of Education and Training.
Haberman, M. (1995) Star Teachers of Children in Poverty,
Indianapolis: Kappa Delta Pi.
Lingard, B. & Renshaw, P. (2010) ‘Teaching as a research-informed and
research-informing profession’, in A. Campbell &
S. Groundwater-Smith (eds) Connecting Inquiry and Professional
Learning in Education, London & New York: Routledge.
Munns, G., Sawyer, W., Cole, B. and the Fair Go Team (2013)
Exemplary Teachers of Students in Poverty London & New York:
Routledge.
Sawyer, W., Munns, G., Zammit, K., Attard, C., Vass, E. and
Hatton, C. (2018)Engaging Schooling : Developing Exemplary
Education for Students in Poverty. London & New York: Routledge