ERRR #023. Dylan Wiliam on Leadership for Teacher Learning

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In today’s episode we’re speaking to Dylan Wiliam. Dylan is an absolute legend in the world of education and has always had an acute focus on teacher professional development and especially formative assessment. He consults with governments and school systems around the world in order to improve learning outcomes for students. Documentaries have been made that highlight his work with schools and he has authored a whole host of excellent books. His book Embedded formative Assessment is a fantastic resource for teachers, Embedding formative assessment is a wonderful book for department heads, Leadership for Teacher Learning, the book we discuss in this interview, is wonderful reading for any school leader, and ‘Creating the schools our children need is necessary reading for anyone looking at educational change at a systems level.

For a long time I have cited Daniel Willingham’s book ‘Why don’t students like school’ as my favourite education book, and the book that had the biggest impact on me as an educator, but after reading ‘Leadership for Teacher Learning’ I’d have to say I now have two favourite books! I can’t emphasise strongly enough the wisdom contained in Dylan’s writing and I’m extraordinarily excited that you’re about to hear much of this wisdom shared, in this podcast episode.

In this interview we discuss why Dylan felt that LfTL was a necessary book to write. We get Dylan’s take on the current state of education research with a particular focus upon the process of meta-analysis and meta-meta analysis. We then move onto an exploration of what makes a good teacher, and why it’s so difficult to identify one. And then we move into a deep discussion of formative assessment and, more specifically, how a school can embed formative assessment into their classroom culture to the end of improving student learning.

Links mentioned in the show

• Adrian Simpson discusses measurement design in our ERRR podcast discussion. 
• People to follow on Twitter: Dan Willingham, Paul Kirschner, John Sweller, Robert and Elizabeth Bjork.
• Economists of education: Erick Hanushek, check out his work on edu quality in particular; Matthew Kraft; Susanna Loeb (stanford); Rebecca Allen.
• Paper mentioned: Estimating teacher effectiveness from two-year changes in students’
  test scores by Andrew Leigh.

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