Evidence-based teaching: Ideas to apply in the classroom

What is evidence-based teaching?

Evidence-based teaching refers to teaching strategies that are derived from or informed by objective evidence such as educational research and performance metrics.

Adopting evidence-based teaching strategies has shown noticeable ‘effect size’ improvements in students’ performance. The bigger the effect size the greater the improvements in performance.

This article offers ideas for evidence-based teaching activities that create the highest effect size. For more information about this useful area, read research by John Hattie and other evidence-based teaching practitioners.

Graphical Representations

Graphical representations are a very effective way of improving teaching and learning. Research shows that using graphical representations can improve the rate of learning by over 50%, which can equate to more than a two-grade improvement in performance.

The key to getting the most out of graphical representations is to not just give students a graphical representation they can refer to, but to get them to produce their own. The act of making a graphical representation helps students process information in different ways, making learning ‘deeper’

Try it

Before a writing task, let students know their work will be read by a peer. After they have completed the task, give out little pink and yellow pieces of paper (or other colours). On the pink paper they should write points they
like about the student’s writing. On the yellow paper they should write an area the student could improve on. There should only be one point on each piece of paper.

You can structure the amount of feedback and make it more positive by giving more pink than yellow pieces of paper. Seeing more positive comments than areas for improvement should help inspire confidence.