Gordon Stobart – författare

Teachers Matter offers the most definitive portrait of teachers’ lives and work to date. At a time when teaching standards are high on the political and social agenda, the quality and commitment of teaching staff is seen as paramount and they are viewed as pivotal to the economic and social well being of society. But:What are the influences that help or hinder teachers’ commitment?Is there an association between commitment and pupil attainment?Why are teachers’ identities important?What are teachers’ needs and concerns in different professional life phases?Does school context count?Based on a DfES funded study of 300 teachers in 100 primary and secondary schools in England, the authors identify different patterns of influence and effect between groups of teachers, which provide powerful evidence of the complexities of teachers’ work, lives, identity and commitment, in relation to their sense of agency, well-being, resilience and pupil attitudes and attainment. This, in turn, provides a clear message for teachers, teachers’ associations, school leaders and policy makers, in understanding and supporting the need to build and sustain school and classroom effectiveness.

The book addresses issues such as the importance of career development, the relationships between school leadership, culture and teachers’ lives, maintaining a work-life balance, identity and well-being and the connection between commitment, resilience and effectiveness in the classroom.

Original and highly relevant, Teachers Matter is invaluable reading for teachers, head teachers, researchers and teacher educators.

"The authors are well-known in the Assessment field and this work presents their highly original analysis... [It] promotes a professional learning approach that will undoubtedly help educationalists in schools and across the schools sector in their quest to improve learning."Professor Mary James, University of Cambridge, UK.

This book explores the processes involved in developing assessment practice. It argues that the role of teacher assessment needs to be put firmly at the forefront of the educational agenda and that assessment by teachers needs to be developed in a widespread, high quality and sustainable fashion.

The authors, all members of the influential Assessment Reform Group, argue that the target-driven approach of external testing leads to problems, including 'teaching to the test' to the detriment of the wider curriculum, and motivational problems. In this book, they tackle the differences between formative and summative assessment and ask the question: "What is quality teacher assessment?"

There is coverage of key professional learning dimensions including:

The purposes of assessmentThe need for evidence to support innovationThe process and steps to develop new practicePerceptions of what counts as quality assessment in schoolsThe authors draw on these various perspectives to explain how teachers and schools can build on existing practice, and develop new practices, and how the system should react to support them.

This book is essential reading for teachers, head teachers, local authority professionals, policy makers and academics.

What do Amadeus Mozart, David Beckham, Marie Curie and Bill Gates have in common? Answer: all excel in their diverse areas of music, sport, science and computing. The Expert Learner looks at what we know about acquiring such expertise and seeks to apply it to education, particularly to classroom teaching. Challenging the widely held belief that excellence is the result of innate ability, it shows how ability is developed through applied learning and deliberate practice.

Drawing on studies about expertise The Expert Learner highlights the importance of:

Providing opportunities and support to develop skillsBeing motivated to succeedUndergoing extensive deliberate practiceBuilding powerful mental models to handle and organise informationReceiving continuous and effective feedback to improve performanceDeveloping self-regulation to monitor performanceThe Expert Learner takes these findings and applies them to education. What opportunities do our institutions offer to our students and how much choice do we really give them? How do we motivate the unmotivated and how do we stretch our higher achieving students? Are we helping learners to think for themselves and to make sense of what they are learning?

With its rich source of ideas for expert teaching and learning, this book looks at some of the ways we can achieve 'wide-awake' thinking in the classroom.

"Highly readable, plenty of examples, and packed with the power of thinking about learning in a way that can make the difference.

This is a book full of optimism - it offers a way to positively think about learning and schools. We are not determined by birth, social status, poverty, wealth ... but we can invest in our learning if we "think" appropriately. Stobart emphasizes not just practice, but deliberate coached practice, he shows the multiplier effect that comes from seizing opportunities or someone creating opportunities, and he shows the importance of risk taking, deep knowledge, creativity, and developing talk about progress."John Hattie, Director, Melbourne Education Research Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia

"If I were to recommend just one book that all teachers, parents, employers and politicians who are interested in education should read, it would be this one. Not only is it full of engaging stories, underpinned by important research, but it goes to the very heart of what it is to be a successful learner and effective teacher. It demolishes the myth of inherited ability as the overriding determinant of achievement and provides an alternative account by unpacking the opportunities, experiences and practices that lead to the development of true expertise. Read it and use the ideas to challenge backward thinking."Professor Mary James, University of Cambridge, UK

"With clear arguments and ample research evidence, Stobart dispels the myth of ability and shows us the harm of society's persistent reliance on repackaged IQ tests. He advocates, instead, for teaching methods and schools that open up rather than close down opportunities. Using research on expertise and compelling examples from sports, science, medicine, and music, this book shows us how good teaching practices - such as rich questioning and supportive feedback - can engage students in the kinds of deep and purposeful practice needed for adept, expert learning. All students can benefit from this model of teaching, not just an elite few."Distinguished Professor Lorrie Shepard, University of Colorado Boulder, USA

Assessment dominates our lives but its good intentions often produce negative consequences. An example that is central to this book is how current forms of assessment encourage shallow ‘for-the-test’ learning. It is true to say that as the volume of assessment increases, confidence in what it represents is diminishing. This book seeks to reclaim assessment as a constructive activity which can encourage deeper learning. To do this the purpose, and fitness-for–purpose, of assessments have to be clear. Gordon Stobart critically examines five issues that currently have high-profile status: intelligence testing learning skills accountability the ‘diploma disease’ formative assessment Stobart explains that these form the basis for the argument that we must generate assessments which, in turn, encourage deep and lifelong learning.This book raises controversial questions about current uses of assessment and provides a framework for understanding them. It will be of great interest to teaching professionals involved in further study, and to academics and researchers in the field.

Assessment dominates our lives but its good intentions often produce negative consequences. An example that is central to this book is how current forms of assessment encourage shallow ‘for-the-test’ learning. It is true to say that as the volume of assessment increases, confidence in what it represents is diminishing. This book seeks to reclaim assessment as a constructive activity which can encourage deeper learning. To do this the purpose, and fitness-for–purpose, of assessments have to be clear. Gordon Stobart critically examines five issues that currently have high-profile status: intelligence testing learning skills accountability the ‘diploma disease’ formative assessment Stobart explains that these form the basis for the argument that we must generate assessments which, in turn, encourage deep and lifelong learning.This book raises controversial questions about current uses of assessment and provides a framework for understanding them. It will be of great interest to teaching professionals involved in further study, and to academics and researchers in the field.

High-stakes educational testing is a global phenomenon which is increasing in both scale and importance. Assessments are high-stakes when there are serious consequences for one or more stakeholders. Historically, tests have largely been used for selection or for providing a ‘licence to practise’, making them high-stakes for the test takers. Testing is now also used for the purposes of improving standards of teaching and learning and of holding schools accountable for their students’ results. These tests then become high-stakes for teachers and schools, especially when they have to meet externally imposed targets. More recent has been the emergence of international comparative testing, which has become high-stakes for governments and policy makers as their education systems are judged in relation to the performances of other countries.In this book we draw on research which examines each of these uses of high-stakes testing. The articles evaluate the impact of such assessments and explore the issues of value and fairness which they raise. To underline the international appeal of high-stakes testing the studies are drawn from Australia, Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, former Soviet republics and North America. Collectively they illustrate the power of high-stakes assessment in shaping, for better or for worse, policy making and schooling.This book was originally published as a special issue of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice.