When Harvard professor Jal Mehta and his team began researching the factors necessary to support high quality teaching, they started by identifying schools that focused on more than the reading and literacy test scores. The researchers knew there was far more to good teaching and real learning than what shows up on tests and they wanted to find schools focused on a more complex set of skills. They wanted to find out what good teaching looks like, how teachers learn to do it and what supports they need to spread those ideas.
After spending time at 30 schools talking with administrators, teachers and education leaders, Mehta’s team came up with three big areas of improvement described in a white paper called “From Quicksand to Solid Ground: Building a Foundation to Support Quality Teaching.”
The researchers found that a lack of investment in education research and development means there’s no systemized way of figuring out how to improve education for everyone, or making sure learning materials reflect best practices. They also found that inconsistent approaches to teacher training and induction into schools provides very little support for good teaching. And crucially, the policies need to change to reflect the value of teachers and should support the maintenance of a highly skilled educator workforce.
