Students not only learn directly from their classmates with higher innate ability, but competition with high-achieving peers often makes students more motivated and work harder.

– Positive, High Achieving Students? What Schools and Teachers Can Do

The question “How can we see that learning has taken place?” is of course central, yet very difficult to answer…we have to judge from how learning manifests itself in the form of new capacities and new understandings, for example, in communication, in actions or through testing.

– Designs for Research, Teaching and Learning; A Framework for Future Education

What is the right mix of external factors which result in strong academic performance? OECD research through the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) offers some illumination. According to the OECD, the TALIS survey covers about 260,000 teachers in 15,000 schools in about 48 countries and economies. It boils down to teacher time, class size and peer effects.

The findings herein are based on TALIS 2018 along with the results of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018.

Teacher Time in and out of the Classroom

The results suggest that how teachers spend their time in and out of the classroom makes a difference to student outcomes. In essence, during class, the more time is spent teaching and learning, the better the student outcomes. Though the word ‘and’ should suggest that teaching and learning are two different phenomena, it is difficult to overcome the assumption that learning would always follow teaching. What is being taught and what is being understood may not be the same and so during class, time has to be allocated to ensure learning objectives are being met. To do this, individuals in the class must be engaged in conversation on a regular basis.

The amount of time spent, designing and creating learning materials, marking and providing feedback was positively correlated with better academic performance. Feedback can be formative and summative. Summative feedback refers to scores obtained. This tells students how well they have mastered task requirements. Formative feedback is feedback which is more interactive and deals with thinking processes, technique use and which highlights areas for growth.

Classroom practices which led to better outcomes can be divided into 4 categories. These are, Classroom Management, Clarity of Instruction, Cognitive Activation and Enhanced Activities.

Students who had to exercise critical thinking during lessons did better. Cognitive Activation refers to designing lessons which stimulate thinking. When it comes to English lessons in particular, OECD research suggests that there are two main approaches.

The first is the “Communicative Competencies” approach and the other is the “linguistic knowledge” approach (What Matters for Language Learning? The Questionnaire Framework for the PISA 2025 Foreign Language Assessment). The first approach focuses on the four communicative skills, reading, listening, speaking and writing for effect, impact and clarity. The other approach focuses on rules and what to do to answer questions. Cognitive activation appears to be more compatible with the former approach.

For example, during a lesson on Open-ended comprehension, two students could answer correctly but with different words. One version could be more impactful or clearer than the other version. The first approach would entail asking how the two wordings result in slight changes in meaning and then to ask which wording is more impactful. The second approach may either not touch on the differences in wording since both answers are substantially correct or prescribe one version over the other.

OECD research also suggests that when it comes to language learning, small-group work is very beneficial. Students would have to interact and clarify themselves or seek clarification from peers in English. For example, different students could have different interpretations of a Composition theme or an event in an Open-ended comprehension passage and so they could exchange and defend their views. In so doing, they are not only learning to fulfil task requirements but also clarifying their own thinking and sharpening their communicative competencies.

Class Size

Many of us may have done presentations. During a presentation, focus may be on the self (the presenter) – do I sound confident, engaging, am I clear and so on. The interlocuter or the other is the collective more than the individuals who make up that collective. In such situations, what might be the benchmarks for the presenter that things are going well? No one seems bored or puzzled and the presentation is proceeding as scheduled. In the event some of them do lose attention, the presenter could always re-focus attention to draw energy from those who do appear attentive. It will be next to impossible to process the internal workings of individuals in the audience.

From the perspective of an individual in the audience, the predominant consideration could be, to cooperate in the script which means, allow the presenter to finish successfully without disruption. The individual may have questions or may not know that he would have questions when he actually begins putting into practice what has been presented. There may be a heightened sense of the collective need as opposed to individual need. If a question has been posed to a member in the audience, it will be difficult to argue that there will be no pressure especially if the member is introverted.

None of this is to say, big groups are not conducive for learning. There are ways to engage big groups and to ensure learning. It does show however that beyond a certain point, in a bigger group setting, the individual fades into the collective. Exactly at which number the individual fades and the group takes form depends on the processing capacity of the presenter or instructor. To the extent that learning is personal, learning has to be individualised.

Peer Effects

OECD research suggests that “Students not only learn directly from their classmates with higher innate ability, but competition with high-achieving peers often makes students more motivated and work harder” and that peers will motivate each other through “direct interaction”.

For example, when students face challenges at a particular task, they may be harsh on themselves or feel demoralised. When they observe that their peer(s) have the same difficulty, how they look at themselves would change. In a bigger group, given that the predominant consideration would be to not disrupt the class and to have the needs of the collective in mind, there may be less opportunity to find out if the rest are also having the same difficulty.

It also works the other way. If peers appear to be ahead, this would signal to students that they need to catch up and tell them exactly how much to catch up.

To sum up, cognitive activation or lessons which stimulate thinking for example, through having to defend or clarify views with peers, receiving sufficient feedback and having peers to engage with results in motivated students and better academic performance

A strong structure needs the right bonds.

The Brain Dojo