Speaking with: John Hattie on how to improve the quality of education in Australian schools Do we actually know what works when it comes to improving the quality of education in schools? A new four-part ABC documentary series, Revolution School, looks at what the research tells us about what works in education – and what doesn’t. It tells the story of how a typical suburban high school in Victoria, Kambrya College, managed to turn around from rock bottom to being in the top 25% of study scores in the state. Smaller class sizes, private schooling, homework and discipline do not make a difference to the quality of education, explains education expert John Hattie – “what really matters is interaction with teachers, clinical teaching, constantly measuring each student’s knowledge and responding to their individual needs”. Maxine McKew speaks with John Hattie about what we need to be doing to improve the quality of education in Australian schools – and the kind of debates we really should be having.
‘’No single intervention by schools is worse than retention’’ – Exclusive interview with Professor John Hattie, part 1. Professor John Hattie is a researcher in education. His research interests include performance indicators, models of measurement and evaluation of teaching and learning. John Hattie became known to a wider public with his two books Visible Learning and Visible Learning for Teachers. Visible Learning is a synthesis of more than 800 meta-studies covering more than 80 million students. Since the publication of his books, John Hattie has continued to collect and aggregate meta-analyses to the Visible Learning database. Times Educational Supplement: TES once called him “possibly the world’s most influential education academic”. John Hattie is Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne, Australia, since March 2011. He was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours, for services to education. Background information: The Netherlands is the European leader in retention. [i] Hattie, J. (2009).