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by Marie-Helene Doumet,  Senior Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills Learning needs vary as we evolve through life. The early years of education set the stage for children’s well-being, cognitive and social-emotional development; young children starting out in the world require stability, reassurance, and encouragement, and need a warm and caring teacher. At primary school, teachers manage the class, teach all subjects, and help children develop not only basic competencies, but also emotional and social awareness. While this setting still requires a broad knowledge of many subjects, dealing directly with students’ social and emotional development also helps teachers bond with their class, which is essential to learning at such a young age. However, as children progress to high school, learning becomes more about the subject: secondary teachers focus on one or several subjects which they teach to a number of different classes. Their performance will be more strongly evaluat...

by Anna Pons Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills Looking – literally – at how teachers around the world teach can be a game changer to improve education. The evidence is clear that teachers are what makes the greatest difference to learning, outside students’ own backgrounds. It is widely recognised that the quality of an education system is only as good as the quality of its teachers. Yet we know relatively little about what makes a good and effective teacher. Our new research project, the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) Video Study, aims to help us learn more about how our teachers teach. The study aims to provide a better understanding of which teaching practices are used, how they are interrelated, and which are most strongly associated with students’ cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. The TALIS Video Study is based on a truly innovative research design. It uses videos to capture what goes on in the classroom, and also surveys teachers and students,...

by Francesca Gottschalk Consultant, Directorate for Education and Skills  Teaching is a demanding profession. Teachers are responsible for developing the skills and knowledge of their students, helping them overcome social and emotional hurdles and maintaining equitable, cohesive and productive classroom environments. On top of their teaching responsibilities, they are also expected to engage in continued professional development activities throughout their careers. The demands of the job are many and varied, and teachers tend to report some of the highest levels of workplace stress of any profession. This contributes to the loss of many talented and motivated individuals from the teaching workforce. Teachers, especially the least experienced, tend to report that student disengagement and misbehaviour is one of the biggest stressors. In fact, terms like “reality shock” or “shattered dreams” are sometimes used to describe what happens when teachers are first put in front of a c...

by Andreas Schleicher Director, Directorate for Education and Skills Anyone flying into Abu Dhabi or Dubai is amazed how the United Arab Emirates has been able to transform its oil and gas into shiny buildings and a bustling economy. But more recently, the country is discovering that far greater wealth than all the oil and gas together lies hidden among its people. If the country would live up to its ambition to be among the world’s 20 leading school systems, as measured by PISA, that would add over USD 5 600 billion to the economy over the lifetime of today’s primary school students, or the equivalent of 9 times the size of the UAE’s economy. That is because people with a solid foundation of knowledge, with creative, problem-solving and collaborative skills, and with character qualities such as mindfulness, curiosity, courage and resilience, make a so much greater contribution to economic and social progress. The trouble is that the UAE has been slow to invest in the people who can di...

by Andreas Schleicher Director, Directorate for Education and Skills I’ve often said that the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. How, then, do teachers become really good at their jobs? One important way is by learning from one another – across classes, across schools, and yes, even across countries. That’s why the OECD is a knowledge partner of the 2017 Qudwa Global Teachers’ Forum , which is being held in Abu Dhabi on 7 and 8 October. The Forum is bringing together more than 900 teachers from 83 countries to discuss “Teaching for Tomorrow”. The focus of the forum couldn’t be more timely. According to reports by the World Economic Forum , one-third of the skillsets required to perform today’s jobs will be entirely redundant by 2020. And experts assert that nearly two-thirds of children entering primary school today will end up working in jobs that do not yet exist. The dilemma for teachers is that the kinds of things that are easiest to teach and...

by Stavros Yiannouka, CEO, WISE – World Innovation Summit for Education and Andreas Schleicher, Director, Directorate for Education and Skills Teaching and learning lie at the heart of what it means to be human. While animals teach and learn from each other through direct demonstration, observation and experience, humans are unique in their ability to convey vast quantities of information and impart skills across time and space. We are also, as far as we know, unique in our ability to engage in and convey our thinking around abstract concepts such as governance, justice and human rights. Technology has always played an indispensable role in this process. Starting with language and then writing, humanity was able to separate the process of teaching and learning from the constraints of direct demonstration, observation, and experience. The invention of paper and ink, and then the printing press, exponentially increased the quantity of knowledge that could be captured, stored, and dissemi...

by Pablo Fraser  Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills Noémie Le Donné Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills “What happened in school today?” is a question that many parents across the world ask their children when they get home. Many parents also attend school meetings in order to understand how their child’s learning is developing. They talk with both children and teachers because they know that they are the best (and often only) source of information about what is happening in the classroom. At the same time, many teachers would like to know about how other teachers teach, both in their own country and abroad. The truth is that what happens in the classrooms still often remains an open question for those outside it.  Research has shown that the practices used in the classroom are the most important factor affecting students’ outcomes. In other words, it is the interactions between teachers and students that, ultimately, shape the learning environme...

Facebook Live session with Andreas Schleicher, head of the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills by Marilyn Achiron, Editor, Directorate for Education and Skills This back-to-school moment is a great time to grab a few minutes with Andreas Schleicher, head of the Directorate for Education and Skills, to get his thoughts about preparing for – and succeeding in – the school year ahead. In our Facebook LIVE interview yesterday, he said that “there’s always something interesting happening in school”, and suggested that students “think beyond grades – to life”. Schleicher said of teaching that “there’s probably no tougher job today”. What is common to the best-performing countries in PISA ? According to Schleicher, these countries “believe in the future more than in consumption today; they make an investment in education”; “they believe in the success of every child”; and “they can attract the most talented teachers to the most challenging classrooms”. We also talked about stu...

by Andreas Schleicher Director, Directorate for Education and Skills Tonight, the winners of the Higher Education Academy’s newly launched Global Teaching Excellence Award will be announced. The award is a milestone in advancing the higher education agenda. It’s time for teaching excellence to attain the same status and recognition as academic research, which still seems the dominant metric for valuing academic institutions, whether we look at rankings published in the media or research assessment frameworks or at performance-based funding for research. There are compelling reasons to change this, and the award makes a start. Tertiary qualifications have become the entrance ticket for modern societies. Never before have those with advanced qualifications had the life chances they enjoy today, and never before have those who struggled to acquire a good education paid the price they pay today. There are always those who argue that the share of young people entering higher education or a...

by Dirk Van Damme Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education and Skills   In modern societies, most professionals become knowledge workers. Their professional practice is increasingly fuelled and inspired by various forms of knowledge. A good example is the medical profession, where the continuously growing body of scientific knowledge finds its way into professional practices. An important dimension of what constitutes an effective doctor today is the ability to incorporate scientific knowledge within one’s own experience and to translate this into a professional encounter with patients through adequate communication, advice and empathy. Is something similar also happening within the teaching profession? Teachers are also knowledge workers. To effectively stimulate students’ learning, teachers constantly draw on a vast repertoire of knowledge. And of course, teachers work with subject knowledge. Maths teachers must have a good grasp of the ma...