Professor Stuart Kime, our Director of Education, and Jack Deverson, Managing Director, have this month been out to Shanghai, where they worked with a group of teachers and leaders from the Dulwich College International family. This marked the completion of their Research Support Partnership, which had lasted six days, spread out throughout the last year.
Days 5 and 6 involved analysing the interventions that had been planned and delivered in the last few months, before sharing the results with colleagues. This led to a discussion of what the particularly promising projects were, as well as group-wide implications.
Some examples of the areas studied by participants included: whether investment in smart classroom furniture impacted on pupil interactions; the impact of removing setting in maths; whether live-time feedback helped improve student outcomes; peer tutoring in economics; whether Makaton interventions supported primary EAL students to engage more in class; and much more.
The Research Leads unanimously found this work challenging, but incredibly interesting, relevant and rewarding – it certainly has added a new focus to their practice in school. In the words of one, it was the “most enjoyable and impactful PD [he’d] experienced”.
On the final day, the team took the exciting step of deciding on a group-wide intervention, across the family of schools, to look specifically at the efficacy of different types of feedback, and began to make an implementation plan. This aggregated micro-trials approach is at the leading edge of practice in education, and it’s something we’re really looking forward to following and sharing throughout the process.
Thanks for a great year. Looking forward to getting stuck into the aggregated micro-trial!
— Sarah Harrison (@sharrison_edu) September 18, 2019
As well as the DCI team, we have also led similar groups in the UK with Middlesbrough Council, Suffolk County Council and Cheshire Vale TSA. If you’d like to learn more about transforming the way your school, group or multi-academy trust uses contextual evidence to inform decision-making, read this webpage or contact us for more information.
