By Laura Robb
Mr. James, a first-year teacher, hopes he can inspire every student in his classes to develop a passion for history.
Three weeks into the first semester, he faces challenges he didn’t expect: Some students weren’t reading assigned pages in the textbook, several completed minimalist writing in notebooks in response to thought-provoking questions, and during whole-class discussions, about 15 students participated repeatedly while the rest of the class stayed silent.
Fortunately for Mr. James, he teaches at a middle school in which the faculty supports Collective Teacher Efficacy (CTE) – the belief that teachers can work together to achieve positive learning outcomes for all students.
At the sixth-grade team’s third weekly meeting, Mr. James describes the challenges he’s facing with his students. So the team asks him to provide them with the pattern in students’ reading scores for the past three years; photocopied samples of their notebook writings; and his own observational notes.
Mr. James provides each team member with a copy of this information to review and reflect on before the next week’s meeting. And so begins a series of meetings that provides Mr. James with feedback from other teachers as well as the librarian, enabling him to find alternate texts and videos for his students who are unable to read and access information from the textbook.
In addition, the English teacher, with the support of the reading specialist, develops a plan that they will collectively monitor and revise for improving his students’ reading skills that includes:
- Increasing the amount of daily independent reading at school and at home to 40 minutes. (Samuels and Wu, 2004);
- Offering students a choice of books at their independent reading levels;
- Improving decoding skills for students who require this support;
- Scaffolding students’ reading in English during small-group lessons; and
- Asking team members to write sample notebook entries before inviting students to write, thereby providing students with a model of process and expectations.
Note that the team’s collective knowledge regarding reading and interventions is greater than that of any one member. Their professional study, their ability to learn from their students, and their willingness to provide feedback and a plan that supports Mr. James reflects the power of a collaborative community pooling its knowledge and experience to focus on collecting data, studying it, and developing a list of positive interventions.
This experience helps Mr. James become more open to the professional learning the team engages in, and he readily accepts a copy of John Hattie’s Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning (2012), a book that had become an important reference for the sixth-grade team.
Weekly Team Meetings
At weekly meetings, teachers who have embraced CTE can use the following question to discuss the impact of their lessons on students’ learning: Which students need scaffolding or modifications to better understand lessons? This query can push them to study John Hattie’s research on the factors that influence students’ achievement and progress and how teachers can integrate this information into lessons and support those needing intervention (Hattie,2012, 2023).
Teams examine information presented by colleagues and use procedures for collaborating with their grade-level team to provide feedback for interventions that could eliminate roadblocks before they become frustrations (Hattie, 2012, 2023; Robb, 2010).
John Hattie and Effects on Achievement
John Hattie is Emeritus Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education. In 2009, he published Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement (Routledge). This groundbreaking book presented 138 factors associated with teaching and learning, ranked by effect size and changed how many educators think about students’ achievement. To determine a factor’s effect size, Hattie used Cohen’s d in his meta-analyses.
In 2018 Hattie published an updated list of 252 factors that influence students’ achievement. At the top of this list is Collective Teacher Efficacy. CTE has an effect size of 1.57 with 0.40 being the average effect size among all factors. Ranked third (with an effect size of 1.29) is Teacher Estimates of Achievement, which is your assessment of each student’s current academic performance and an estimate of their future success. Your assessment uses your conclusions about students’ learning growth based on your observations, frequent one-on-one check-ins and conferences, and daily formative assessments.
Together, both these factors identified by Hattie support the belief that collectively, teachers can improve students’ learning and progress when they have a deep knowledge of students’ potential and the kinds of learning experiences and expectations that can support their growth.
Translating this belief into instructional moves asks you to identify students’ learning strengths and challenges before starting a unit of study and planning support before, during, and after the unit that enables them to learn, improve, and meet your goals and expectations (Hattie, 2012, 2023).
Identifying Students’ Learning Challenges
Reserving time at the start of the school year and throughout the year to know each student can help you understand their attitudes toward learning, what they enjoy in and out of school, and their levels of self-confidence and self-efficacy – the belief in their capacity to learn and see mistakes as opportunities to grow and improve.
In addition, your interactions with students – observations of their behavior when you’re presenting a lesson, circulating around the room while they’re working independently or in groups, evaluating written work, and scheduling a short conference – can help you determine whether that student requires extra support.
Questions for Grades 5 to 8
Before you call on the collective efficacy of your colleagues, you need to assess students’ progress by being a careful observer while presenting lessons, when students collaborate and work independently, and when they write in notebooks. You also need to identify whether students can read and comprehend grade level texts. Be prepared to provide your team with information by asking yourself questions like these:
Questions for observing students: Are they listening? Are their responses logical? Do they ask for help when working independently, or do they skip the challenging part and move on? Do they talk to a peer when they should be listening or working independently? Do they frequently ask for a bathroom pass or get up to sharpen pencils?
Questions raised from discussions: Do students participate? Do they respect diverse ideas from their peers? Do responses answer the question? Do responses include information studied? Do they support thinking with facts and inferences?
Questions raised after a conference: Did they respond to your questions with specific details? Did they ask for help? Would working with a peer support their learning needs? Were they able to negotiate a reasonable goal? What are some interventions you can try? Was the student willing to accept help? Explain. Are there other students with similar needs?
Questions raised after reading notebook entries: Does the entry respond to the prompt? Are there details from texts that support the student’s thinking? Does the entry show an understanding of important concepts? Can the student organize thoughts into a logical sequence? Does the entry reveal depth of understanding an event, person, or concept?
Questions raised while observing a student collaborate with peers: Is the student prepared? Does the student contribute ideas and answer peers’ questions? Does the student listen to peers and ask questions based on peers’ contributions? Does the student respect different ideas and conclusions?
If you observe that your planned interventions aren’t supporting students’ progress, it’s time to involve your teacher team and ask them for feedback. To support your team’s efforts to find alternate interventions and other teaching and learning ideas, complete this Student Information Form included here before your meeting.
Give a copy of the completed form and copies of assessments you used to members of your team a few days before meeting with them. It’s also helpful if you and your team are familiar with Hattie’s factors that influence students’ achievement, for these can play a key role in finding alternate interventions that invite you to adjust the structure of your lessons.
You can find the list of Hattie’s 252 influences and their effect sizes on students’ achievement by visiting this page at Visible Learning. Since 0.40 is the average effect size, factors above the average are influences you should explore and consider integrating into your lessons, as these factors can influence and improve students’ learning. Confused? For the latest presentation of John Hattie’s work, many educators recommend his action-oriented book Visible Learning: The Sequel (Routledge, 2023).
Closing Thoughts
Consider adopting Collective Teacher Efficacy and weekly meetings, whether in person or virtually, to meet the learning needs of all of your students. Through discussions of the impact of lessons on each student, you and your team can develop scaffolds and/or modifications that offer students the support and hope they need to achieve challenging learning goals.
References
Fisher, D., Frey, N., Smith, D. (2020). The teacher credibility and collective efficacy playbook, grades k-12. Foreword by John Hattie. Corwin.
Hattie, J. (2023). Visible learning: The sequel. A synthesis of over 2,100 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.
Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers. Routledge.
Robb, L. (2010). Teaching reading in middle school: A strategic approach to teaching reading that improves comprehension and thinking. Scholastic.
Samuels, S. J., & Wu, Y.-C. (2004). How the amount of time spent on independent reading affects reading achievement: A response to the National Reading Panel [Conference presentation]. 49th Annual International Reading Association Convention, Reno, NV. (Learn more)
Laura Robb has been a classroom teacher for more than forty years, has coached teachers in the US and Canada, and has been a featured speaker at many conferences. She is the 2016 recipient of NCTE’s Richard W. Halle Award for an Outstanding Middle Level Educator.
Laura is the author of more than 25 books on literacy. Her latest, Teaching in Uncertain Times: Strategies for Reclaiming Agency and Impacting Students’ Learning (Routledge/Eye On Education) will be available in July 2026. See all of her MiddleWeb articles.
