In this short video clip from this past summer’s FUSION conference, Dylan Wiliam discusses how improving student performance requires varied teaching strategies and techniques. As Dylan states, making gains in teacher quality can’t be done by “firing our way to Finland,” and improving teacher entrants to the system will simply take too long. The solution Dylan proposes is to make the teachers we have even better.

 

Teacher professional development can help teachers in a range of ways, some of which will help students and some will not. This is due in part to the varied ways in which students learn, yet creating a lesson plan for each student is not feasible. By getting teachers to vary their teaching strategies and techniques, they get students to think deeper and gain a better understanding of what it is they are learning about.