Developing Capable Visible Learners

According to John Hattie, a visible learner “exhibits the self-regulatory attributes that seem most desirable for learners (self-monitoring, self-assessing, self-teaching).” Hattie’s extensive research identified the most effective teaching and learning strategies. A significant aspect of the Visible Learning initiative has been to change the narrative from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning. Teaching, Hattie emphasizes, must always be considered in terms of its impact on student learning.

Visible Learning consists of several efforts. It is a research database, a school improvement initiative, as well as a focus on what works best to impact learning. John Hattie was able to determine that .40 indicated a year’s growth in learning. Therefore, those influences, actions, and strategies that exhibit an effect size greater than .40 were considered more powerful (generally speaking) and were often more effective. For example, feedback has an effect size of .73; it is reasonable to focus on quality and timing of feedback since it is deemed so powerful.

Participants will learn the most effective types of assessment, the tools that students can use to support their own learning, the concept of errors as opportunities, learning strategies that empower student progress, motivational strategies to fuel student growth, and metacognitive strategies to create self-assessing learners.

Carlow University ED 696 • Madonna University EDU 5830.52

The required text for this course is Developing Assessment-Capable Visible Learners Grades K-12 by Nancy Frey, John Hattie, and Douglas Fisher.

ISBN 978-1506389981