1. Productive Pedagogies

2. The Queensland School Reform
Longitudinal Study (QSRLS)
Developed concepts of productive pedagogies,
productive assessment and productive leadership

3. Central findings of the QSRLS re
pedagogies in approx 1000 classrooms
High levels of supportiveness: high mean and low
standard deviation
Low levels of intellectual demand and connectedness:
low mean and high standard deviation
Absence of working with and valuing difference: low
mean and low standard deviation

4. Teachers with high ratings on the productive pedagogies
measure differed significantly from those with low ratings
particularly in terms of their:
• Sense of responsibility
• Efficacy in improving student learning outcomes
• Broad Conceptions of their role as teacher – in school,
community and society, and
• Understanding of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment
links and need for alignment

5. Bourdieu and the findings of the
productive pedagogies research
 The absence of intellectual demand particularly in schools serving
disadvantaged communities has social justice implications
 Indeed, this absence of intellectual demand works in ways which
Bourdieu suggests schools reproduce inequality, that is, by
demanding of all that which they do not give, those with the
requisite cultural capital are advantaged through schooling
 Also 'decontextualised' knowledge: knowledge not scaffolded and
linked to students' life worlds
 Impact of NAPLAN. Differential impact across schools positioned
differently in relation to NAPLAN and My School tables
 Pedagogies are a social justice issue: need redistribution of
capitals: 'give them the code'

6. Alignment: Curriculum, Pedagogy and
Assessment
Central to socially just schooling
Assessment practices and pedagogies aligned in terms of
dimensions and with higher order purposes of curriculum
Assessment: scaffolding, 'give them the codes', criteria
sheets, examples of essay structures, good assignments etc.
Central because this message system can steer the others
(e.g. high stakes testing)
Alignment and assessment need to be on the equity agenda

7. Background to Productive Pedagogies
Part of the Queensland ‘New Basics’ project
Developed in Queensland
Being used interstate and internationally
Broad themes about what counts as good (in the
sense of supporting student learning) teaching
Not prescriptive (or proscriptive) of certain
approaches to teaching

8. Productive Pedagogies and MYS
Intended to be used at all levels of education
Have particular value for Middle Years of Schooling as a
way of responding to perceptions that MYS is ‘dumbed
down’ by comparison with the traditional junior high
school approach and doesn’t adequately prepare students
for higher level study
Help teachers to attend to high educational quality and
excellent outcomes in combination with the key
philosophical ideas of MYS
Embed many of the key philosophical ideas of MYS

9. Categories
20 Productive Pedagogies in total
Divided into 4 categories:
Intellectual quality
Connectedness
Supportive classroom environment
Recognition of difference

10. Intellectual quality
 Higher-order thinking
 Deep knowledge
 Deep understanding
 Substantive conversation
 Knowledge as problematic
 Metalanguage

11. Connectedness
Knowledge integration
Background knowledge
Connectedness to the world
 Problem-based curriculum

12. Supportive classroom environment
Student direction
Social support
Academic engagement
 Explicit quality performance criteria
 Self-regulation

13. Recognition of difference
Most difficult to address and observe in classrooms
Removed from the NSW adaption of Productive
Pedagogies
Cultural knowledges
Inclusivity
Narrative
Group identity
 Active citizenship

14. Web Access
The Productive Pedagogies framework is
available at:
http://education.qld.gov.au/corporate/newbasics/htm
The New Basics project more broadly, which
offers significant teaching resources, is at:
http://education.qld.gov.au/corporate/newbasics/ind