As I was researching the Hattie’s effect size for teacher clarity (.75 by the way) for another article that I was writing, I couldn’t help but notice the top of the chart. There at the top of the bar graph that was being used to display the effect sizes in a comparative format was the longest bar with the effect size number of 1.57 [J. Hattie, visiblelearningplus.com, December 2017]! It just jumped out there as one of only seven effect sizes that exceeded 1.0 but easily outdistanced its closest competitor, self-reported grades, which stood at only 1.33. With an effect size of 1.57, collective teacher efficacy showed an effect size so big that one year of effort could produce almost four years of growth, but what exactly is collective teacher efficacy? Is your campus embracing it?

The word collective seems obvious enough, telling us that it is about teachers as group or together, but what about the word efficacy? Myriam-Webster defines the word efficacy as, “the power to produce an effect” and when I did an online search I found a similar definition, “the ability to produce a desired or intended result.” By putting together the words, we can conclude that collective teacher efficacy is the ability of teachers, working as a collective group, to produce a desired result. Now it may seem obvious that if we produce a desired result, and that desired result is better student learning, we should see a high Hattie’s effect size, but it is more than that.

Collective teacher efficacy is the belief by teachers, as well as administrators and staff, that by working together they can positively affect the desired result of effective student learning for all students. This involves all teachers and staff and requires a collective buy-in by all parties to achieve collective efficacy. The meaning is clear, that together teachers and staff can affect results if they collectively believe that they can! When a staff has strong collective teacher efficacy, individual teachers are encouraged to make use of and share skills that they may already have and the positive environment created for students has a huge impact on the way students view themselves and their own learning. Albert Bandura studied this in the 1990’s as it related to socioeconomic status and discovered that the positive effects of teacher self-efficacy were far more important than this or any other effects on student learning.

Futhermore, the chosen approach to learning is not as important as is the collective application of researched-based instructional stategies that are collectively implemented by all and the belief that it will have a positive impact on student learning for all. This does not mean that a teacher can select any method of lesson delivery, convince colleagues to use it and simply believe that it will work! It means that when methods are applied, that have been proven through reliable research to be effective, by all teachers, and these teachers believe that they will have a positive impact on student learning, the potential for growth is higher than that of any learning effect applied as a standalone strategy. In fact, the effect of collective teacher efficacy is much higher than many well-accepted and used strategies; twice that of classroom discussion(.82) and effort(.77), three times that of peer tutoring(.53) and enrichment programs(.53), and four times as much as worked examples(.37) and classroom management(.35)!

Collective teacher efficacy is huge and cannot be accomplished by any one teacher or even a small group of teachers. It involves everyone! Whether or not we are willing to embrace ideas that have proven to work, along with our fellow staff members may be the difference between achieving collective teacher efficacy or not achieving it. Remember, not only does collectively applying researched-based strategies matter, but believing along with colleagues that those strategies will have a positive impact on student learning is the key. Are you a part of collective teacher efficacy on your campus or are you the one keeping it from happening? Let’s do this together!