Listening—the most underrated skill in education
Listening—the process of actively receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken or non-verbal messages—is essential for teaching and learning. How can we check for understanding and ensure that students’ contributions are heard and understood by peers and teachers?
In Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn, bestselling authors and internationally respected educators John Hattie and Lyn Sharratt demonstrate how listening can foster positive relationships, trust, and understanding while enhancing student learning. With a wealth of research to guide educators through the process of infusing active, sensitive, and empathetic listening skills into the classroom and school culture, this important guide includes:
When we value every students voice, we create an inclusive environment that encourages diverse perspectives, fosters equity, and develops accurate listening, empowering students to articulate their thoughts and enhancing skills they will use for their lifetimes.
John Hattie, PhD, is an award-winning education researcher and best-selling author with nearly thirty years of experience examining what works best in student learning and achievement. His research, better known as Visible Learning, is a culmination of nearly thirty years synthesizing more than 2,100 meta-analyses comprising more than one hundred thousand studies involving over 300 million students around the world. He has presented and keynoted in over three hundred international conferences and has received numerous recognitions for his contributions to education. His notable publications include Visible Learning, Visible Learning for Teachers, Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn; Visible Learning for Mathematics, Grades K-12; and 10 Mindframes for Visible Learning.
Lyn Sharratt, EdD, is a practitioner and researcher working in remote and urban settings worldwide. Lyn is an Adjunct Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada; a Fellow at University of Melbourne, Australia; an author consultant for Corwin Press; an advisor for International School Leadership with the Ontario Principals’ Council; and consults internationally, working with system, school, and teacher leaders at all levels in Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Lyn focuses her time and effort on increasing each student’s growth and achievement by working alongside leaders and teachers to put FACES on their data, taking intentional action to make equity and excellence a reality for ALL students.
Visit www.lynsharratt.com for articles, video clips, podcasts; on Twitter: @LynSharratt; on Instagram: lyn_sharratt; and on LinkedIn where Lyn owns the “Educational Leadership” LinkedIn group made up of 99,000+ members.
Lyn’s authorship includes: Realization: The Change Imperative for Deepening District-Wide Reform (with Michael Fullan); Putting FACES on the Data: What Great Leaders Do! (With Michael Fullan); Good to Great to Innovate: Recalculating the Route, K-12+ (with Gale Harild); Leading Collaborative Learning: Excellence (with Beate Planche); CLARITY: What Matters MOST in Learning, Teaching and Leading (International Best-Selling Education Book in 2020); and Putting FACES on the Data – the 10th Anniversary Edition (with Michael Fullan).
Lyn is proud of the recent co-development of the CLARITY Learning Suite (CLS) - a web-based collaborative Professional Learning opportunity that mirrors CLARITY. Lyn and her team believe that ‘everyone’s a leader’, thus CLS provides guidance to Learning Leaders on how to do this work of system and school improvement – together – to make a difference for all students. Visit www.claritylearningsuite.com.
Foreword by John Malloy
Chapter 1: Listening to Hear
Chapter 2: The Five-Ear Listening Model
Chapter 3: Listening Together
Chapter 4: Listening Skills
Chapter 5: Listening in the Classroom
Chapter 6: Listening to Voices: Who is Doing the most Listening, Talking, Interpreting and Thinking?
Chapter 7: Measuring Listening Skills
Chapter 8: Listening Enhances the School Improvement Work – A Case Study
Chapter 9: Concluding Thoughts
Epilogue: Dr Pak Tee Ng
References
"I am thrilled that, finally, listening came into the focus of educators and researchers in education and teaching. Listening is probably the most underrated skill in educational settings. Although it is the most required skill per (school) day in many different ways, it is the skill to which the least amount of instruction time has traditionally been dedicated. I found it impressive, how the text explores the different aspects and purposes of listening and how a variety of concrete and practical instructional strategies and procedures are included to demonstrate how listening instruction can be put into the classroom practice. Listening is so much more than hearing as illustrated in the five-ear listening model. This is an extremely important work to bring listening into the classroom and to support teachers to develop and to teach listening skills! To combine the VL approach with issues of listening instruction is meaningful." -- Margarete Imhof * Psychologie in den Bildungswissenschaften, Mainz, Germany *
"Effective listening skills are essential for learning and teaching. Here the authors use research to guide educators through the process of infusing active listening into the classroom and school culture." -- Debra K Las
"Listen, learn, lead. Building empowering relationships require presence, curiosity, and listening well. What immediately captures attention is the emphasis on enabling improvement and growth through the definition and exploration of accurate listening, which primes and demands something different. It goes a step further. The powerhouse perspectives of our admired education luminaries, Hattie and Sharratt, are deep and rich in global research, expertise, and practice. Success is illuminated by integrating a systems approach to ensuring accurate listening is understood, modeled, and practiced from the classroom to the center. Importantly, the efficacy of this process cannot be in the absence of the heart, where one feels truly heard and understood.
Through the lens and incredible expertise of the authors, the thoughtfully curated experiences of teachers and school leaders are distilled, analyzed, and shared. Foundered on a supportive enabling environment, a rich array of strategies and measures to inform and impact learning and growth are seamlessly linked to the underpinnings of Clarity and Visible Learning. As we have come to expect from the authors significant collective body of work, with a laser-focus on school improvement work and outcomes, the models, skills, case studies, and practices are as always informative, targeted, and immediately actionable. What more could you want?!"
-- Barbara Watterston
