The science of learning

How many of us have fond memories of Year 9 science?   I suspect most of us don’t unless we had a natural aptitude for the subject.

The reality is it probably had something to do with the way the subject was taught – a one size fits all approach to science that was far removed from our lives and yet integral to understanding  the world around us.

For John Hattie, a good teacher is able to turn on the challenge of physics, chemistry or Year 9 science for every student. 

Greg Whitby and Year 9.3 Science at Parramatta Marist

Last week, I was invited into a Year 9 science class and saw young men challenged and engaged in their learning.  Their teacher, Br Anthony is using a project-based learning (PBL). Click here to listen to Br Anthony on PBL.

I found it an engaging experience to watch two students (whom I later discovered have been struggling) stand in front of their peers and deliver a presentation on “Energy and Ecology”.

The subsequent class discussion of which I was a part, on global warming and alternate energy sources was lively and well-informed and it’s encouraging to know that these students see themselves as part of the solution!

I saw a science teacher who was passionate about his subject and committed to using PBL to engage and challenge students in a real-world context and showcasing their work.

Teaching is a science and good teaching is about the continual examination of the evidence of what you are doing and how it is impacting on learning outcomes. At its very core is a fundamental understanding of the learner. 

There are many more examples like this – we  just need to share them.

 

The case for video games

If you haven’t bookmarked the website Edutopia, you are missing out on some terrific educational resources and stimuli for classroom and staffroom discussions.

I know  many teachers are getting their head around the use of technology in classrooms but if you ever needed convincing of the benefits of video games in education – spend 10 minutes listening to Professor James Paul Gee of Arizona University.

Compelling stuff!

The ‘f’ word

Michael Fullan recently addressed 100+ of our aspiring leaders in the context of leading change and learning in their schools.

This was a marvellous experience for leading teachers to be exposed to someone of Fullan’s calibre – armed with research and case studies on what makes an effective school leader.

It is evident that one of our greatest challenges as a system is how we continue to recognise leading teachers, how we develop their leadership and more importantly connect them with similar cohorts to expand the depth of talent across the profession.

Part of the process of challenging and empowering teachers is ensuring that core messages around instructional practice, collaboration, effective use of data and feedback etc are being disseminated across all levels.  As one of the principals of Fullan’s ‘turnaround schools’ explained – you need to know the message is getting past the usual bottle-necks.  To ensure teachers are across the agenda requires constant…… ‘feedback’.

I know many leaders and educators are uncomfortable with the ‘f’ word but it is critical to how we lead and plan.  It begs the question of how we encourage principals in every school (large, small, primary, secondary) to seek honest feedback and evidence of their own school improvement strategies? Why do we too often feel uncomfortable getting and giving feedback?

For Fullan, building strong communities of practice comes from building communities of trust.  As a system, we need to continually measure the temperature of trust and progress if we are to see what is working and what needs to be done next. This is the way to overcome this “uncomfortableness.” Learning becomes the focus of the work not individual performance.

In raising the bar, we need to be rigorous in our approach to gathering feedback and presenting evidence.  It requires not only a common language of learning but as John Hattie recently said ‘a common indicator of progress that is applied across every school’.  This ‘common’ but sharply focussed lens provides schools, systems, parents, governments with an honest snapshot from which we can understand, monitor and promote good learning rather than judge school performance.

Taking this approach builds the credibility of the profession as well, and will place the profession in the centre of developing education policy – not at its margins

John Hattie

The task we have set ourselves of building a high performing system has been challenging but our work has been enriched by the ideas and input of great educational change agents  like Michael Fullan, Stephen Heppell and most recently, John Hattie.

On 19 October, more than 600 educators came to hear John Hattie deliver the 2009 Ann D Clark lecture in Penrith.  It was a tremendous opportunity to hear John talk about his seminal research, Visible Learning.

John’s message is practical and powerful: focus on feedback especially student feedback of teachers.  John says that if you ask students they’ll tell you when their teachers aren’t up to scratch.  So why are many teachers so afraid of hearing the truth? Is it too difficult a challenge to change what we have been doing?

Further he says that we set the bar too low for student learning therefore we’ll never really know what students are capable of. Despite how this may seem, it is not a criticism of teachers – it’s just that it is time for an honest look at the evidence of student achievement and action on that evidence. We have to see the urgency for action and act now!

Hattie affirmed our strategic direction but cautioned about the need for an unrelenting focus on the evidence. As he said it is about two key questions, “show the evidence and then do what needs to be done as a result.”

Heppell Part 2

We’ve had the pleasure of welcoming Stephen Heppell back to the diocese. Stephen spent three days during the last week of term 3 at one of our secondary schools to challenge teacher thinking and deepen student engagement.

It’s always engaging to hear someone as passionate as Stephen talk to teachers about the opportunities and challenges of learning in today’s world. Ask Stephen and his response is that students can do anything if they are challenged, engaged, inspired etc. Ask many secondary teachers and they will tell you how constrained they are by rigid timetables and syllabus requirements.

These are the realities faced by teachers everywhere and until governments change the policy from testing and assessing to learning and teaching it will stay the same. This is a clarion call to stop playing the game – to develop our own policies and use the expertise, experience, and professional judgement to look beyond what has always been in schooling.

We don’t need excuses, we need action. The government wants an education revolution then let’s give them a real one. As someone once observed, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste! And let’s start with teachers sharing their own practice of what is good learning and teaching. This has to be our policy framework.

I am not sure why there is still such trepidation to change schooling – perhaps it is the fear of not having all the answers or a single road-map! The good news is we have the tools, the experience of innovative teachers and the voices of students to forge our own paths.

As Stephen says the curriculum requirements are just one corner of the classroom so what is happening in the other three? I believe the greatest challenge for systems and leaders and the profession itself is giving teachers the green-light; supporting them to take risks and to experiment with new learning tools.

There is great liberation in realising that you don’t have to be an expert in IT to be a good teacher. Good teachers will continually look for new ways of improving learning outcomes using the tools available including the design of learning spaces.

Stephen told our teachers that the only way to move forward is to work in partnership with students – to involve them in decision-making; to  challenge them to set (and reach) their own targets and to see what is possible rather than what is expected.

The moral purpose

Innovation expert, Charles Leadbeater was in Australian recently sharing his ideas on why we need better models of schooling to improve social cohesion.

In moving towards greater efficiency, Leadbeater believes that our societies have focussed not on people but on processes, systems, structures and yes, technology.

The work of public institutions like schools is not simply to provide a service but to build and nourish relationships in which people feel valued; are motivated to do well, have opportunities to work collaboratively and in doing so feel they are making a positive contribution to their community.

History shows that throwing more money at education doesn’t solve the problem of student disengagement. We know that at risk children and their families need greater support before starting school and during the early years of schooling.

Leadbeater suggests two new approaches: finding ways of schooling that is motivational and bridging the gap between school, family and community.

Both Leadbeater and Stephen Heppell see the dismantling of large secondary schools as the first step in creating smaller, personalised learning environments in which students are recognised and feel comfortable within their space.

This is what the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development has aspired to with their massive redevelopment of the Broadmeadows site.

Under the old model, Broadmeadows was facing a dim future: high youth unemployment, schools seen as 9-3pm institutions, parents not involved in the learning.

After a significant period of planning and redevelopment, the Broadmeadows site has become a contemporary educational village. Students learn in smaller hubs connected by communal resource areas. Parents are invited to use the facilities.

Sometimes those of us in education are at risk of forgetting that improved learning outcomes are a result of our investment in people not our systems.

The great American pedagogue, John Dewey is as relevant today as he was one hundred years ago:

When the school introduces and trains each child of society into membership within such a little community, saturating him with the spirit of service, and providing him with the instruments of effective self-direction, we shall have the deepest and best guaranty of a larger society which is worthy, lovely and harmonious.

Tribes

I’ve just finished reading marketing guru  Seth Godin’s latest book Tribes – We Need to Lead Us.  Godin’s book picks up on themes explored in Wisdom of the Crowds and The Element, in which the authors explore the notion of tribes and the need for each of us to find like-minded people.

It is a move away from individual and groups to something that is energetic, ephemeral, engaging and exerts real leadership.  It signals a new way of thinking that is just-in-time, bold and bucks the status quo.

As Godin says,

We’re embracing a factory instead of a tribe…..Fear of change is built into most organisms, because change is the first sign of risk.  (pg 9)

Leaders…don’t care very much for organisational structure or the official blessing of whatever factory they work for.  They use passion and ideas to lead people, as opposed to using threats and bureaucracy to manage them.  (p 19)

This thinking must pervade our classrooms and educational institutions if we are to liberate our schools from factories to tribes.  Our ability as teachers, leaders, employees, students to take risks will be made much easier when we are working with and among those who share our passions and are willing to push the boundaries further into the unknown.

The internet has become a tribal marketplace for people to connect.  Twine and Epicurious are examples of social networking sites that brings people with similar interests together.

Ken Robinson writes about Mick Fleetwood and Sir Paul McCartney’s search at school for their tribe.  Of course, each one found it in a musical group but their initial experience of school and learning was sadly shaped by  the factory mentality: conformity, security and predicability.

In cautioning schools, Godin writes

“training a student to be a sheep is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behaviour, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school.  So why does it suprise us that we graduate so many sheep? (p 83)

So what will it take for every teacher to be tribal leaders who can lead instead of train?

Motivation

Dan Pink has been working on a new book “Drive” about what motivates us. As an educator and system leader,  What motivates me and many of my colleagues is a desire to give young people the best opportunity in life by giving them the gift of education.

Good teachers would work for pittance and often do when they are working with a team of committed professionals who are passionate, committed and aspire to reach the same goals. This is what Pink refers to as intrinsic motivation – doing something greater than ourselves.

According to Pink, 20th century businesses and organisations work on extrinsic motivators – pay for performance, carrrot and sticks approach for 20th century tasks. It is also how governments and policy makers believe we can improve schooling….reward teachers for preparing students well for high-stakes tests.

Pink claims that scientific evidence shows that those extrinsic motivators like financial rewards narrow our focus to left-brain, mechanical tasks. When we remove extrinsic motivators from the table, we give people autonomy to move in every direction and therefore find creative solutions.

Good teachers deserve an adequate and fair pay but this cannot be the carrot for motivating or punishing them. All this does is detract from the real work by making teachers compliant and schooling rigid. What’s more, it kills creativity and forces good teachers to leave the profession feeling defeated and exhausted.

If the general population were to hear less from unions and politicians linking schooling to extrinsic motivators and more from teachers about what really motivates them, then we would see the real value in education. This requires what I call a “new honesty” from the profession itself since everything has to be open to change. The past defines the present and shouldn’t be allowed to restrict the future.

It may even give us the energy to move beyond jack-in-the-box schooling (no surprises there) to something never seen before.

Tweetback

I’m amazed by the power of Twitter to turn one thought or comment into a million directions……

Reporting on how the Twitter phenomenon has changed the rules of engagement and social commentary, Steven Johnson writes (Time, June 2009):

We are living through the worst economic crises in generations…. and yet in the middle of this chaos…ordinary users are figuring out all the ingenious ways of putting these tools to use….here we are – millions of us – sitting around trying to invent new ways to talk to one another.

A few weeks ago I was at a conference in Perth where participants were engaged in a Twitter conversation within and outside of the conference regarding my keynote.

Last weekend, I was introduced to someone for the first time who told me they had been following me on Twitter for sometime.

How’s that for instant feedback!

As more people tap into the wisdom of the Twitter crowds, I am interested to see how it will be applied in learning spaces. Here are nine reasons why teachers should use twitter and twenty-two interesting ways to use Twitter in classrooms.

Twitter has the capacity to be a powerful tool for feedback (or Tweetback) particularly student to teacher feedback, which Hattie says is the most powerful form of feedback: teachers observing what students understand, where errors are made and when they are not engaged.

Independent learners

One of the things we know is that if you can develop your process for learning, then learning becomes deeper and more powerful.

I see this in so many learning spaces now as teachers begin from where the student is rather than what needs to be taught.

This is particularly challenging in the post-compulsory years particularly for students facing the HSC examination in subjects with clearly defined syllabus outcomes.

Occasionally this is used as a reason for maintaining the status quo instead of embracing new ways of learning and teaching. Katherine, an Ancient History teacher in one of our schools recently shared with me how she had been working with 17 HSC students.

Katherine shared the syllabus outcomes with her students at the start of the year and asked them to devise a suitable learning framework to cover the required areas. What the students came up with is absolutely fantastic. Their year 12 Ancient History course was conducted using Facebook (the students were using a technology they were familiar with and adapted it to their learning needs).

When you watch the clip, you see a teacher open to new technologies and excited by the level of student engagement.