There are educators and school leaders who are paralysed by fear of a web 2.0 schooling experience, and others like Angus King, ex-governor of Maine who recognise that to do nothing is a wasted opportunity.
Angus was one of the first ‘leaders’ to make the connection by realising schooling had to change if students were going to be skilled for life and work in a knowledge economy. He set about developing a strategic plan to implement a 1:1 laptop program in Maine in 2002.
At the time, he was quoted in Wired Magazine saying “I think we’re going to demonstrate the power of one-to-one computer access that’s going to transform education.”
The large-scale roll out of computers over four years was a clever way of gaining change-momentum by not only illustrating the need for schools to ‘keep up’ with technological change but ensuring the wider community were committed. At the heart of the strategy was a clear recognition that the schooling experience for every child had to change
Angus was in Parramatta this week sharing his experiences of leading change with many of our leaders and teachers.
If you ask me to define a key hallmark of schooling in today’s world in just one word it has to be about connections. It became crystal clear after listening to designer Mary Featherston and internet whiz Michael Furdyk talk passionately about how they are facilitating connections between students, their environment, teachers, the internet, local communities as well as the global challenges.
Michael Furdyk
I discovered Michael Furdyk at the ACEL International Conference in Sydney last year. He is a 26 year old Canadian who has taken his passion for the internet and making a difference in the world to a global level by creating a website called TakingITGlobal. Michael refers to it as social networking for social good and social learning.
This not-for-profit website is giving students a voice through technology by connecting them to other like-minded students to grow ideas, share knowledge and collaborate on local and global projects. One company donated digital cameras and scanners so that students in Afghanistan and other developing countries could ’speak’ to the rest of the world. It forces us to ask what we mean when we talk about student voice!
An interesting point that Michael made in his presentation was that in a study (I think this was by Robert Epstein ‘The Case Against Adolescence’), teens in the US are on average as competent as adults when it comes to decision making. This may be surprising for some of our teachers but we have students who are already experts in using the tools. What they need is the opportunity to become leaders, peers, mentors through collaboration with other students on projects that really matter to them.
How many of our schools are prepared to take a great idea and turn it into something like TakingITGlobal? What I always find is that the work that students do when challenged in such ways always outstrips our expectations. Why not start with something that has currency such as designing relevant learning spaces? Which of our schools is prepared to take on the challenge and make the relevant connections?
Interior designer, Mary Featherston has just spent two days with us; sharing insights and experience with our system and school leaders. Interestingly, there was an article in the SMH’s Essential Lift-Out on 31 July by Andrea Jones on the design work of Mary and Grant Featherston.
We were most grateful to her for providing a fresh perspective on designing learning spaces for today’s schooling. In education as with very other sectors, there is a strongly held belief that we ‘own the game’, we know best and anyone ‘outside’ the game is too often viewed with scepticism.
Mary’s vision for creating purposeful learning spaces for children grew out of her respect for the Reggio Emilia project. Her perspective on learning spaces has challenged our thinking and pedagogical frameworks.
She views the learning space not as the sum of its parts but as an organic and complex whole.
It’s interesting that we speak of schools as being family like places where children can learn, play, share, reflect and collaborate. Yet, how many of our schools look and feel like homes or even workplaces?
How much time do we spend articulating the purpose of schooling, what feelings we want to evoke in these learning spaces and most importantly what we want our students to learn about themselves, others and their environment? If our homes can offer something valuable to the process of schooling - what other areas/social experiences/sectors can we incorporate into school design?
Stephen Heppell often talks about schools particularly high schools as artificial and punitive 19th century environments that some how we continue to replicate. The environment then shapes the learning. Since most schools are designed around how you manage the business of schooling you get factory models that see schooling as an automated process. We know and are committed to the understanding that the business of schooling is learning; therefore the question for school design is how does the environment enhance the learning of the school community?
As a designer, Mary accepts the complexities and challenges but believes we have reached a level of urgency, which forces to act and act now. We can’t wait for greenfield sites to begin the process. Schools can do much with existing classrooms if they question and change existing factory models of curriculum and pedagogy and then design accordingly.
As educators, we need the courage to challenge our own educational precepts; to step outside the classroom. In otherwords, think outside the box. Wouldn’t it be good if schools looked different from one other - reflecting the distinct and unique educational needs of each learning community?
Professor Sidney Strauss is the Chief Scientist, Ministry of Education in the State of Israel and is responsible for research into learning and teaching particularly in the area of cognition and appropriate pedagogies.
We were recently discussing the imperative of changing educational models to reflect 21st century society and the needs of today’s learners. Sid made the point that if you can change the ‘mental models’ teachers bring to the classroom, then you open a whole new world of learning opportunities.
I also caught up with Anat Zohar, Director of Pedagogical Affairs in the Ministry of Education who is driving a change process across their system of schools. Every system leader can relate to the challenge of how you embed innovation and how you create a larger network of innovative schools that are relevant in today’s world.
They are looking at a three pronged strategic appraoch that focuses on teacher-learning and development. Click here for Anat’s explanation of how they are re-focussing teaching for understanding.
I had an interesting conversation with a colleague recently about how we reconceptualise/redesign the learning space. It’s not simply about shifting furniture or painting walls but looking at how we fundamentally strengthen the relationships within those learning spaces. Can designing new learning spaces facilitate this?
Mary Featherston is an Australian interior designer with a long standing interest in learning spaces. She has documented her work with Wooranna Park PS in Victoria on her website. The report is fascinating and I was struck by this sagacious quote from the Reggio Emilia Project in Northern Italy:
can the physical environment be a teacher in itself?
If it is true, then we have deprived students of the 19th and 20th century of the opportunity to engage with their physical environment by building factory-like schools where the traditional gate-keepers of knowledge stand sentinel at the front of the classroom.
What I liked about the Inside-Out project was that students and teachers were asked to identify the activities which were to take place and the qualities they believed were important to them. The result is flexible, functional and dynamic learning spaces, which evoke ‘democracy and respect’ .
It’s not often ‘democracy’ and ‘respect’ are used by students and staff to describe their learning spaces but this is what happens when your design is built on good principles of learning, understanding how students learn and today’s pedagogy.
Teaching Australia has published Teaching for Uncertain Futures - a scenario building project involving teachers and leaders from across Australia. It describes four future scenarios for schooling and asks the provocative questions:
what will the Australian teaching profession have to do to be successful in the environments in which it will have to operate in 2030?
what are the implications of these challenges for school leadership?
We must accept that our classrooms do not represent today’s world - they are products of the 19th and 20th century. One of the defining characteristics of the 21st century is the rapidness of change particularly with technology. So what implications does this have on the teaching profession?
Whether we like it or not, teachers and school leaders will have to become ‘futurists’ if schools are to survive beyond 2030. We can no longer think about schooling locally but globally. And we must be planning in years not in weeks or terms.
How is this done? It means asking the right questions, monitoring global trends, building sustainable partnerships, understanding technology, managing risks and seizing opportunities.
If these ‘future scenarios’ do not become part of our reflective practice now, schools will certainly be obselete before 2030.
Our schools are fortunate to have worked closely with global educator - Marco Torres. Marco is passionate about the capabilities of Web 2.0 in the learning space and is able to engage and inspire not only students but our teachers!
Marco’s strategy for learning is simple - it’s about process not final product.
Marco has been capturing his work with our schools on a site called Flick School. It’s a terrific resource for educators who are dipping their toes into the Web 2.0 pool!
The last several years has seen the emergence of a growing consensus on what makes the difference in student learning. This consenus is often arrrived at from different perspectives yet the foundations for improving learning outcomes is clear.
Angus James, Director of the Business Council of Australia has written about the link between economic prosperity and quality education systems published in the Australian Financial Review (30 April 2008).
Angus believes that ‘education is not an isolated process…rather a continuum’.
It’s great to see the business sector supporting our efforts to make schooling relevant and to acknowledge that learning does not stop in Year 10 or 12.
Angus is in favour of principals recruiting their teaching staff as a way of improving the quality of teaching and therefore student learning outcomes. Principals are like coaches, each wants to be able to select the best player for the team but what happens when there isn’t enough talent in the pool to draw from?
The BCA believes the most important educational reform is to improve the quality of teaching by creating initiatives to attract and retain the best staff. This a key part of supporting good learning.
We have to always remember that our educational strategy does not miss the star player - the teacher. We must focus on our teachers if the quality of teacher is the key influence in improving student outcomes. This means a well crafted professional learning strategy involving the teacher at the centre of the strategy, not peripheral to it. It also means ensuring teachers have greater control over their working lives. Tough challenges but very doable.
As I’ve said before, raising the professional bar requires a national strategy. We need to start by:
ensuring our universities reflect learning in today’s world
developing whole of school professional learning programs
To an outsider, the education sector must seem bogged down by accountabilities. If you follow any of the debates on funding or schooling in general, it always seems to revolve around accountabilities.
We know schools are accountable to governments, the Board of Studies and parents but this view has really grown out of the 19th century model of schooling. Richard Elmore believes that if the key decision-makers are not teachers then the profession will always been in a ‘politically subservient position’.
I believe that accountability is far too often about blame rather than responsibility. Schools have a responsibility to ensure the learning outcomes for all students improve - this is what parents/community entrust teachers to do. The future of societies depend on it.
Far too often, we have outsiders, often ill-informed, prescribing what needs to occur within the learning space, and even worse, developing accountabilities, which are often linked to funding arrangements. Simplicity usually wins out on engagement around theory and practice in such approaches.
If we demand that schools become relevant in a knowledge age, then we need to refrain from imposing ‘accountabilities’. Rather, schools need robust frameworks from which good decisions about learning and teaching are made.
Helen Timperley and co. from the University of Auckland states that when these so-called outsiders develop ‘recipes for teaching’ these processes have little impact on student outcomes and cannot be sustained long -term. So, how do we wrest back some professional ownership of this critical and substantive agenda?
He’s running a discussion on teaching at a crossroadsand has, in my view, made some excellent observations about the challenges facing us all in schooling today. Judging by the comments he has tapped into some key issues. As hard as the comments may seem they have to be named and it’s an approach that I believe needs to be encouraged.
This year, we embarked on a learning conversation with school leaders, which is the core approach to delivering our system intent. We purchased a book called ‘How people learn’ by Bransford et al, which serves as our touchstone for continuing dialogue.
As I’ve said in previous posts, it is important that this theory informs our practice. I don’t think we are going to get anywhere delivering the type of schooling needed in today’s world unless we engage in a serious, rigourous investigation and reflection using contemporary educational literature.
Our literature base is well recognised and respected: Fullan, Eddy, Hargreaves, Sergiovanni, Hill, Caldwell, Timperley, Robinson, Beare and so the list goes on. These educators approach the business of schooling from a unique theoretical view point with profound implications for practice.
We have to move beyond “I think”, “I know”, “this works for me” as the only basis for informing good practice. Too often, the approach in my experience has been to maintain the status quo and to avoid the hard issues in creating a relevant schooling experience.
I believe there is an element of anti-intellectualism that exists within the education sector and it is now time to name it and deal with it. It certainly doesn’t imply that the work of teachers and their involvement in the change process is irrelevant.
In fact, I would argue that never before have we needed greater teacher involvement and active participation in the work of creating knowledge-age schools. However, participation must be informed by good theory not just personal opinion.
It is up to each learning community to identify the theoretical framework, which will inform practice and then engage regularly in intelligent and reflective dialogue on the important issues. This is done by reading, dialogue and exchange. In other words, professional learning at its best.
