When ‘Teacher Professional Learning and Development: Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration (BES)‘ was published in 2007, we invited one of the lead authors, Professor Helen Timperley to speak about the teacher inquiry cycle and its effect on improved learning outcomes. More than a decade on, we are still referring to the ‘inquiry cycle’ in our conversations … More Who is my class?
I think I’ve been in education too long because I’m becoming more frustrated with changes continually being made to the ‘curriculum’. Recently we read that the Year 12 Higher School Certificate syllabus will be overhauled following concerns that subjects were being dumbed down and we continue to fall behind globally. It is interesting to see that everything announced has been … More Spinning the chocolate wheel
Canadian principal George Couros spent last week sharing his ‘connected’ learning with our teachers and leaders. Several school leaders said they felt ‘inspired’ after hearing George talk so passionately about his students, profession and his professional learning. The workshops with George and our Principals Masterclass may look like ‘stand-alone’ or ‘one-off’ events but they are … More ‘Connected’ learning
John Hattie observed that we often think our profession is defined by autonomy or the ‘let me do it my way approach’. The problem with autonomous practice is that it isn’t informed by data and evidence but by assumptions and ideology. Without looking at student data, we aren’t looking at the reality. I came across … More From I think to we know
Dr Dean Fink was in Sydney last week as part of the Leading Educators Around the Planet (LEAP) program. Fink co-authored ‘Sustainable Leadership‘ with Andy Hargreaves in 2005 and last year published ‘The Succession Challenge’. Leadership succession is a challenge faced by schools as well as business. Fink believes succession planning is too short-term. Rather, … More Succession management
Thanks to Mark Walker for sharing a recent interview with John Hattie in the Melbourne Age. Hattie is currently in Australia, continuing the Visible Learning crusade and making a lot of common sense. Australian principals are mired in tasks that don’t have much influence on how their students perform academically. Thirty-two per cent of their time is … More It’s a matter of principals
Professor Helen Timperley from the University of Auckland was working with our school leaders last week. It was a great professional learning experience and builds on the work we have been doing for some years now on how continuously improve student learning outcomes. Helen has such a sharp and pragmatic focus. For me, it is … More Art of precision
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 … More Bogged down by accountabilities
bluyonder.wordpress.com 