Giving voice to our knowledge of practice: a promise to the profession

It has been a little while since I sat down to write; partly because I have found little to write about … that is until I read this heartbreaking article on Monday in which Lynda Thompson shares the situation surrounding the death in 2014 of her husband, school principal Dr Mark Thompson. This is beyond tragic and our shared concern and response should not be limited to school principals. Everyone involved in, or with a commitment to, educating our young people must recognise and respond to the implications of this tragedy.

The words that have struck me to the core and confirmed for me the correctness of my own professional stance over the past decade or more would resonate with many, I am sure:

Something has changed, she says, since she and Mark started teaching. “The respect for teachers and principals is not there. The trust in schools is not there,” she says.

“Parents feel they are entitled to tell you how they think the school should be run. And it’s not from an educational point of view, it’s from their own social and emotional point of view.”

Parents feel they are entitled to tell you how they think school should be run … these words echo for me. And this advice is not based on what education today needs to look like, no, it is based on their own social or emotional point of view, their own social or emotional needs. Not their children’s needs, their own needs.

At a time in history of unprecedented societal change, of unprecedented access to data and rumour across the globe, of the rise of the ‘entertainment’ class, it is so very easy for parents to compare and judge schools, either from their own personal school experience or their neighbour’s. This is all occurring at the same time when we actually know more about what education today needs to look like: how people learn, what are effective or ineffective pedagogies or teaching strategies. It is also a time when we are educating more students for longer periods in our schools within an incredibly competitive post school environment and at a time in history when teachers are probably less respected than ever before. No wonder it is difficult to attract and retain good educators.

So, what do we do in the face of this typhoon (well it feels like a typhoon for me!)? One of the driving forces of my work over some time has been to encourage my colleagues to raise the bar on their own ability to articulate what they do in the classroom and why; to be researchers of their own and their colleagues’ practice and give voice to what they know. Much of teaching in days past has been based on intuition. This no longer cuts it with our community, and neither it should, given we have the research evidence at our finger tips that can help us to make better choices and be able to articulate those decisions and outcomes. Professor John Loughran argues in his book, What Expert Teachers Do, of the value of teachers moving from a tacit to explicit stance with respect to their knowledge of practice.

It is in the shift from knowledge of practice being tacit to explicit that challenges in teaching emerge and expertise comes to the fore. (46)

Why is this important in this current context? Because once we, educators, have a shared language of our practice we are better placed to collaborate with our colleagues on improving student outcomes via our use of shared, effective pedagogies that reflect the shared value of our institutions, and we are better placed to articulate to our community why we do what we do, and why all our young people will benefit from those decisions. No one teacher, or Principal, in one school can do this alone.

Teaching is about stewardship; we hold the collective responsibility for all our students in all of our hands. To hold true to that belief we must work together to ensure the teacher in the room next door is the best teacher she can be. We are more likely to achieve this when we come together to collaborate on our pathways to best outcomes for each student. To do this we need a shared language of practice and a willingness to change in the face of data.

In that same vein, we share a responsibility to support our school leadership teams. The very personal nature of the art of teaching (my class, my room, my students, my subject) can lead us down a path of believing I alone am responsible for my student outcomes and leadership teams have no voice or no authority in that conversation. This attitude is one ensuring certain death for a knowledgeable, vibrant, inquiring, curious profession.

So I shall leave this piece where I started with a plea to all who share a concern for the education of our young people and, therefore, a concern for the professionals entrusted with that responsibility on a daily basis, to come together in a shared commitment to support each other to be the best educators we can be by articulating our knowledge of practice to ensure our communities regain that trust that is clearly lost and regain that trust before we lose any more wonderful educators like Dr Mark Thompson. Let us celebrate World Teachers’ Day with this promise.

 

Maximising our impact

In support of my argument for ensuring that we choose and use teaching strategies and organisational structures in our schools that will, in fact, have a positive impact on our students’ learning, I was pleased to be directed to this 2015 summary report from NSW Department of Education: Six Effective Practices in High Growth Schools.

In short the effective practices are listed as:

1. Effective collaboration
2. Engaging and sharing in professional learning
3. Setting whole-school goals and strategies for change
4. Using explicit and effective teaching strategies
5. Creating an environment that promotes learning and higher levels of student engagement
6. Setting high expectations for all students

It may be timely to use this research to benchmark your own or your school’s current status with respect to these six practices:

• What do we do well?
• What could we do better?
• What could we do differently this year or next year?

 

 

Avoiding superficiality in the forest of advice

This morning’s Twitter feed has brought forward a lovely representation of a gradual release of responsibility model of teaching with some sound supporting advice. Terrific!

However, in a world in which mere mortals are feeling swamped by bytes of advice, merely taking this graphic and charging down the implementation path will only lead to yet another failed intervention and even more cynical colleagues. I will restate that this model is a great one. What we must do is learn from it, not consume it.

How do we learn from the advice included with this piece? We need to connect it to what we already know about effective teaching. Does this model support or irritate our current understanding (irritate is also good; remember the oyster)? For me, this model immediately throws up a reminder of the need to better apply Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development: ‘the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers.’ (Griffin, 2014, 31)

The next connection could be to ask how we connect our current assessment practices to this notion of identifying a student’s ZPD? Is my assessment helping or hindering this task? Is my assessment creating transparency for my students about their current proficiencies and their future learning pathways? Is there a tool that could help us here?

That is where we can justify the investment of time in unpacking the Guttman analysis and applying that to our assessment process. It is important that we are not adding another layer to our work. What we need to realise is that we need a new way of thinking about assessment if we wish to be successful with a gradual release of responsibilty model of teaching. Connect, connect. I refer readers again to Patrick Griffin’s seminal work, Assessment for Teaching. Chapter 10 addresses Guttman analysis.

A Guttman chart orders actual student performances according to students’ demonstrated proficiency, and orders assessment items (questions, observations, survey responses and so on) according to their difficulty. Students with similar skills can be identified and grouped together. The skills behind each assessment items can also be grouped to see the usual order of development of the skills assessed. Finally, groups of students can be matched to the group of skills they need to develop. In this way, the assessment data can be used to provide teachers with a clear picture of what each group of students is ready to learn. With this information to hand, teachers can select strategies and resources to meet the learning needs of each group. (Griffin, 191)

So, now we have a really powerful twitter feed. Because we have made the connections between what we already know, what the feed is telling us and what more we need to know, we are in a  position to be make a change in our assessment practices that will connect to a change in our teaching. And, if we engage with our colleagues about this thinking we can broaden our shared understandings and learn with each other, support each other and celebrate our successes. No longer do we need to be the solo pine tree in the forest struggling to find the light alone. Sharing the nutrients will strengthen our growth.

Authentic leadership by example

One of the many enjoyable aspects of having extended experience in many different school contexts is being able to follow the careers of colleagues (thanks to Twitter and Facebook!). One of those colleagues has just begun a new role as Principal and this morning the local Philly newspaper published an interview which took me back to the years in which I was so fortunate to have worked alongside Steve. It was as if I was in the room listening: an authentic, belief based commentary on the priorities being faced in a new leadership position.

Some of the themes I have raised here began their lives in our conversations at that time: simple messaging of complex ideas, the need for conversations to influence change, sharing our readings.

It is also instructive to pick up on the reference to an ‘entry plan’. Steve’s belief in the need to understand before being understood is a powerful one and one that takes time and honours what has gone before. Overall, a must read for anyone contemplating the next stage of their career.

It will be a great joy to follow from afar this authentic leadership story.

Labels, behaviours and learning

In 2011 I was fortunate to have a conversation with Carol Dweck as part of our school hosting her visit and talk to our staff and parents. I had a light bulb moment!

I had read Mindset some 2 years earlier and had become obsessed with examining the number of times we use inappropriate language with our students, and our own family and colleagues, when what we are really trying to do is praise their behaviours or efforts. It is so easy to say “clever girl”, etc, when what we really mean to do is comment on what the person has done or achieved, not on the person per se.

So, back to my light bulb! In the course of our conversation it became clear that the entire movement in our education system focused on ‘gifted and talented’ students was missing the mark completely. Yes, these students may exhibit talents in certain areas, but our labelling of them was counter productive. We were giving them an entity mindset: I am gifted. That is all I need to know about myself. Dweck’s research has clearly shown that students with such a fixed mindset about their abilities can struggle with their learning. All educators need to follow this research and understand its implications.

But, not just educators. Our students’ parents must also engage in this discussion and thanks to Stephen Dinham I am more and more convinced that it is in appealing to our parents’ anxieties that we fall into the label trap. In a discussion on entity versus malleable theory of intelligence in his new book, Leading Learning and Teaching, Dinham uses the example of

“so-called ‘gifted and talented students’, by all means challenge them, accelerate their learning, and find ways to further develop their capabilities. On the other hand, if you can avoid it, don’t tell them they are gifted and perhaps, more importantly, don’t tell their parents.”(34)

Of course, every parent wants the best for their child and in his or her desire to see that child’s talents recognised in the education context, they crave to hear those words: your son or daughter has been selected for the gifted and talented program. Acknowledgement that their child is special, at last! and that specialness means they will be taught in a separate context from their peers. They are truly special, too special for the regular classroom teacher. By doing this we not only risk impeding the development of a growth mindset in the child, but we undermine the competence of our classroom teachers who cannot possibly design and deliver a differentiated curriculum that will challenge the learning needs of that special child.

We have in fact labelled two of the most crucial components of our education system: the student and the teacher and neither will benefit from the exercise. Words are powerful and will generate behaviours. We need to ensure those behaviours are positive and productive. Please think about the words we use in this learning relationship.

The Differentiation Dilemma

For many years now educators have struggled to come to terms with how we meet the learning needs of all learners in our classrooms. Clearly individual learning plans for every student in every class is not humanly possible. What is possible, though is to follow Carol Ann Tomlinson’s advice about the Key Principles of a Differentiated Classroom. Naturally we take from these principles what we see as priorities, and in my experience the focus is more on student readiness than learning profile.

Continuing my theme of promoting collaboration and professional practice, as opposed to private practice, these principles are an excellent starting point for a team conversation:

• What is respectful work?
• How we ensure we achieve the goal of maximum growth?
• How does the teacher build upon student differences?
• What does it look like in your classroom when students and teachers are collaborators in learning?
• How can we adjust our planning strategies or templates to assist in meeting these key principles?
• What does it look like when assessment and instruction are inseparable?
• What am I/ are we most comfortable in setting as a starting point for next week?
• Who can I engage with in my learning community to assist with this work?
• How do I discuss these principles with my students and their parents?

 

 

 

 

Revisiting Roland Barth

Today I am grateful to some recent tweets from Eleanor Aguilar (https://twitter.com/artofcoaching1) quoting the wisdom of Roland Barth for pointing me back to my home library in search of my copy of Roland Barth’s 2001  Learning by Heart. Here are some thoughts I had highlighted with my sticky notes 15 years ago. How relevant are they today? Could you hold a conversation in your school with these starters? Do these statements help you understand why your school does what it does?

… all school cultures are incredibly resistant to change. .. unless teachers and administrators act to change the culture of a school, all “innovations” will have to fit in and around existing elements of the culture. That is, they will be superficial window dressing, incapable of making much of a difference. (8)

 

The health of a school is inversely proportional to the number of its nondiscussables: the fewer the nondiscussables, the healthier the school; the more the nondiscussables, the more pathology in the school culture.(9)

 

… the first thing, the most important feature of the job description for each of us educators, is to discover and provide the conditions under which people’s learning curves go off the chart. Sometimes it’s other people’s learning curves: those of students, teachers, parents, administrators. But at all times it is our own learning curve. (11)

 

… a community of learners … is a community whose defining, underlying culture is one of learning. The condition for membership in the community is that one learn, continue to learn, and support the learning of others. Everyone. (13)

 

Whose learning curve goes off the chart by doing that? is a revolutionary question whose time has finally come. (15)

 

If it’s true that character is what you do when no one is looking, then learning is what you do when you’re not graded for it. (18)

 

I believe that the first step in reforming the learning experiences of young people is to reform the learning experiences of the adults responsible for young people’s education. (75)

 

More to come ….

 

To know, to understand in the no-gatekeeper era

AC Grayling has commented this morning in a radio interview of the significant challenge faced by educators in helping students navigate the dense information terrain brought to us by the www and to evaluate what is found. We know this, but it is timely to consider how we do this, especially when a thinker as notable as AC Grayling considers it to be challenging and important. The old style gatekeepers are gone, so how do our students become their own gatekeepers? How do our students discriminate between knowing stuff and understanding information?

In the first instance we need to acknowledge that generating stuff from an internet search is just that: generating stuff, finding data. In and of itself it has little or no meaning, so we should not be getting too excited and certainly not be spending the majority of our time on finding stuff. How much time do you students spend on this stage of their understanding journeys?

When do the results of our searching take on some meaning? When we organise it is some way. How do your students develop the skills of organising their search results? How do you help them develop a scaffold? How do you provide a template? How do you help them know which sites are valid, biased, prejudiced or just plain bogus? If these are questions that concern you, ask your colleagues how they go about addressing these questions with their students.

After organising data into information, comes understanding. What insights can our students generate concerning the information they have now generated? This is the area that definitely requires multiple colleague input. What do we mean by understanding? How can I design a product that will enable my students to demonstrate their understanding? The best resources available for this sit in the materials from Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe: Understanding by Design. Now there’s a good catalyst for a professional learning conversation! And, of course that is another way of navigating the vast forest: start with an acknowledged source. What are your colleagues’ trusted starting points? How can you share those?

The Olympics of Learning

An Olympics induced  hiatus in my ponderings on learning has now come to an end, however, the links between the events of the 31st Olympiad and the classroom are salient.

I recall leading a workshop in recent times focussing on the necessary complexities of differentiation in our classrooms. It happened that the 2010 World Cup was on the horizon so making the link between the likely ‘winners’ of that competition and success in our differentiation strategies was pertinent: the winners would be those who trained, practised, tried new skills, took on feedback and strove again to be the best team they could be. The winners would not be those who attended the most professional learning seminars, workshops or conferences without making any attempt to change practice, examine the impact and try again. 

Whilst it is incumbent on any school leadership to paint the vision and direction of expected pedagogical behaviours, it is, more importantly, incumbent on all of us, in our own classrooms, to ensure that how we are teaching is just as timely as what we are teaching.

What, then are the influences on how we are teaching? How do we best determine these influences? How do we collaborate to share our successful strategies or unpack our problems of practice? It is by tackling these tough practice questions that we shall build a culture of success, a culture in which the success of the teacher in the classroom next door is just as important as my own success.

The Olympics of learning will not happen with just one participant; a culture of success for all our students will not happen with just one participant. So, step up to the blocks and over coffee today ask your buddy what worked well for them today in class?

Distracted by fads

As we explore the issues of burn out in our teachers, it is also timely to consider where we ask out educators to spend their time. Much is made of the need to ensure we are using effective pedagogies, yet, at the same time, we see an urge to fads in our schools.

It is heartening to see luminaries such as Andy Hargreaves and Stephen Dinham warn us of the danger of asking our teachers to spend time on strategies with no proven value in promoting student learning.

It is also a good reminder that following the thinking of these thought leaders is easy with social media and takes just a few minutes a day. This would be a good sharing session with staff: what has your social media prompted your curiosity this week?