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This year we close the conference with Dr Tom Hoeer fresh from the new City School in Missouri USA . Tom, a practicing principal, will share specific assumptions and practices for creating a learning organization.
“In a good school,” says Hoerr, “students learn, but in a great school, everyone learns!”
Hoerr blends the work of Roland Barth, Carol Dweck, and Jim Collins in his strategies. He will share what has worked for him as well as what keeps him awake at night.
Even at the end of a long and inspiring conference, when energy levels are flagging and concentration is wandering, teachers can still pull out all the stops for a bit of fun. Led by Allanah King a group of teachers orchestrated a flash mob at the beginning of the last keynote by Wes Fryer. Mr Fryer himself, was one of those caught up in the conspiracy. As a sign of global collaboration, NZChrissy, an NZ teacher who has recently moved to Bangkok joined in the fun, dancing along via Skype. You can view her participation from afar on her blog. The video of the impromptu dance will be posted on the blog once it comes to hand.
The final keynote was a celebration of the possibilities of ICT in the hands of talented teachers. This transformative technology provides the opportunity for teachers to reach beyond their classroom walls to give their students wide and varied experiences. Wes nicely tied together a number of the experiences of Learning@School that many delegates would have participated in – discussing best practice with one another, enthusiastically brainstorming ways these technologies can be enhanced by these best practices, and the practical excitement of learning how to use something new.
The second keynote for Learning at School was delivered by Pam Hook entitled “teaching & learning: What is happening in the ampersand”.
Pam challenged our thinking with the statement, “How can we have so much compulsory teaching going on, but kids are leaving with so little learning?” We need to be thoughtful about the way we teach the status quo is not good enough. “Thoughtful rather than panic mode” tweets Jo Fothergill
Pam put up a slide comparing the concept of ‘Teacher as facilitator’ versus ‘Teacher as activator’. These two ideas fascinate me, what is the distinction between being a facilitator of learning and an activator of learning? One sounds passive the other active, one sounds very exciting. I have never heard this before. I want to be an activator of learning. What does this actually mean? How are they different? What do they mean to you?
The New Zealand Curriculum is the way of looking carefully at our practice and bringing clarity. The principles are non negotiable. All curriculum should be consistent with the principles. You can explore more of Pam’s thinking on the curriculum at her wiki. This wiki is set up for people to join in and collaborate around thinking on the principles.
An interesting exercise would be to ask teachers in your school, “What do you thinking learning is?”
When asked this question, one teacher remarked, “my students will know that they’re learning when I smile at them”. Pam asks, how helpful is this to students if they want to know where to go next?
Ask your students what learning is? Sometimes they are better at answering this question than we are. We need to help our students look at their strengths and weaknesses whilst learning. Effective learning occurs when both the students and teachers can explain, what they are doing and how well it is going.
Tinado on Twitter asks, “I’m trying to work out the meaning of the title of this keynote, especially the word ampersand – the & symbol? Any thoughts?” We would love to hear from you in the comments.
Well it begins… (Blogged in the sessions and my ideas in italix)
Howard Baldwin is doing the introduction and we are getting the big “we need to change” message. The long tail comes out again nothing about ALL countires who speak english having a long tail … we speak a difficult language! Have to work on it but no (necessarily) a function of teacher competence!
Good to catch up with Tony Ryan and David Anderson again for a chat a registration. Looking forward to Tony coming to work with us for a teachers only day later in the term. The place is packed!
Andy Hargreaves (”the Fourth Way of Leadership and Change”):
yay – pointing out that “on most measures NZ is one of the highest performing education systems in the world!”
Pink Shirt Day – anti-bullying campaign. It is today. There is no excuse for being picked on and bullied! The key is to talk with others and depriavatise the issue. Leaders need to take the lead on this and provide an example. There are bullies in the playground AND the staffroom.
“of themselves ICT and e-learning have no demonstrable positive effect on leaning and student outcomes” … it is what we do with them that makes the difference. It is the pedagogy that goes with them that makes the difference …. or enables them to make the difference. So that why our Cluster programme focuses on pedgogy as much as the geeky stuff. That’s why purpose is paramount, particularly with ICT’s.
The first three ways of change:
Always make conscious decisions about what you keep and what you leave behind!
1. The first Way:
Teachers from the 60’s and 70’s. Teachers wanted to change the world. Lots of innovation, flexibility and freedom. Lots of inconsistency but also lots of great things happening.
2. The second Way:
Dissatisfaction with inconsistency. Very top down model. Market competition to promote improvement. Goals and targets. “beware of following the goals and patterns of other Anglo American countries who perform less well than you!”. Standardisation of curriculum leads to narrowness. This is NOT the way to move forward successfully.
3. The Third Way (Anthony Giddens – informs Tony Blairs thinking, + Bill Clinton)
trying to combine first two. Taking off pressure while increasing consistency. Public-private partnerships. Getting teachers and schools talking to each other to get people thinking and talking about their practice to spread it around. Have tended to keep the testing etc from 2nd – warns us to beware of this as a country/system – wonder if the right people are listening to this point!?
Discusses the growth and growth of Finland – top PISA education system. Successful economy. Nokia is responsible for 40% of GDP of Finland. Made active decision to become top knowledge economy in the world! Nokia used to make gumboots! … to cable insultion …. to electronics. Has taken central part of growth of Finland. Managers change role in company every 15 months. Gives bredth of understanding of whole company. Have philosophy that bad news MUST travel fast.
You create you future by connecting to the best of what you have been in the past. ALL children study musical performance to the END of high school. Creativity a key component of the whole culture. Provide food for the mind.
Teachers have high statusandd people are drawn into teahing in order to create the future of the country. Less than 10% chance of being accepted into teaching, such is the competition.
It is the mission and condition of the work that makes the difference to teaching as a profession. Teachers create a curriculum together based on broad National guidelines. Teachers responsible for ALL of the children at the school. Bringing up the kids at the bottom and ALL have role in ensuring that children are the best they can be. Collaborative trust and responsibility.
Schools belong to everyone – not “the principals”. Has leadership devolved responsibilty and enabled teachers to be able to run the school without the principal. Says if P’s phone their school today they have failed love it!!. Schools also cooperate and share financial and other resources. Schools work together for the communities. The strong SHOULD help the weak.
Giving Finland as an example of the Fourth Way. Cooperation, collaboration , sharing, social responsibility.
Poverty is no excuse for failing!
The rongness of goals and targets is the imposition of them from above …. not of targets themselves. Schools tend to set higher targets than govts will impose. Strong relationships and high trust are critical. Knowing your people well is also important – “is there close personal knowledge before spreadsheets and paperwork?”
High quality teachers essential.
The first keynote for Learning@School 09 was entertainingly delivered by Andy Hargreaves. He made the statement that to be a leader you must demonstrate the change that is needed. I heard a principal once say that leadership was leading from the front, back, sides and all angles, at the same time.
This is an ICTPD conference and Andy reminded us that research shows that e-learning or ICT has been proven to have no demonstrable affect on teaching, learning or student outcomes. What makes the difference is effective teaching practice coupled with the use of ICT and e-learning. In this vein, I looked to the collaborative efforts of the delegates to share their learning and thinking of this conference (supported by the wealth of ICT at our fingertips)…
During the keynote delegates were ‘twittering’ their responses. Rachel Boyd remarked that the “second way sounds a lot like that tick box culture where we were so worried about coverage”. Sarah Jones suggested that the keynote was reinforcing knowledge age ideas.
Heath Sawyer started an etherpad for delegates to write collaborative notes about the keynote.
Janine Durno blogged her response to this keynote:
“Today I have the pleasure of being a lone ECE girlie at the very large learning@school ICT conference in our sulphar capital, Rotorua, home to Arawa and cultural icons. Andy is the first keynote speaker, he announces pink shirt day and outs members of the audience and prepares us for a very funny speech where in parts he is stuck to the floor! Andy reminds us that no ICT will have the slightest difference in teaching and learning unless you pay attention to pedagogy and its effect, again good teachers using ICT is the most powerful thing, and not good ICT. Collaborative feedback example he gives reminds me how little we put ourselves out there for colleague feedback, but how powerful a thing for growth that would be… So how is this Programme going for you so far, what do you need to achieve your goals, I bet there are many wishes people share and I am looking forward to tuning into them at our Lead Teacher Hui. Andy takes us back to when teachers entered teachers, the 60s and 70s and disorganization, the market influences on education and governments setting criteria for education…wow we are still doing that, Margaret Carr just presented the last (will it be) set of exemplars on ‘Dimensions of Strength’ the exemplars have given us a criteria that reflects Te Whaariki, havn’t we come a long way into our stength based narrative assessment. Andy warns us about the competitive climate in the UK amongst schools and how this pushes aside our efforts to enhance teaching and learning and sharing of this. I was at a kindergarten the other day where conversations with parents on selecting services arose, parents choosing on the basis of reputation, ICT equipment and resourcing and in some cases elitism – if it costs more it must be superior??? Did you know Nokia is named after the town of Nokia, sits by the river of Nokia, named after a large furry rodent, they were a timber company, that went into rubber shoes, then into cables and then into cellphones… interesting model… if you work for Nokia you change your role every 15 months because your loyalty is to Nokia and not your part, how interesting would it be to change your role in your centre and association perhaps like this, and how well we would understand each other and what each role encompasses…”
This was an inspirational start to Learning@School. During the conference we will have many more posts by guest bloggers sharing their experiences, learning and reflections.
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