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• Engaging and Challenging Teachers – Engaging and Challenging Students

  June 17, 2011 2:04 PM Comments Off on Engaging and Challenging Teachers – Engaging and Challenging Students

   Kids just know that they don’t have an option to not do their work… I always had successful students, but now everybody is successful… It’s not that the kid doesn’t want to do it. It’s that the kid is unable to do it the way we are asking them to…  It doesn’t make sense to factor in zeros. That is not a true reflection of what kids know; they don’t know nothing… A lot of the mystery of where marks come from is gone now… If they haven’t learned then I haven’t taught them and I am the one who needs to do things differently… It really makes me look at how far we’ve come, really, in everything… I think the kids here recognize that they have something special.

  – Excerpts from a video of teachers talking about their work and their growth over the last few years.

  As part of our ongoing school improvement at Cornwallis Junior High in Halifax, we included the full school community – families, staff, and students – in a comprehensive process to identify our strengths and challenges. We questioned our core beliefs, practices, and purpose, and we sought out ways to offer the best possible learning opportunities.

  Our conclusion: Yes, we were a good place, but not equally good for everyone. Some students were not engaged or successful. It was time for meaningful focused change.

  We decided to dig deep into our own beliefs and practices, excavate those that were not learning supportive, and focus on developing a strong foundation on which to base improvement strategies. We prepared to make a shift in our way of seeing assessment, and in turn student learning, with carefully targeted, research-based professional development.

  We used the works of diverse educational researchers. Rachel Kessler’s The Soul of Education and Parker Palmer’s Courage to Teach led us to deep reflection, trust, and honesty; the work of Rick Stiggins and Ken O’Connor on authentic assessment practices informed our own learning and that of our students; and the broad research related to effective schools and professional learning communities informed our design of an effective student support structure.

  In the past, struggling students were encouraged to attend extra help sessions – but the choice was theirs…We were leaving the choice of whether to succeed or fail in the hands of 12-14-year-olds!

  We identified two key strategies that could move us forward: 1) targeted and consistent student support; and 2) a focus on outcomes based assessment that supports learning. These strategies are embedded in our processes of reflection and analysis, and in our willingness to embrace change.

  Core Strategies

  Student Success Support Pyramid

  Our original data indicated that only 55 percent of our students were meeting most of the outcomes in every subject. When we looked at report card data, we saw that the comments for students not achieving outcomes were limited to three areas: not handing in work they had completed, not completing homework, and not taking advantage of extra help. We were leaving the choice of whether to succeed or fail in the hands of 12-to-14-year-olds!

  In the past, struggling students were encouraged to attend extra help sessions – but the choice was theirs. The majority of those who chose to attend succeeded; those who opted out did not. We realized that students need interventions that are directive, not invitational, and that occur within the school day. So we implemented a Student Success Support Pyramid (SSSP) of interventions that included mandatory extra help and work completion support.

  It took two years (2007-09) for us to fine tune our lunchtime mandatory Guided Study Hall (GSH) program, but it is now accepted as an integral part of our academic culture. When a student is assigned to GSH, the teacher notifies the Vice Principal, who informs the parents/guardians that their child will be attending GSH and asks them to make sure that their child brings a lunch the next day. The teacher e-mails the GSH teacher with the work that needs to be completed. After each session the GSH teacher e-mails assigning teachers and the VP, detailing the work that has been completed. The process has been so effective that students now self-assign because they recognize the benefits to their learning.

  Assessment

  We believe that effective assessment is central to providing students, and their teachers, with a clear understanding of their learning. This understanding allows students to develop self-advocacy skills that will benefit them throughout their lives. Our school-based in-services have focused on classroom assessment of, for, and as student learning. To support this shift, individual teachers have attended conferences and sessions related to differentiated instruction, formative assessment, mentoring and co-teaching, curriculum alignment, effective schools, the What did you do in school today? initiative, and data collection analysis.

  We have moved well beyond the assessment processes that resulted more in sorting students than assessing learning. Our assessment, teaching, and learning practices now focus on supporting every student in successfully achieving the outcomes. We have made great strides toward closing the achievement gap and are working to raise the bar for those students who would benefit from more finely tuned challenges. Establishing and articulating this “right level of challenge” is an important goal as we seek to make our junior high school a place where all students succeed.

  Challenges Met

  These are some of the challenges that we encountered, and how we met them:

  Cultural Shift

  • Developing the level of trust required for deep reflection on our own practice and the naming of our own challenges and strengths so that we can each find our entry point into the process.

  It takes time to build enough trust to realize our challenges and show vulnerability with our colleagues.

  • Working through our individual philosophical struggles with forms of assessment that moved us away from punitive assessment practices to true outcomes-based assessment; that eliminated the grading of behaviour; and that allowed for multiple opportunities and multiple ways of representing learning.
  • Shifting from a culture of seeing students as “lazy” or “not caring” to one that sees them as needing more targeted support.

  One of the unpredicted benefits from our shift to a true learning culture is the ability to more readily identify students with learning challenges. Once the appropriate learning supports are put in place (often forms of assistive technology or environmental strategies), these students are able to shine.

  Student Success Support Pyramid

  • Including the Guided Study Hall as part of the teachers’ regular teaching schedule.

  Previously, teachers volunteered extra help, so making GSH a part of a teacher’s timetable created a timetabling challenge. It also signified a commitment to this process of student support. Teachers continue to offer extra help before and after school.

  • Shifting from a sense of “punishment” to “support” for lunchtime interventions.

  Lunchtime had been used for detentions, so when we shifted to lunchtime GSH and lunchtime Resource, it took time for students and families to see it as support rather than punishment.

  • Developing a central referral system that kept communication clear among teachers, students, and families.

  Initially teachers called home to inform families of the student’s referral to GSH. This became so cumbersome for teachers that they were reluctant to assign students to GSH. When this communication became part of the Vice Principal’s assignment, it worked more smoothly and efficiently.

  Assessment

  • Shifting from assessment that sorts to assessment that informs learning.

  Shifting to assessment that not only allows for, but encourages, multiple opportunities for demonstrating achievement and does not punish students for taking more time to learn has been difficult for some to accept. We use the “driver’s licence” analogy to explain our learning model to new staff and to families. We give students multiple opportunities to demonstrate their learning, and we do not average those assessments. When they get it, they’ve got it, just like a drivers licence.

  • Targeting professional development to meet teachers where they were in their assessment practice, while ensuring that we continued to move forward as a group.
  • Developing flexible timetabling that allowed time for teachers to support each other.

  There can be great resistance to changing old habits, traditions, and ways of seeing. We believe that all teachers want to be good teachers – the best that they can be – and once they see the benefits of these shifts in beliefs about learning they will move forward with a passion. It comes down to this: once we know something, we are faced with the question “What do we do with what we know?” And there are some ‘knowings’ that are so elemental that they will not allow us to not act. Just as the students know that the supports are in place and they “do not have the option of not doing the work”, teachers need to know that the supports they require will be in place as they proceed on this change journey.

  Cultural Shift

  As a result of these strategies and meeting these challenges, there has been a shift in the academic culture of our school. We are now engaging students and teachers in what matters most: teachers feeling successful with all students and students feeling successful in their learning. Students recognize that they are expected to succeed and that there are supports in place to help them. They are beginning to understand how to take responsibility for their own learning.

  As a staff, our conversations are related to how we can support each child’s learning because we believe each child wants to and can learn. Teachers can name the changes they have made and how these changes have gone to a deep level that causes them to question, even beyond the school setting. We ask ourselves, what are we missing and how can we best serve the students’ needs? We then act collectively to support each student. Our student achievement data indicate that we have made great gains in closing the achievement gap. Currently 89 percent of our students are meeting outcomes in all subjects; our goal is 100 percent.

  We are now engaging students and teachers in what matters most: teachers feeling successful with all students and students feeling successful in their learning.

  Another result of this shift in the learning culture is that students now realize that “not doing the work” is no longer an option. Supports are in place for students who need them, and we review both student progress and supports on an ongoing basis. As a result, we are now more successful at engaging students where they are as individuals.

  Conclusion

  There is something special about the way we have learned together and how we now see ourselves as learners. This intimate process has moved us forward with passion and skill, both collectively and individually. We have created the expectation that everyone will succeed. In a true learning culture, students lose the feeling of self-consciousness – lose the fear of being judged. They are comfortable as themselves and as learners. They are able to take risks, and teachers are able to meet them where they are. When we break through the barriers that hold young adolescents back, they can be successful and proud of who they are. They can become the best they can be. 

  EN BREF – La communauté d’apprentissage de l’école Cornwallis Junior High à Halifax a suivi un processus de réflexion et d’analyse, établissant deux stratégies clés pour appuyer l’apprentissage de tous les élèves : un soutien ciblé et constant des élèves et un accent sur l’évaluation axée sur les résultats. En intégrant à la journée scolaire et en rendant obligatoires l’aide supplémentaire et l’achèvement des travaux pour les élèves en difficulté, on a supprimé l’option de « ne pas faire le travail », réduisant considérablement le taux d’échec. En évaluant en fonction de l’apprentissage acquis, l’école a beaucoup progressé pour combler l’écart de réussite et travaille maintenant à relever la barre pour les élèves susceptibles de profiter de défis plus adaptés.

• Off the Menu: Gulf Islands’ Leadership “Special”

  June 16, 2011 6:58 PM Comments Off on Off the Menu: Gulf Islands’ Leadership “Special”

  Debbie Magnusson: Our first coaching session took place on a picnic bench across the road from the School Board Office. I was coaching Jeff Hopkins, Superintendent for the Gulf Islands School District. A lively conversation in this quiet setting marked the beginning of 12 coaching sessions through the fall of 2008. We invited Lizzy Rowe to join us in developing a proposal for a system-wide coaching initiative that is currently in Phase 2.

  From August 2009 to January 2010, all educational leaders (principals, vice-principals, and directors) in School District #64 were invited to participate in an educational leadership coaching initiative. Fourteen chose to engage with a coach for ten individual sessions. These participants were coached to develop and focus on specific goals and objectives of their own choosing, often related to school goals or, in some cases, personal development goals. In addition, participants identified their own critical leadership and team behaviours, which were then used to help realize the goals.

  For educational leaders, the opportunity to participate in the coaching process – where individualized professional development occurs – is a unique event, often available only to corporate executives.

  We define leadership coaching as the art of enabling leaders to identify and achieve what matters most for them in their professional lives. Coaching is not a casual conversation, therapy, or consultation with an expert who provides answers. A coach brings her presence, deep listening skills, powerful questions, and relevant tools and resources to support the individuals and challenge them to clarify and realize their goals.

  Coaching is not a casual conversation, therapy, or consultation with an expert who provides answers. 

  After consultation with the coaches, the Superintendent set the following goals for the system-wide coaching initiative:

  1. To provide educational leaders with an individualized coaching experience.
  2. To develop the leadership capacity of educational leaders through setting and achieving their educational goals.
  3. To assist educational leaders to become more aligned as a team.
  4. To further the district’s initiative of a constructivist approach to learning.

  Although one-on-one coaching sessions were the foundation of the initiative, all participants also met with the Superintendent and their coaches to review their coaching goals as a strategy for building district-wide alignment. This provided one more avenue for the Superintendent to be aware of professional growth objectives of the system’s educational leaders and to shed light on where to lend his support. In addition, the entire cohort met once in a World Café format to discuss their coaching experiences, and the two coaches met with the Superintendent on a monthly basis to reflect on the initiative’s progress, report on common themes, and sustain the Superintendent’s support of district leaders.

  Lizzy Rowe: The organizational strategies we used in addition to one-on-one coaching provided a wonderful opportunity to accelerate the achievement of School District goals. They gave the necessary time and framework for team development and goal acquisition.

  Before beginning Phase I, all fourteen participants agreed to provide feedback via an online survey at two time points: prior to their first coaching session and after their last coaching session. Having external evaluator Denise Buote (of Arbor Educational and Clinical Consulting) compile the data was critical for determining the value of the initiative. Almost all participants in the coaching responded positively to the experience. Specifically they noted the following key benefits:

  • Increased level of confidence in their skills
  • Formulated goals and actions
  • Enhanced clarity of work priorities
  • Increased self-reflection
  • Increased awareness of communication
  • A greater sense of support

  In turn, these benefits impacted their professional lives by increasing their overall engagement in professional development, helping them focus on topics of interest, increasing reflective practice, and providing them with new skills. 

  Overall, they noted that the three aspects of coaching that made the biggest difference were enhancing their communication skills, discussing issues with a supportive outside person, and affirming their professional efforts. From their interactions with their coaches, participants acquired new or enhanced communication skills that they were implementing with their staff, such as asking questions in a more effective manner, setting goals, and using more strategic thinking. In addition to changes in interaction style, individuals also noted that they were more focused on increased accountability, management and organizational skill development, and actively identifying areas for professional growth. 

  A key component of the success of this initiative was the relationship of the educational leaders with their coaches. Participants reported a high level of satisfaction with the relationship, the coach’s ability to adapt to changing needs, and the guidance offered by the coach. All participants rated the overall coaching experience as “very good” or “excellent”. (The full evaluative report is available at  www.sd64..bc.ca/dist_downloads/lci-eval.pdf) 

  Debbie Magnusson: It’s both a privilege and a pleasure to do this work. I love talking with people and, being a retired teacher, I care deeply about education. This work helps me stay involved by helping the educational leaders. Sometimes I am simply a sounding-board, but I also give support for developing communication skills and setting goals for growth and change within their schools.  

  Everyone involved agrees that the Superintendent must be the first client in any district-wide initiative, because his or her involvement leads to shared experience, strong sponsorship, and modelling professional growth as a leader.  In addition, documenting the success of Phase I gave the district’s trustees a clear signal that their financial investment in Administrative Professional Development was well spent. Now in Phase II, five additional clients have been added to the initiative. Options to further personalize the coaching now include the client determining the number of sessions (up to 10), the frequency of sessions, and the duration over which they occur. Phase II clients have contracted to develop a feedback survey to learn how their “stakeholders” view their goal achievement, a strategy that proves to augment the leaders’ self-reflection.

  It is very easy to be caught in your own little world sometimes…it can be a bit frightening when you don’t know if you have reflected on something in every way, if you have measured all the potential for unintended consequences.

  Jeff Hopkins: The coaching initiative went beyond my expectations for the following reasons. I was amazed at the depth at which people were willing to work in such a new initiative. The clients were more open than I thought they might be at first, contributing to a culture of overt change. Clients made personal shifts. Much of what they worked on had to do with plugging into a bigger, district-wide picture, not just their own school or setting. I was 100 percent impressed with the choices people made about what to work on. Sometimes I would hear from teachers about something happening in the schools that told me clients must be sharing their coaching goals with their staff.

  Other districts in B.C. have employed coaches to work with individual principals in their district, but we are unaware of any other district that has structured a coaching experience that synergistically impacts the multi-levels that influence educational growth and change. 

  In an attempt to give a glimpse into the coaching experience from both angles, we share the following exchange.

  JH: Why did you propose to coach a cohort of people in school and district leadership positions?

  DM: It’s funny, because I didn’t originally think of coaching a cohort; I thought of just coaching you as the Superintendent because I’m aware that the person who is overseeing an organization really needs to understand what the coaching experience is. I felt that I could be of service to someone who not only had to manage an administrative team, but had to interact with the parents, the community, and the students. You work with a very broad base of people.

  DM: Even before this district initiative, you already were thinking about being coached; it was something that was already in your mind. Looking back, can you describe how your leadership was altered by that coaching experience? 

  JH: I think it gave me a great deal, including a place to think outside of my own head, which I didn’t realize I needed and didn’t have a way of doing by myself. So, it was like reflecting and having someone help me unpack some of that, helping me ask myself some questions that I might not have asked otherwise. It is very easy to be caught in your own little world sometimes. When you are making decisions that affect so many people, it can be a bit frightening when you don’t know if you have reflected on something in every way, if you have measured all the potential for unintended consequences. I think because of the way you coach, some of your hard “cognitive dissonance” kinds of questions not only helped me reframe things, but also modeled for me the way I might ask questions of other people. So there is sort of a domino affect here as well.

  DM: Can you remember a question I’d asked?

  JH: Well, while I might often ask myself, “How would an action you’re planning to implement look from my point of view?” you would ask, “What would person X think if you did this?” Those questions are powerful and simple. After you’ve tried thinking that way, you wonder why you haven’t always thought that way. 

  DM: Do you think that opportunity for your own personal reflection came about because there is an external person asking questions?

  JH: That’s an interesting question. Why can’t people engage in that kind of reflection anyway without the external person? But it’s important that the coach is external to the changing organization so that the leader feels like he or she can talk to a person who is not being swept along in the changes as well. A coach is almost as close as you can get to an objective observer, asking questions that can sort of snap you out of your context every once in a while, and look at things from someone else’s point of view – allowing you to get your bearings before you step back into your own context again. 

  JH: Were you at all surprised at how easy it was for people to allow you to coach them?

  DM: I think there were some people who were nervous at the beginning. You never

  know what will happen when you enter a new relationship with someone; especially

  when you’ve known them in a different context. Even if they are people we already know while in a previous role, it can take some time. But forming those relationships as quickly as we did was a positive experience. I felt trusted.

  DM: You were very transparent. You spoke about being coached to the principals and vice-principals right at the beginning of our coaching sessions. You would bring things to the team meetings and talk about what you were working on in your coaching.

  JH: I wanted people to know about my own coaching, so they would see that I

  viewed it as a good thing to do and not something you do only when you are in trouble

  or when something is going wrong. And then, I could let people know that some of my actions and ideas came from my coaching conversations.

  JH: How significant was it that we didn’t set the coaching goals for others – that they weren’t subject to approval or even looked at individually, but rather in a thematic, general way?                       

  DM: To establish a trusting relationship, it’s up to the coach and the individual client to set the goals. In fairness to boards or districts that might be footing the bill, I think there could be a place to set an overarching goal. That might be disruptive; I don’t know. But I think our decision was a good one. We told people up front that if we saw a goal that was common to three or more people, we would let you know what it was, but not who the goal-setters were. 

  JH: Did you find yourself adapting your coaching in any way as people took on more challenging pieces and as your relationships grew?

  DM: Absolutely. We started with a pretty clear format of setting goals in advance and working toward those goals, but much of it ended up being based on individual need. For one person, every session would flow from just writing down what was at the top of his thinking list. It had nothing to do with long-term goals. It was always in the moment. And I think that was the best support I could have offered that person. So letting go and just being with the clients where they need support really turned out to be the right thing. Leadership is really the common thread, regardless of what size or type of school district, or even what kind of business you are leading.

  DM: How do you feel now, about the progress you’ve made – both personally and as a system?

  JH: You probably remember that personalized yet systemized learning was the primary goal I set at my first coaching session. I think this coaching experience has given the educational leaders in our district an experiential replica of this goal. They have been free to progress in directions that suit them individually – so the school and staff each leads, yet each is able to feel connections to the entire organization and its various parts.

  EN BREF – D’août 2009 à janvier 2010, quatorze chefs de file en éducation du School district #64 de la Colombie-Britannique ont participé à une initiative d’encadrement individualisé du leadership en éducation. Ces pédagogues ont été conseillés en vue d’élaborer et de privilégier des buts et objectifs précis de leur choix touchant souvent leurs objectifs scolaires et, parfois, leurs objectifs de développement personnel. Ils ont également dégagé leurs propres comportements critiques de leadership et d’équipe, qui ont ensuite contribué à atteindre leurs objectifs. Dans l’ensemble, il a été noté que les trois aspects d’encadrement les plus utiles ont concerné l’amélioration des compétences en communication, la discussion de problèmes avec une personne  extérieure avertie et l’affirmation de leurs efforts professionnels.  

• A Modest Proposal – Podcast Newsletters

  June 11, 2011 10:36 PM Comments Off on A Modest Proposal – Podcast Newsletters

  Podcasting has become so simple that I think its time for it to replace the good old newsletter.  This was first suggested to me, and is demonstrated weekly, by Kurtis Hewson, an elementary principal in Claresholm, Alberta.

  Every Sunday, Kurtis makes a few notes and then sits down in front of his computer for 10 minutes and simply narrates the events of the week that has past and what is upcoming in the week ahead.  Then, with a couple of clicks the video is posted to the school web site, where parents know they can go for the weekly news.  Its simple, its engaging, its far less work than a newsletter, its green and it never gets lost on the way home.

  This idea could be easily adapted by Classroom Teachers, Coaches, Superintendents, Trustees and others for their communications.

  So what are the caveats?  There are lots of “problems” one can think of, but problems are not reasons to stand still.  Hands up everyone who thinks printed newsletters are an elegant and effective communication device.  I don’t see many hands!  Of course not.  Newsletters are just a habit, and habits are hard to change because we gloss over the problems in the familiar present and get fixated on imagined challenges in the unfamiliar future.

  Not everyone can get onto the internet at home.  What to do?  Set up a terminal in the library and invite parents to use it when they drop the kids off?  Does the public library have such an access point?  Burn a few DVDs that can be borrowed from the office?  I’m not that creative, but I am certain that others who want to solve this problem could do so – or at least they could find a response that ‘satisfices’ as much as current practice.

  They say that public speaking is one of most people’s greatest fears so will principals be brave enough to go on the internet for all to see – forever.  Not much to say here, except “get over it.”  You can’t hide forever.  Once you try this you’ll love it.

  Of course, some things may not fit in this format.  Some print or graphic notices would can be put on the web site in the same area as the podcast.  And perhaps parents do need to post some papers on the fridge with schedules or phone numbers or some such durable information for which they prefer not going to the school web site.  If so, send home a notice – and then mention it in your podcast.  I’ll bet you don’t have to do that more than a couple of times a year.

  This is an entirely practical idea that could be very much more effective than newsletters.  But you know what be even better?  Get the kids to do it!  That would not only get us dipping our toe into the technological pool and thus gaining skills and confidence that can migrate into the classroom, but it would also be a way to start letting go of hegemonic adult control – and that’s an equally important part of the change that is required for 21st Century Learning.

• edCamp Vancouver

  June 8, 2011 2:03 PM Comments Off on edCamp Vancouver

  I’ve attended my fair share of professional development conferences over the course of my teaching career and, with few exceptions, they have all been pretty similar in both design and effect. 

  Most have been built around a theme chosen by an organizing committee. Most have featured at least one known and validated keynote voice. A pre-determined slate of workshop offerings, a substantial lunch and a robust publisher’s display are also very familiar features of traditional conferences. Oh, and coffee…lots of coffee! 

  It’s a structure that has been in place for years and its a structure that most of us have come to expect when we choose to attend a conference. Until recently, that is…

  There’s a new kid on the block, one that’s determined to change our perspective on what professional development looks like, sounds like, and, yes, even what it tastes like!

  The EdCamp movement began in the spring of 2010 as about a dozen educators from the Philadelphia area, many of whom had been involved in another unconference-type initiative decided to use the model to create an event for teachers. Over the past year, other EdCamps have been organized around the U.S. and this spring, excitement around the model drifted north of the border and resulted in EdCamp Vancouver in April.

  The EdCamp model forces us to engage in some pretty fundamental questions about both the form and function of professional development. And I can imagine that one of the first questions that threatens to stare down anyone considering planning an EdCamp is “What’s left?” Once you take away the expensive keynote, the fancy venue, the workshop leaders, the promise of lunch and coffee breaks, what do you have remaining? 

  It’s a powerful question, but the answer, I’ve discovered, is even more powerful. In a sense, when you strip away all of the “trappings” of the traditional professional development conference, you’re really just left with one thing: the voices of the participants. And as you listen to the voices that begin to emerge, you realize that they are voices full of creativity, passion, commitment and hope. You also realize that these are voices that are anxious to be heard and even more anxious to actively participate in the work of transforming education. 

  These are the voices that you will hear in the latest Teaching Out Loud podcast, recorded live at EdCamp Vancouver in April. These are the voices that are beginning to emerge as other Canadian EdCamp events come on line this year: EdCamp Quinte in May 2011, and EdCamp Montreal in November. And these are the voices that I’m encountering as I work with others to plan EdCamp Toronto in the fall of 2011. 

  Over the next few weeks, I will be adding more in this space about the EdCamp model, some of the finer details about planning an event, the processes that are at the heart of the idea, and information about upcoming Canadian events. We’ll also chat about the challenges involved in gathering and mobilizing these emergent voices across the country. 

  For now, allow me to introduce you to some of the passionate folks that I met in Vancouver. To be sure, they exemplify what it means to teach and to learn out loud! Thanks to David Wees and his planning team for extending a warm welcome and for agreeing to share their thoughts on the day.

• Pasi Sahlberg: A view from Europe: What is next for Finland?

  June 7, 2011 3:29 PM Comments Off on Pasi Sahlberg: A view from Europe: What is next for Finland?

  Pasi Sahlberg, Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation in Helsinki, discusses Finland’s education performance.

• A Modest Proposal – Let’s Flip the Class

  June 5, 2011 9:45 PM Comments Off on A Modest Proposal – Let’s Flip the Class

  In his June 5th Blog, Larry Cuban comments: “Lecturing is performing, a way of conveying knowledge in a fresh way, a way of bridging oral tradition and visual culture that teachers, professors, and so many others have continually adapted to new media … With all of the concern for student-centered inquiry and using tougher questions based upon Bloom’s Taxonomy, one enduring function of schooling is to transfer academic knowledge and skills (both technical and social) to the next generation. Social beliefs in transmitting knowledge as a primary purpose of schooling remain strong and abiding . So lecturing and questioning will around for many more centuries.”

  Perhaps this is true, but it still leaves open the question of how the “lecture” portion of instruction is provided.  One promising practice is to “flip the class.”  This phenomenon seems to have originated with the Khan Academy, but it does note merely mimic that limited – some say flawed – approach and takes several forms.

  For example, a teacher (or a department or a district or a province) can present the lecture portion of a course – in whole or in part – as a series of podcasts and require students to view the lecture outside of class as their “homework.”  The individual activity that students would traditionally have done at home then becomes a class-based tutorial in which students work together in groups to complete the assignment while the teacher circulates to assist as necessary and perhaps to interject with a brief comment to the class if a common misconception or difficulty emerges.

  This is a good example of using digital innovations to create more personal contact time between student and teacher as well as creating cooperative learning time.  For students, it eliminates that sinking feeling that comes when one starts the homework and  suddenly realizes it does not make sense.  That’s when the phone lines heat up.  Wouldn’t it be better to make this discovery in class when there is a friend or teacher immediately available to talk about it.  For teachers, it eliminates the hours spent outside of class with students who come in desperately seeking help (and who then probably do their Chemistry homework surreptitiously in French or while they gulp down their lunch).

  There is also an additional task for the teacher, which is creating the podcast.  However, this is now technically trivial so anyone can do it with ease and it is a task that could be shared with other teachers of the same subject, each taking their favourite topic and perfecting their lecture on it.  There is no need for it to be a polished production with multiple takes and so on.  After all, lectures aren’t.  Students just want the goods, not another music video.  And once a podcast is “in the can” there is no need to change it unless some improvement can be made.

  The lectures themselves can be posted to a Youtube or Vimeo channel so that students can view them, and review them as often as necessary, at a time convenient to them.

  It would be foolish to suggest that video lectures are sufficient as instruction or that they replace teachers, but that does not mean that we cannot do them in a better way.  Flipping the class has been shown to have many benefits and its one more way for teachers to merge onto the high-tech highway.

• Isolating public education from the shifting winds of politics

  June 2, 2011 1:54 PM Comments Off on Isolating public education from the shifting winds of politics

  Over the past few weeks, I have argued that the publicly funded schools in Canada and the U.S. are not doing well in terms of educating youth for citizenship in a democracy. The nub of my argument is that the graduates of our public schools, with outstanding exceptions, fall short of parental hopes and expectations – specifically in their too-frequent lack of readiness to take on the responsibilities and accountability of adulthood.

  A reliable measure of that shortfall is the explosive growth of private and home schooling over the past generation. There are now about 3,000 private schools in Canada and as many as 80,000 kids or more being home schooled. The consequent loss to the public schools of some of their most promising students raises the spectre of a public system, in the not too distant future, beggared of quality staff and resources. Already in some big cities in the U.S., the public schools are populated mainly by underprivileged youngsters under the eye of teachers, many of whom hate their work. A doleful picture.

  There are impressive records of community-based education changing the climate of public schooling in the direction of civic mindedness and away from mere careerist ‘self-centredness’. On the dark side of the ledger is the history of political reaction against progressivism in public education dating back to the 1980s. The reactionary forces have easily carried the day – more prescriptive curriculum, standardized tests, penalties for under-performing schools, merit pay for teachers, austerity in funding, enthroning of accountability for school boards and schools. As the saying goes, the natives are restless. Proposed major changes include isolation of public education from the shifting winds of politics, greater autonomy for school boards as education agents, official encouragement of professional status for teachers, involvement of community bodies both private and public in the education process.

  My preference leans to the last one of the list, which, in turn, depends heavily on all of the above for realization.  This will be hard sell. A good place to start without upsetting too many apple carts would be the engagement of service agencies and private entrepreneurs in the education process — in limited ways but with potential for major impact on the maturation process of teenagers. I shall return to this next time.  

• A Modest Proposal – Online Requirement for Graduation

  May 26, 2011 3:42 PM Comments Off on A Modest Proposal – Online Requirement for Graduation

  Online courses and pro-d programs have expanded rapidly and will continue to do so.  The ability to learn in an online environment will be an important life skill in the foreseeable future, and arguably is already.  So, why don’t we make completion of at least one such course part of every student’s graduation program?

  OK, let’s just skip the “yabbuts” for now.  That’s always an easy response/excuse, but these are problems to be solved not reasons to stall.  If this is a good idea, let’s do it.  But what makes it a good idea?

  The benefit for students seems clear to me.  Assuming a good quality course, which I will address in a moment, the experience of learning online in a supportive environment is good preparation for a world in which this will be increasingly common and expected in all careers, and also important for personal fulfillment.

  There are also benefits for the school system and for teachers.  This policy would be a lever that would force change in the system as it addressed the need for instructors capable of providing the course, providing access for students who require it and whatever policy and technical issues that are lagging and in need of update to support this change.  For individual teachers, it provides an opportunity to develop understanding and comfort in the online environment that is inexorably bearing down upon them.  School systems would need to provide support for this learning, the benefits of which would extend beyond the particular course to the more general need to incorporate new technologies into instruction.

  Imagine that a particular course in the graduation years were to be converted to online only provision.  In British Columbia, for example, it might be the Planning 10 course, which is intended to “enable students to develop the skills they need to become self-directed individuals who set goals, make thoughtful decisions, and take responsibility for pursuing their goals throughout life.”  Rather than just point students at a web site and wish them luck, the course could be organized as a hybrid; that is, face-to-face meeting with students from time to time (more at first and less later in the course) and the balance of the learning activities conducted asynchronously by students individually or in groups on their own time.  This would enable teachers to provide supportive scaffolding as students learned to be increasingly self-disciplined and self-regulating.  For those students who wish or require it, computer access could be available through the school library or computer lab.

  The school system would have to establish an appropriate hardware and software environment, and also provide support for teachers in learning to employ it.  Teachers would need to accept responsibility for this learning and thus for increasing their proficiency in the online environment.  Reluctance to accept this challenge is understandable, but, I would suggest, no longer acceptable for either school systems or teachers.

  The first attempts at such instruction might be somewhat primitive imitations of traditional instruction.  It takes time to learn to exploit the potential of the technology but every journey begins with a single step, and this one is over due.  There is no advantage to further delay.

  There are also many organizational issues to resolve.  Should students be required to be in a classroom during the scheduled time for this course even if its not a face-to-face day?  Do students have to be in school at all during at such times?  How will computer access be organized for those who require it?  Teachers for this course will need to have their own computer for planning and for student interaction.  Will they then be expected to respond to student inquiries outside of traditional instructional hours?  Should they establish email contact with students?  What about Twitter or Facebook?

  Yes, there are lots of questions and they are perfectly valid ones, but these are the questions that must be resolved for schools to move ahead with instructional use of technology and it is no longer acceptable to use them as an excuse not to do so.  The time has come to stop cutting bait and start fishing.

  
  

• The Education Reform Movement

  May 25, 2011 9:14 PM Comments Off on The Education Reform Movement

  Earlier blog postings at this website have roamed widely over the field of needed changes: Teacher training and compensation, student assessment, community engagement by students, teacher-student relations, standardized testing, innovation, creativity, digital learning, discovery learning, etc.

  Some of the blogs have obliquely referred to the obsolescence of the school model. As I see it, schools are indeed dysfunctional places – fertile seed grounds for bullying, e-mail hate mongering, smoking, doing drugs, engaging in unsafe sex, negative peer pressure about nearly everything, competition as a prime value, materialism, cliques and gang codes of behaviour, the iron bands of teen conventionalism in dress and language – any of which can be factors in teenagers’ mental and physical health. In the worst cases, schools are hellholes of classism (see the movie Waiting for Superman). Fortunately for some, schools are happy places – for the winners on the playing field and in the high marks game.

  Historically, teenagers and many pre-teens worked side by side with adults in ugly circumstances. Liberal democratic societies invented public schools in the 19^th century or earlier as models of social advancement. In the evolution of the schoolhouse cocoon, we have by and large ended up with what is written above. We seem to be at a historical crossroads with a chance to turn the corner.

  To break the mould, it will be necessary to re-engage students with the adult world as part of their formal education, at least for those in their adolescent years. Done successfully, most school graduates, will have the benefit of adult role models to steer them in the direction of good citizenship – engaged, tolerant, open-minded, curious persons.

  This is not a pipe dream. There are examples of high school students involved in the life of their communities as pre-apprentices, job shadowing, carpentry assistants, personal support for institutionalized persons of all ages, hands-on work to beautify parks and school grounds, etc. There are stories of community-engaged students putting in as much as two hours daily within the school timetable in addition to their schoolwork. Less glamorously, to do this will be hard work for everyone concerned. But the result will be worth the effort if it enhances our democratic citizenship as a benefit for both the most and the least advantaged. I view this as the primary purpose of public education. All the rest is secondary.

• Rethinking School Design: Part Two

  May 23, 2011 11:39 AM Comments Off on Rethinking School Design: Part Two

  If I were to walk in through the front doors of your school, what message would I receive? Would I feel welcome there? Would I be encouraged to stay for a while, or would I be more inclined to complete my business and get the heck out? Would I be able to get a sense of the vision and purpose of the school?

  In my last entry, I started to do some thinking out loud about architectural design and, in particular, how values, vision and purpose can be expressed and affected by the physicality of this place we call school.

  For many educators, the physical design of their schools are a given, inherited and already determined. Often the only opportunity to change design features is through a retrofit or renovation process.

  But let’s start doing a little blue-sky thinking and imagine that, as a parent, a teacher, an administrator or a community member, you were invited to be part of the planning team for a brand new school in your district. What design aspects would be important to you? What architectural features would help to reflect your school’s values and vision?

  And let’s begin by making a grand entrance!

  Entrances are powerful places, possessing the ability to communicate so much about what goes on beyond the threshold. But I would also argue that what goes on in the rest of the building can be greatly affected by the design of the entrance.

  One of the “mantras” that I use to remind me of the vision for my own dream school is, “Let’s turn this school inside out”. This involves the idea of drawing the outside community into the life and work of the local school, and allowing students to engage in more frequent learning activities out in the community.

  So how could that vision be reflected in my school’s entrance?  One idea would be to dedicate electronic display space in the front foyer. A photo and video feed displaying recent school trips to local businesses, facilities and learning centres would help to underscore the importance of that connection to the immediate neighbourhood and wider community. The multimedia pieces would be student-designed and part of the curriculum-based follow-up to each excursion.

  Another design related to this same inside-out principle would be an established and jointly sponsored studio area, along one side of the foyer. Studio spaces for dance, drama and visual arts would allow local artists to “take up residence” in the school, have a place to work, and act as an on-site resource for teachers, students and the rest of the community.

  Another learning principle that should be reflected in my school’s entrance involves a commitment to the environment. An indoor garden area is a simple and sustainable project idea that could involve students, teachers and the local community.

  Important to both the life of the garden and to the sense of openness that I wish to inspire in my school is a substantial amount of natural light. Ground level window space might be impractical and pose some threats to security, but skylight and overhead window spaces would do the trick!

  A couple of final design features that would help to establish an inviting atmosphere.

  First, comfortable furniture! Nothing says, “Come in and stay awhile,” more than soft, comfortable furniture arranged in ways that invite dialogue and conversation. Coffee tables with copies of the latest school and parent council newsletters, as well as student-produced books and magazines would help to communicate what is happening in the school.

  Finally, background music can go along way to offering a subtle invitational quality to any open space. I’m not talking about loud or intrusive music, but something that complements the atmosphere created by other design elements. 

   

  Entrances represent more than a way to get to other spaces in a building. They are a type of calling-card for visitors and a reminder to residents and employees of what it means to be in that space. I’ve been to many schools where it is obvious that time and thought have gone into the design of the entrance space. I’ve also been to others, however, where the entrance is rather dull and uninviting. 

  But entrances can also help to inspire and influence the life of what goes on in the rest of the building. By making design elements interactive, dynamic and open to the input of students and teachers as well community members, it is quite possible that curriculum activity within classrooms will change to take advantage of the opportunities provided. 

  So, now it’s your turn. Tell us about the grand entrances that you’ve seen in some of the schools that you’ve visited. Perhaps your own school has a particularly engaging design feature. Or maybe you would just like to join me in some blue-sky thinking about the school of your dreams. 

  As always, I look forward to your input! 

• Necessary Disruption (Part 7: Making the Change)

  May 19, 2011 5:06 PM Comments Off on Necessary Disruption (Part 7: Making the Change)

  21st Century Learning that animates the 3 R’s through the soft skills of communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking requires us to tackle the difficult challenges of removing curricular bloat, deepening learning through inquiry and refocussing time and attention from summative evaluation to formative assessment.  What will it take to make this happen?  Is it inevitable, impossible or conditional?

  There is always lots of change in schools but traditional behaviours are amazingly durable and, in the end, schools seem, for the most part, much more similar than different over the 56 years since I entered Kindergarten.  Perhaps the biggest change I have seen is greater inclusion of students with exceptional needs, but this change has been more of an addition to schools’ services than a change in their fundamental nature – and even in this case inclusion in secondary schools has been seriously hampered and limited by traditionalism.  The transition to 21st Century Learning is even more radical than inclusion.  It involves not only new services but different behaviours, not only refinements but also substantive changes,not only incremental improvement to the way things are done but also entirely new ways of doing them.

  In addition, these fundamental changes must occur relatively rapidly to avoid weakening of the public education system by private schools and for-profit institutions that move more decisively to restructure their services for the new era.  We could be easily left behind in this transition – sort of the Nokia of public service if you will.

  Frances Westley, J.W. McConnell Chair in Social Innovation at the University of Waterloo, suggests in her interview with CEA on the landing page for this site that schools are inherently conservative because experimentation is dangerous and “we followed all the rules” is the best defense when you are being held accountable for many things over which you have no control.  Perhaps that’s why innovation usually occurs in isolated pockets and seldom spreads throughout the school system.

  Disruptive innovation that seeks to install a new pattern rather than merely enhance an existing pattern cannot succeed through grassroots enthusiasm alone.  Mind you, like all innovation it cannot succeed without it either, but bottom-up energy is not sufficient.  It also takes top-down initiative to create an environment that is hospitable to the innovation in the first place and, when innovation proves to be effective, it takes top-down intervention to recognize, enable and promote the innovation if there is to be broad adoption.  School systems have generally been inconsistent on the first count and failed outright on the second.

  This may be due in part to Ms. Westley’s observation, but I think it also the result of a flawed understanding of Professional Autonomy.  Teachers actively defend their right to decide how to provide instruction and assessment in their classes, as they should.  This autonomy is the flip side of their responsibility to do whatever it takes to enable the learners in their charge to succeed.  Without Professional Autonomy schools cannot be responsive to the needs of learners and Canadian students would never have achieved such impressive world-class results.  That, however, does not mean that there is no place for systemic expectations, and even insistence, on occasion, that individual teachers change their pedagogy to include necessary innovation and to be compatible with system-wide changes.  This may mean something simple like doing away with textbooks, or something slightly more complex like providing a web page for students and parents, or something quite fundamental like “flipping the class” to provide instruction on-line and tutorial assistance in class.

  When there is a demonstrable need and a proven response, it is ethically and professionally irresponsible to ignore it.  I do not mean to suggest the existence of a silver bullet – there are no such panaceas in education – but it seems clear to me – as argued in the six previous blogs in this series – that there is a need for change and that there are clear examples of successful responses that have been demonstrated in pockets of innovation around the world.  Isolated excellence, however, will not do in this case.  Effective practice needs to become the common practice.

  Therefore, I believe that the innovators cannot be left to convince their colleagues on their own.  Systemic forces must also be applied in order for disruptive change to occur.  These include provincial, district and school-level actions to enable change (for example, by addressing curriculum bloat and regressive assessment practices), to insist on teacher participation in change (for example, by deeply embedding assessment for learning in every teacher’s practice) and to support teachers in making the change (for example, by supporting professional learning with time and resources).

  Perhaps I am wrong.  Perhaps, as Peter Hennessy says in his blog, “school reform is seriously underway and,like termites in the woodwork, cannot be easily stopped,” but I doubt it.  The change has clearly begun and it has momentum, but whether it will spread far enough, fast enough and deep enough is conditional.  Perhaps it won’t stop but it may drift rather than surge ahead as it should.  The forces of preservation run deep in all organizations and certainly in school systems.  I fear that they are set to once again buffer, isolate and minimize the forces of innovation.  Good, as Jim Collins tells us, is the enemy of great and complacency is its faithful sidekick.  Can the moral commitment to maximizing the life chances of our students and the courage to step outside our comfort zone defeat them?  We’ll see.

• “Reforming Education”

  2:49 PM Comments Off on “Reforming Education”

  My last blog ended with the cri de coeur “How To Do It?” i.e., how to bring about fundamental reform of public education. Despite a minor flood of books, articles, and speeches over the past 40 years addressed to the reform question, the system, like an ocean liner under moonlight, sailed serenely along, its 19^th century design largely immune to progressive forces.

  Nevertheless, there are reform termites deep within the woodwork. In Ontario, the Emmett Hall/Lloyd Dennis Report of 1968, Living and Learning, challenged many of the basic assumptions about traditional schooling. For instance, the Report stated “The fixed position of student and teacher … must give way to a more relaxed relationship which will encourage discussion, inquiry, and experimentation and will enhance the dignity of the individual.”, and a little later “… we must relate the learning experiences in our schools to the real needs of young people.”

  No surprise, there was a strong right wing reaction against Hall/Dennis and all that it stood for across Canada and the United States exemplified by standardized testing at four or more points in the child’s school career.  The companion pieces of government testing – more explicit government control of curriculum and textbooks, system-wide codes of conduct and standard report cards; such reactions cast a pall over teacher professional independence and parental pleasure with the schools. In the process, many school boards sunk to the level of handmaidens of the central authority. In New Brunswick they disappeared altogether.

  But the reform train had left the station and could not be stopped. Typically, a school system under pressure to reform itself would gain approval for an experimental school or set of schools where innovation would be the order of the day, – without losing public funding. A few examples: The Calgary Girls School where the teachers are exempted from compulsory membership in the Alberta Teachers Association and where they are evaluated for merit pay. The Seven Oaks Met School in Winnipeg features “advisors” rather than teachers.  It may not sound like much but can have a huge impact on teacher-student relations in a society ready for some democracy in the schoolhouse. In the Greystone School near Edmonton, standardized test results are treated as a necessary evil with little relationship to the higher values of the school. Finland, leading the world in international student achievement tests, has abandoned standardized testing at home!

  These random recollections encourage me to believe that school reform is seriously underway and, like termites in the woodwork, cannot be easily stopped.

   

• Rethinking School Design

  May 9, 2011 9:40 AM Comments Off on Rethinking School Design

  The transformation of the space we call school to the place we call school is neither innocuous nor unintentional. Instead, each time a new school facility is planned, built and furnished, it is infused with a set of values, expectations, assumptions about children, about teachers, and about the way that the relationship between the two should develop.

  To be sure, new school buildings stand in anticipation of the future, but they also carry with them the practices and traditions of the past—elements that are so ingrained in our thinking that they have become part of the DNA of the institution.

  When we talk about school change from the perspective of reform, the physicality of schools is not really an issue. After all, much of today’s reform agenda is grounded in the idea that our current model of doing school is fundamentally sound. We just have to tighten up our approaches, batten down the hatches, and get back to the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. Major architectural revisions are not part of the reform blueprint.

  But if we want to talk about transformation—and I believe we do—then we need to be bringing our teachers, students and administrators to the planning table even before shovels go into the ground. The educational ideas that are part of transformational thinking need to inspire the conversation between architects and school officials. The schools that are newly built or renovated in this 21^st century need to speak unequivocally about the principles of learning to which we adhere.

  If differentiation and universal design for learning is being inscribed in our policy documents, then flexible space and multi-purpose areas need to be available. We can no longer expect that the traditional classroom can be the locus for these approaches.

  If we are holding up collegial collaboration as a leading indicator of school quality, then we need to rethink the predominant designs where individual cells (classrooms) empty onto fairly narrow hallways. Instead, common learning and meeting areas that invite conversation and sharing are needed.

  If we really believe that the schools can foster a love of learning in both children and adults, then our design cues might well be taken from other places in our community that have been forced to consider the needs of those that come to learn: art galleries, museums and science centers are all good examples of spaces that have been transformed into places of real, interactive learning.

  If we recognize the fact that play and leisure are wonderful opportunities for deep and valuable learning, then outside spaces and designated indoor places for this to easily and effectively occur are essential.

  And if we are really committed to the vision of schools as community hubs, then places for welcoming the community must be built in to the design. It is no longer acceptable that visiting parents are relegated to hallways and crowded foyers. Instead, multi-purpose resource rooms for waiting, for meeting and for interacting would provide a more invitational atmosphere to the vision.

  These are just a few of the ideas that have been swirling around in my mind of late. Many educators want to offer programs that are committed to and reflective of the type of interactive, investigative and engaging approaches to learning that inspires transformational thinking.  Unfortunately, much of this thinking is not supported by basic elements of physical design. To be sure, those committed to new approaches to learning have done their best to be flexible, spending many hours attempting to recreate space so that it becomes the place that reflects their values, but this is time consuming and sometimes a little daunting.

  I believe that a sense of place is created as soon as physical space is imbued with value, belief and a sense of purpose. In the case of schools, this takes place well before the end users have any real chance for input. In the case of most schools, the traditional principles and approaches that hold back the work of transformation are inscribed in nearly every aspect of their design.

  I believe that a conversation needs to be opened up around this transition from space to place, and it is a conversation that needs to occur between all with a stake in school-based education.  I would like to begin some of that conversation here by inviting you to share your stories, your resources, and your ideas about school design?

  Are you part of a school community that has had the opportunity to rethink the physical design of its learning space?

  Have you altered existing space to create a different type of place for learning?

  What are the aspects of current design that best support your beliefs and values about teaching and learning?

  Have you encountered any examples of creative and innovative school design—examples that have caused you to say, “Woah, I would love to live there?”

  I’ve included a few references here as a starting point for some shared thinking on this. Why not take a look and weigh in with some of your own?

  As always, I look forward to the conversation!

  Some initial resources

  Ethical School Design

  An Education Canada article by Ken Klassen on the planning and design of a new middle school in Steinbach, Manitoba.

  Design Share 

  A set of resources dedicated to the exploration of designing for the future of learning. In particular check out the Language of School Design Tab

  SchoolDesigns.com

  This site features that architectural details of some of the most innovative elementary, secondary and post-secondary designs in the United States. Each year exterior and interior design contests are held and featured in the annual architectural digest. Worth a look!

• Teacher Compensation in Canada I

  April 29, 2011 6:54 PM Comments Off on Teacher Compensation in Canada I

  As a middle school teacher, I’ve always loved beginning the school year by reading Jerry Spinelli’s classic, Maniac Magee.

  If know the story, you’ll remember the image of Cobble’s Knot. At one point, Jeffrey “Maniac” Magee, a young outsider who has literally “run into” the town of Two Mills in an effort to escape the cruelties of his own life, accepts the challenge to unravel a very old, tightly wound knot that has been confounding visitors to Cobble’s Pizza Parlor for years. With some patience, perseverance and a seemingly intimate knowledge of tangled spheres, Jeffrey solves the knot, adding to the level of mystery and respect building around him in the racially divided town.

  Cobble’s Knot is not only a powerful metaphor for the social problems that plague this fictional town, but it provides a sobering reminder that many of our social institutions and practices have become complex knots of ideologies, attitudes and beliefs. In fact, one of the greatest challenges of the 21^st century may very well be to patiently unravel some of the complexities that have been handed down from previous generations, take a good look at the contributing threads and begin to weave together some new stories and some new possibilities.

  The latest episode of the Teaching Out Loud podcast series represents an attempt to begin to work at the complex knot attached to thread of conversation around teacher compensation in Canada. The current practice of paying teachers according to years of experience and level of education is not really that old, but it is one for which teacher associations across the country fought in an effort to raise the standards for the profession and ensure that a stubborn male bias around teaching assignments and compensation was addressed. This took place in a postwar Canada that was facing a baby boom, the birth of the suburbs and a rather serious teaching shortage.

  It was a time when the treatment of teachers was unequal, unfair and unpredictable. Our current practice of paying teachers according to years of experience and level of education was negotiated by teacher organizations as they became larger and developed a stronger voice. It was a response to what have now become foundational principles within the profession: excellence and equity!

  The teaching profession has changed substantially over the past several decades. The threads of professionalism and equity have been joined by concerns over student outcomes, contractual requirements, test scores and the way that students stand in comparison to the international community. There is a sense in which, education systems around the world are more attuned to visible outputs than any other indicator of quality, and the profession has been forced into a way of being that is much different than in previous generations.

  Two things became quite clear from the very beginning of my conversation with Joe Bower and Lou D’Amore. First, teachers don’t speak on any issue, including merit pay with a single, unified voice. On the one hand, Lou argues that our current compensation model is, in fact, a form of merit pay. Whenever we pay teachers for their education and experience, that represents a type of performance incentive. Lou feels that the money spent on pay grid increases could be better spent recognizing teachers who improve their professional knowledge and abilities.

  On the other hand, Joe reminds us that when we talk about merit pay, we’re not talking about rewarding teachers for bettering themselves. Instead, it’s really about encouraging higher test scores. For Joe Bower, this is completely unacceptable.

  Second, it became clear that it is virtually impossible to have a simple conversation about teacher compensation. There are no straight lines here. You start to talk about rewarding quality teaching, and you automatically open up a conversation about the criteria for quality. You start to talk about value-added assessments based on test scores, and you’re automatically drawn into a heated discussion about the inherent value of testing.

  It’s a knotty issue, to be sure, and this may prevent discussions about merit pay ever really get much traction here. But I still believe that it’s worth trying to untangle the knot a little more.

  I’m hoping that you will take the time to listen to Episode 4 of Teaching Out Loud and join in the conversation. This is certainly a discussion which warrants more than twenty minutes. 

  Here are some of the questions that emerged from my conversation with Joe and Lou—ones that, I believe, are worth some discussion.

  1. Is the current experience/education model the most effective way of compensating teachers for the work that they do?
  2. Is it fair that experience allowances for teachers end relatively early on in their careers? As Lou D’Amore asks, why do we pay a 10 year teacher more than we pay a five year teacher, but a 20 year veteran doesn’t receive more than a teacher with 10 or 15 years experience?
  3. Other than test scores, are there other manageable ways of measuring teacher quality or effectiveness?
  4. Does the current model of compensation actually stand in the way of professional growth?
  5. Should teachers be compensated for the extra things that they do in their professional lives: coaching, clubs, drama and music productions, etc.
  6. Would a model that sought to pay all teachers, regardless of years of experience or education, the same amount be fair and equitable?
  7. Are there non-monetary incentives that would encourage ongoing professional growth and development?

  You may have want to tackle one or two of these questions, or you may have a couple of your own. I’m hoping that the Teacher Merit Pay episode will open up some rich conversation around this somewhat confounding knot! Working together we might be able to unravel it a little more, address some of the underlying issues and move towards a compensation model that met the needs and demands of all who are committed to transforming public education in Canada!

• Frances Westley: What’s Stopping Innovation in Education?

  April 20, 2011 2:09 PM Comments Off on Frances Westley: What’s Stopping Innovation in Education?

  Frances Westley, J.W. McConnell Chair in Social Innovation, discusses innovation in education.

• Necessary Disruption (Part 6: Assessment and Evaluation)

  April 19, 2011 9:11 PM Comments Off on Necessary Disruption (Part 6: Assessment and Evaluation)

  21st Century Learning that animates the 3 R’s through the soft skills of communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking requires us to tackle the difficult challenge of removing curricular bloat and deepening learning through inquiry – but that is not enough.  Traditional assessment and evaluation practices are also in need of an extreme makeover, which is the focus of this penultimate entry in the Necessary Disruption series.

  Evaluation is traditionally used only to assign grades for the purpose of reporting to parents and outside agencies.  This does nothing to improve learning or teaching.  Of course, students deserve to know where they stand in relation to curricular expectations, and it is perfectly reasonable for the public to ask for some reassurance that the school system is working, so evaluation has valid purposes, but supporting learning is not one of them.  Evaluation is an afterthought tacked onto the learning process rather than an integral and contributing element.  That is unfortunate, but what is more troubling is that in its current form evaluation can actually be harmful in two respects.

  For students, an exclusive diet of summative evaluation tends to focus their sense of accomplishment on the marks that others provide as surrogates for their learning rather than the learning itself, which discourages them from taking on difficult learning tasks and is therefore antithetical to attempts to engage them in inquiry.  This focus on the end product rather than the process through which it is achieved is akin to a company focussing on profits rather than the quality of the goods, services and business practices that result in the profit.  It directs attention to the wrong things while neglecting the core business.  There may be short-term results in some cases, but in the long run its a losing strategy that fails because it does not enhance learning.

  On the other hand, for the public, summative assessment is a reasonable way to provide a measure of accountability in one of the largest, and most expensive, arenas of government activity, but problems arise here also because of the breadth and complexity of the intended outcomes.  Simple, clear measures are understandably preferred and often they are provided despite the fact that they neither accurately nor completely represent either intended or achieved learning.  There is nothing inherently wrong with such measures – assuming they are based on the curriculum and are technically sound – but simple answers to complex questions often lead to false conclusions and misguided responses.

  Would one find it appropriate to rank order the parents in a neighbourhood according to their proficiency in child rearing?  Perhaps the average of a child’s percentile score on a social skills index, an athletic proficiency test and the GPA on the school report card would tell us who is the best parent in town.  I suspect that most people would find this suggestion ridiculously naive and quickly point out its fallacies and limitations, if not its dangers.

  And yet, the Fraser Institute is seen as credible when it does this for schools using an essentially meaningless statistical mishmash of a narrow range of outcomes.  This misleads both individual parents and the general public.  Another example – mercifully not practiced in Canada – is the use of standardized test results for high-stakes decision-making about school funding and teacher pay.  Standardized testing is not the villain here; it is the assumption that it can capture what is most important about learning and the misinterpretation and misuse of the results it provides.

  So, while valid and potentially useful, evaluation is problematic because of the way it is sometimes used.  However, summative evaluation is not really the important issue for 21st Century Learning so I will leave it there.  It is formative assessment that is essential and that’s what I want to talk about.  First, however, let’s be clear about the distinction.  Assessment is the gathering of evidence of student learning to help a teacher understand what a student knows, does not know, is beginning to know, thinks s/he knows but has actually misconstrued, wonders about, is interested in and so on.  Assessment data can be used in many ways.  One of them is to compare what has been learned to expectations or standards in order to judge its quantity and quality in relation to what the curriculum intends.  This second step is evaluation.

  The difference is far more than semantic since these two related processes have fundamentally different purposes.  Assessment is necessary to enable evaluation, but this is not its most powerful use.  What a teacher comes to understand about a student’s learning enables two much more important teaching functions.  The first is to give helpful,descriptive feedback to the student within a coaching relationship that provides acknowledgement, direction and encouragement.  The second is to determine what the teacher can do next to most effectively respond to the learning success, needs and interests of the student.  (This use of assessment to inform instruction and enhance learning is commonly referred to as assessment for learning, in contrast to assessment of learning, which is intended to provide data for summative judgments.)

  Assessment of learning should continue, although it could be accomplished without consuming as much time and attention as is currently the case, but assessment for learning is the more important function and its elevation is key to 21st Century Learning.  This, I hope, sounds logical, but it is also complex and requires significant change by teachers and school systems.  Some of the change involves teachers learning new procedures and developing new skills, but the really hard part is for teachers – and equally importantly, for parents – to surface long-held assumptions and change those that have locked us into an almost exclusive focus on summative evaluation.  Unlearning of habits is very difficult at the best of times.  In this arena, the change is additionally vexing because it raises fears for many adults about loss of rigour based on subconscious attachment to flimsy views of teaching as telling and learning as listening.

  Assessment for learning (AFL) must become an integral part of classroom life, but it need not take additional time.  Unlike summative evaluation, which occurs outside of instruction and thus robs time from it, formative evaluation is embedded in the learning.  Of course, this means that curriculum must be designed to incorporate it and that teachers must learn to do it, but AFL represents a change in practice rather than yet another addition.

  The observations that are made and the feedback provided deal with the content of the learning but also with the process, thus helping learners to become conscious of their styles, strengths, challenges, preferences and habits.  This self-awareness is necessary for developing metacognitive control over learning behaviour (aka self-regulation) and one of the essential foundations not only for maximizing achievement in school but also for lifelong learning.

  Unfortunately, other than in the primary grades, students generally get very little feedback.  What they get is marks.  These marks are “earned” through compliance, diligence and replicative performance.  They are not intended as a mirror that illuminates learning but as the“ just desserts” for students’ work that lets them know “where they stand.”  The entire ritual of reporting, and the accompanying ceremonies of recognition and reward, reinforce the idea that the purpose of schooling is for students to get good marks so that the adults can be happy and proud.  In this pseudo-economic exchange, the most grievous sin is error, and this sin is detected through evaluation, which makes students understandably nervous about a process that they have learned to see as hostile inquisition. 

  Assessment for learning, on the other hand, sees students as partners rather than subjects, even co-learners in many respects, and error as a natural part of the learning process that occurs when one ventures out into the personally unknown.  In this worldview, a teacher’s primary assessment task is not merely to assign and correct, but also to provide constructive feedback that enables and encourages.  It takes time for teachers who were themselves students in schools where the summative evaluation model reigned, and who may have re-enacted that model in their own classrooms with the most sincere and positive of intentions, to reconsider it.  How much harder is it for students to believe that the ground has truly shifted and that it is now safe for them to openly share their questions and uncertainties without fear that all will be noted and held against them in the star chamber of evaluation?

  In addition to being willing and able to receive feedback from a teacher, students need to learn to provide feedback to each other and to themselves.  Peer evaluation, enabled through supportive curriculum design and instruction in reasoned judgment, helps to develop critical faculties and lays the foundation for self-evaluation.  Empowering a student with the inclination and ability to self-assess, and thus to self-evaluate, is another essential step in developing the self-regulation that is required for lifelong learning.

  Thoughtfully and constructively conducted, formative assessment (i.e, AFL) also helps students to develop a realistic but positive sense of self-efficacy that increases internal motivation and self-awareness that enables them to maximize their abilities by working to their strengths, knowing how to compensate for their weaknesses and skillfully selecting strategies to help them persist when they encounter challenges.  Thus, AFL is a strength-based approach (Theory Y if you like) that stands in stark contrast to the prevailing focus on remediating deficiencies (which is much more Theory X).  Both Theory X and Theory Y have their place, but 21st Century Learning puts Theory Y squarely in the foreground.

  The shift from a primary focus on summative evaluation to an emphasis on embedded formative feedback is both complex and difficult, but also essential.  It is a fundamental part of the disruptive innovation that will be required in the transition to 21st Century Learning.  Therefore, it is important to think about how disruptive innovation occurs and what it will take for existing systems to engage in it – which is the subject of the seventh and final installment in this series of blogs.

• CEA Research Awards Program – Important Updates

  April 14, 2011 6:30 PM Comments Off on CEA Research Awards Program – Important Updates

  CEA proudly celebrates the innovative work of school and classroom practitioners, and researchers, through the Pat Clifford, Ken Spencer, and Whitworth Awards.  These awards recognize their contributions, their promise, and their commitment to breaking new ground and revisiting commonly held assumptions in education policy, practice or theory in Canada. 

  Deadline for Pat Clifford Award Nominations – May 31, 2011

  The Pat Clifford Award recognizes the work of emerging researchers.  Applicants must be in the process of completing a Masters or Ph.D. OR have completed a Masters or Ph.D. in the last two years. To nominate a candidate, or apply for this award, please visit: www.cea-ace.ca/cliffordaward

  Next Whitworth Award for Education Research to be presented in 2013

  The Whitworth Award recognizes individuals who have made a sustained and substantial contribution to educational research.  It will now be presented once every three years.  This change will provide the time required to continually replenish the field of candidates while heightening the profile and prestige of the awards recognition activities.  Nominations information will be distributed in the spring of 2013 and more detailed information about this award can be accessed at:

  www.cea-ace.ca/whitworthaward

  Stay Tuned for Application Deadline Announcement of the Ken Spencer Award

  Now in its third year, the Ken Spencer Award for Innovation in Teaching and Learning  recognizes and publicizes groundbreaking innovative work unfolding in schools.  To read about previous winners and to find out how your school can apply for this award, please visit:  www.cea-ace.ca/kenspenceraward

• Self-Efficacy and Self-Control in the Teaching Profession

  April 9, 2011 1:20 AM Comments Off on Self-Efficacy and Self-Control in the Teaching Profession

  I’m not who you think I am, I’m not who I think I am, but I am who I think you think I am.

  We don’t have a teacher quality problem in this country. Canada is fortunate to be home to some of the most dedicated, energetic and highly educated professionals that you’re going to meet anywhere. Our faculties of education do an excellent job of preparing candidates to assume roles as thoughtful, reflective and well-trained professionals, nationally and internationally. Our teacher associations have a highly developed infrastructure dedicated to the ongoing development and support of their members.

  No, I think it’s safe to say that the teaching profession in this country is of high quality and has contributed a great deal to Canada’s standing as one of the finest education systems in the world.  

   It’s not a teacher quality problem that concerns me. Instead, I’m concerned these days about self-efficacy among our teachers.

   Psychologist Albert Bandura defines self-efficacy as a person’s belief that they can be successful in a particular situation. One’s level of self-efficacy will affect how they think about, and behave towards particular tasks.

   According to Bandura’s thinking, people with high self-efficacy will

  • see challenging problems as things to be explored and mastered
  • develop a deeper sense of interest in the activities related to a particular role
  • be more strongly committed to their interests and activities
  • recover more easily from setbacks and disappointments

  Although Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy is most often used to describe individual behaviour, I think that it also has some validity for talking about group and organizational behaviour as well.

  I would argue that one of the casualties of the accountability movement in education has been the self-efficacy of teachers, both individually and collectively. In order to legitimize the centralization of power and control over schools that has characterized and, in a sense, defined this movement, it has been necessary to substantially alter the educational discourse and related messaging about teachers.

  For the past 15 years or so, a constant stream of top down “school improvement” initiatives, data collection protocols, large-scale testing and teacher evaluation processes have been accompanied by the implicit message to professionals working at the school level: “You’re not really doing a good enough job. We’re going to have to fix that.”

  And attempt to “fix” it they have. As it currently stands, teachers in many Canadian jurisdictions are not only required to follow a very prescriptive, grade-based set of expectations, but the strategies and day-to-day processes that were once controlled at the school level, often by individual teachers, are now handed down from above as best practice ready for universal implementation.

  Now, while I don’t have any hard scientific evidence to prove it definitively, it is my sense that the shift that has occurred has had a huge impact on the way that teachers feel about themselves, talk about themselves, and carry out the work that they have been trained to do. And for many of my colleagues, this effect has been discouraging and more than a little demoralizing.

   I, for one, think that it’s time for a change. In my last entry, I mused about how difficult it would be to recapture a sense of professionalism once it had been stripped away. Unfortunately, professionalism is not like a light switch: it’s not something that can be turned on and off at will. It takes a long time to devalue it and it takes even longer to restore it.

  Yet, I firmly believe that true transformation in Canadian schools is only going to take place once we have begun the process of re-energizing and re-valuing our teaching profession. And I believe that one of the important effects of this process will be a greater sense of self-efficacy.

  As usual, I don’t pretend to have all of the answers as to how this might happen. I’m not even sure whether I have all the right questions yet. But there are three dimensions of my life as a professional teacher that I think might be a good starting point for conversation.

  First, a greater sense of freedom to make decisions about teaching strategies and approaches must be returned to the local school and classroom level. Classrooms and schools need to become a place of dynamic innovation and creativity. Educators at the grassroots level need to be invested with a sense of trust they are capable of planning and implementing programs that meet the needs of their particular students. They certainly need to know about the strategies and approaches that others have found to be successful, but they also need the freedom to adapt professional practice to local context. The language of the profession needs to be more steeped in the spirit of responsiveness than it is in the spirit of accountability. And that requires a type of on-the-ground flexibility and professional freedom.

   Second, responsibility for personal and large-scale professional development needs to be given back to the profession. For too long, a great deal of teacher development has been appropriated by centralized priorities and initiatives. This has served to drastically alter the way that teachers engage in professional learning and the way that they enter into collegial and collaborative relationships. Teachers need to be given the opportunity to learn about and master new and effective approaches to their work, but more of the impetus and initiative for this learning needs to come from within the profession, and not mandated from outside.

  Third, a two-way flow of knowledge and understanding about teaching and learning needs to be nurtured and supported. Instead of coming to teaching professionals with pre-developed ideas and initiatives, the process of curriculum and program development needs to be more dialogical in its approach. Teachers need to begin to see the insights and understandings that they develop as part of their practice as somehow contributing to the overall

  It’s an interesting time to be a teacher. On the one hand, our efforts and successes are celebrated on the world stage; on the other hand, the gradual de-professionalization  of teachers on the home front has left many feeling frustrated and unfulfilled.

  Call it a perfect storm. Call it a tipping point. Call it what you will, but I think that we’ve reached a point in the story of education in this country where its time to engage in some serious conversation about self-control, self-efficacy and the future of our work in this place we call school. 

  Much more to explore here, but I would be interested in knowing how you perceive the level of self-efficacy among your own teaching colleagues. Have you noticed a change in teacher’s beliefs about their abilities to do the work that they are being asked to do. If so, what is at the root of that change? Is self-efficacy something about which we really need to be concerned?

• Necessary Disruption (Part 5: Inquiry-Based Learning)

  April 1, 2011 11:15 PM Comments Off on Necessary Disruption (Part 5: Inquiry-Based Learning)

  In order to keep pace with the rapid, pervasive social and technological change all around them, schools need to modernize their curriculum, instruction and assessment practices while preserving the supportive relationships that will continue to be an essential foundation for student success.  In the last post I suggested the creation of 20% “white space” in the curriculum to create time for learning in depth.  In this post I will look at how instruction must change to exploit this potential and in my next post I will turn my attention to assessment.

  Traditional instruction is primarily telling and demonstrating.  We don’t like to say it quite so bluntly, but the truth is that most time in most classrooms is taken up by some form of reading, lecture or video followed by guided practice or a lab exercise in class with independent practice later at home.  Now there is nothing wrong with this approach at some times for some things.  In fact, a skillful lecture can be both instructive and inspiring, and when augmented by strategies such as those that Barry Bennett describes in Beyond Monet (e.g., academic controversy, mind mapping) direct instruction often leads to success on tests and the various rewards that ensue for students and teachers.  Moreover, students are used to this familiar pattern so they know how to get on with it and parents tend to recognize and trust it.

  There are, however, two problems with this style of instruction.  First, student engagement, and thus learning, tends to be confined to the lower levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.  Second, the soft skills of communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity (aka 21st Century Skills) that are necessary to apply academic learning in real world contexts are addressed only tangentially, if at all.  Additionally, some students do not find this style supportive and experience frustration or failure because of the mismatch with their learning strengths.  Many more who are reasonably successful in academic terms are really only surviving and not truly thriving as we would like.  The increased demands of modern life for creative knowledge workers and critically competent citizens requires that schools do better for students.

  Increasing student engagement, deepening learning in content areas and broadening outcomes to include 21st Century Skills that transcend subject boundaries requires not merely refinements to traditional practice, but distinctly new practices – disruptive rather than incremental change, if you will.  Traditional practices of direct instruction need not be abandoned, however.  They will always have their place in the pedagogical repertoire, but they should be used selectively from amongst a broader pallet that includes critical, creative and collaborative inquiry.

  Inquiry requires questions – real questions – that are developmentally appropriate, related to the learning outcomes that the curriculum intends and both interesting and important within the student’s frame of reference.  Framing these questions in partnership with students and scaffolding the inquiry that results so as to place students in their zone of proximal development is an essential pedagogical skill for 21st Century Learning.  The approach is often termed “problem based learning” or “project based learning,” without any significant distinction as far as I can tell.  Personally, I prefer the former description of PBL because it emphasizes the grounding in real questions.  (Note that PBL not the same as ‘discovery learning,’ which is concerned with the initial development of understanding rather than deepening it through application.)

  The questions that students explore should provide an opportunity for them to use what they have learned previously and augment that with new public knowledge to which they have access and which they are developmentally able to understand.  This knowledge building exercise should be conducted in groups, which provides the benefits of complementary abilities and potential synergy as well as the opportunity to develop communication and collaboration skills.  Because students must identify relevant and reliable information, which they then use to create a response or solution, PBL requires both creative and critical thinking.  Finally, the project should result in an actual application of the solution developed to evaluate its effectiveness and/or presentation of group results to an authentic audience that can validate the work and provide useful feedback.  

  As important and powerful as such projects are, they cannot constitute the entire curriculum.  There are some things best learned through direct instruction.  However, the knowledge acquisition and skill development that students continue to require is lent greater authenticity and significance when it is understood by students to be a useful part of a larger inquiry that requires such knowledge and skill.

  It is fashionable to suggest that the use of technology itself will deepen engagement and thus understanding.  I do not believe that to be an automatic result, at least not beyond a short-lived Hawthorne effect.  The key to engagement is that students find the content interesting and important enough to warrant their time and energy.  The modern world is infused with technology and that technology is reshaping the way things are done in all aspects of life, so schools should also exploit its potential, but technology itself is only a vehicle.  It offers many exciting possibilities and innovative educators are demonstrating the potential of a technology-infused pedagogy in often dramatic ways, but technology grafted onto weak pedagogy will not result in improved learning and teaching.  High Tech High, for example, has made a name for itself as an exemplar of 21st Century Learning and makes extensive use of technology, but its design principles are focussed on learning, not the technology used to support it (see http://thurly.net/).

  More inquiry-based learning that extends and deepens learning through knowledge building and public application/presentation is essential to 21st Century Learning.  This is hardly a new idea – in fact, it sounds a lot like something Dewey might say – and it is far from unknown in schools already, but it has to move from familiar theory that is occasionally enacted, perhaps with an enriched class, to a central premise and practice in all schools and for all students.  Our ability to do so can be greatly enhanced by infusing inquiry-based pedagogy with the technological tools that are endemic in the world outside of school, but the heart of the issue for 21st Century Learning is not merely using technology but regularly engaging students with questions they can explore rather than only answers we want them to absorb.

• Necessary Disruption (Part 4: Less, But Deeper, Curriculum)

  March 27, 2011 4:50 PM Comments Off on Necessary Disruption (Part 4: Less, But Deeper, Curriculum)

  Schools must respond to the rapid, pervasive social and technological change all around them.  In doing so they must preserve the supportive relationships which are their most essential benefit.  Surface features of schooling such as curriculum, instruction and assessment, however, need to be transformed.  But how?

  Let’s start with curriculum, and specifically the high school curriculum.  It’s too broad and too thin.  It too easily becomes a superficial diet of info-bits that are required to pass tests that measure what is easiest to measure rather than what is most important.  In a rush to ensure that students know all the basic essentials in a world where knowledge is growing exponentially we have fallen into the trap of filling heads rather than changing minds.  This serves no one well.  Curriculum bloat needs to be reversed in order to free up the time required for deeper inquiry into big ideas so that students are enabled with understandings, skills and dispositions rather than encumbered by inert and decaying knowledge.

  Curriculum is also too fragmented into subjects.  This is a purely academic deceit that is not present in the “real world,” where issues are always multidisciplinary.  Subject divisions make life easier for curriculum writers, text book publishers and testers, but they make schooling less authentic, engaging and significant for students.  These divisions also obstruct the development of important life skills such as critical thinking, collaboration and communication that should be present as pervasive themes but are generally lost, or at best inconsistently addressed, because nobody sees them as their job.

  It seems to me that there is a fairly broad consensus that students would be better served if curriculum were deeper and more integrated, but much less willingness to make the change.  Policy makers seem reluctant to suggest that anything be removed from the curriculum and many teachers are so indoctrinated with, and comfortable within, a subject-specific view that they do not seize the opportunities that do exist for a more substantial inquiry-based approach to learning.  Sometimes, in fact, it is teachers themselves who are the most fervent defenders of the curricular status quo.

  Therefore, I would propose a two-pronged response to this problem.  Government should, with consultation but without undue delay, trim the curriculum to create some “white space,” perhaps about 20%.  Teachers should be challenged to use this opportunity to integrate and deepen learning and schools should be required to consult with and report to their community in this regard.  I don’t believe, as Michael Fullan says, that you can mandate what matters but you can articulate a worthy goal, create the potential and issue the challenge.

  Ideally, in addition to individual teachers making changes, secondary schools would then organize students in “academies” or “houses” consisting of one class group per grade in order to encourage integration by having two teachers work together to cover at least the English, Social Studies, Math and Science components of the curriculum for those students until at least the end of Grade 9.  These classes should stay together and work with the same core teachers for at least two years.  This would provide a much more natural transition from elementary and create the potential for extended inquiry and stronger relationships.

  To invigorate and accelerate these changes, teacher teams should, within the confines of the working day, be provided with time to co-plan, and, as part of their own commitment to professional growth, they should create personal learning networks (directly and virtually) on their own time.

  The experience of deeper inquiry will, I believe, inspire both students and teachers so inquiry-based learning that takes root in Junior Secondary will extend into senior grades even if the greater degree of specialization required at that level makes a similar cohort organization impractical – which, however, I believe should be kept as an open question.

  Government assessments, which some would eliminate but which I see as a reasonable expectation by the public and an inevitable feature of schooling in our time, should be amended to reflect these changes – narrowing but also deepening their focus.  (I will say more about assessment in a future blog but mention this aspect because it is an essential feature of the disruptive change I am proposing.)

  There are abundant individual examples of similar approaches that have been highly successful even without the enabling government action proposed.  Its time for this good practice to become the common practice, and the expected practice, in order to provide students with the integrated, inquiry-based learning they require to prepare them for the world as it is and as it is becoming.  I believe that it would serve both students and society better and that it would be more enriching, rewarding and sustainable for teachers as well – a virtuous circle of benefits.

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