Transcript Mentorska mreža šol

From top down approach to empowerment of
schools – the case of the project “Didactic
modernisation of the gimnazija”
Zora Rutar Ilc, ph.d.
National Education Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia
The analysis of the learning and teaching
process (1999 -2003) has shown that there is:
- lack of active learning
- lack of interdisciplinary learning and project based
approaches
- too few authentic situations
- less independent thinking from first to fourth grade …
• How to support teachers and schools to
improve their practice in weak areas?
The pilot project of Didactic
modernisation was designed for:
• 1. Didactic support to teachers: implementing
more active methods …– focus on subject
teachers and special didactics
• 2. Strategic support for schools - by initiating
and introducing changes- focus on school
teachers teams and their coordinative role
At first: imposed goals and activities for
teachers:
• At didactic level - to stimulate:
• process and problem approach
• wider repertoir of teaching and assesment methods and
strategies
• inter-disciplinary connections, authentic learning
situations
• new culture of assessment and grading
• organisational arrangements, e.g. block schedules,
project work
• At school level – support for former
• Denying their needs and experiences, priorities, goals and
strategies …
• Lack of clarity in articulating goals and lack of sense
The strategy of implementing novelties has gradually
been transformed from TOP DOWN to combination with
elements of EMPOWERMENT (by the principle of
enrichment not replacement):
• Constructivist approach –
discussing the need for
• Informing about goals,
changes, analysing the
strategies …
initial stage, priorities …
• Peer support (critical
• Strong support from the
friendship, peer
subject specialists
monitoring, reflection …)
• Individualised paths (dev.
• Uniform and prescribed
plans) and networking
activities
cont. – the level of school developmental
teams:
• transmitters, coordinators
• occupied with prescribed
tasks:
• change agents -workshops
• creating, researching,
negotiat., developing- AR:
How to stimulate each stage
of the project closely
observing guidelines?
What is quality? Indicators?
Where are we? What are
our capacities and exp.?
What are our priorities/aims
What are the strategies?
Reports
Evaluations, reflections,
portfolios
What has happened?
• Schools started to transform into learning and
autoregulative communities by:
- creating the “innovations friendly
environment” (through preparation
activities)
- systematic approach to development
(through implementing innovations in devel.
planning and AR) – selfregulation
Two crucial mechanisms for this:
• The establishment of the school
developmental team (addit value), which was
trained to manage the developmental process
• The distributed leadership: headmasters were
ready to share their “power”
Some strong areas of the project – the
combination of top down and bottom up
approach
- The inclusion of the entire teaching stuff (seminars/act/ev)
- Strong subject consultants’ support (consult/monitor/exch)
- The establishment of school dev. teams and their role of
change agents
- Focus on long period of preparation
- The introduction of action research and developm. plann.
- Emphasis on teachers’ individual personal projects / small
groups’ action research plans, school development plans
and school evaluations / PF
The sense of participation, ownership and responsibility is
developed - empowerment
Important shift
The dydactic context of the project remained the
same but it was not implemented top down any
more but with the participation of the teachers,
who discussed concepts, aims, priorites and
strategies and connect them on the school’s level
in the developmental plan of the school
What does individual personal project
mean?
- teachers select and plan at least 1 innovation (intensive
or extensive) each year,
- implement it with the support of subject consultant
- discuss and analyse it with critical friend(s)
- evaluate it
- present it as a case in a subject teachers’ group
- exchange experiences and ideas
- Follow-up year: upgrading – care for sustainability (spiral
of change)
The same spiral of change on the level of
school(s)
- Developmental planning …
- Implementing with the support of consultant
- Discussing, monitoring, analysing
- Evaluating
- Presenting and exchanging (network)
- Upgrading
e.g.: active teaching methods are being upgraded with
interdisciplinary approach and authentic learning …
Evaluation: Didactic aims were fullfilled
successfully, but there were also other effects:
• On teachers’ personal level: perception of new chances
for their professional development
• On the school level:
- improvement of the climate because of more
pedagogic discussion and common learning
- improvement of the culture because of more
self-evaluation, critical friendship and reflection
- more developmental orientation through action
research and developmental planning
More openness for the changes and widening of their
repertoire of methods, strategies and even concepts and
beahviours
Basic Principles in change introduction we
have learned (our team was also a learning
community!):
• Teachers and schools as partners – “change agents”
• Not depowerment but empowerment – feeling of
importance and responsibility
• Individualised approach in relation to schools at
simultanous networking
• Accept the annoyment which accompanies the changes
with empathy, because it is a signal of change processes
• Spiral development: breaking the old balance and
restablishing on a qualitatively higher level
• Interventions should be first oriented towards people and
their capacities and than to changes
• Long term effects – the change of culture – patience!
What questions remained open for the future?
• How to stimulate this process in more schools?
• How to introduce changes in the context of
systemic reform?
• How to combine top-down and bottom-up
approach?
How were these experiences included in the
new, widely broadened project:
Emphasis on schools as learning communities:
• Establishment of school’s developmental project teams
• Intensive support to them for the inititation and
implementation
• Stress on careful initiation before implementation
• School’s developmental plans and teachers’ personal
projects at the start and portfolios during and at the end
as indicators
• Subject support from consultants and mentor teachers
Steps in the new project (supported with the
manual for teams designed by the same steps):
• preparation / initiation: discussion about changes,
qualitiy(indicators), SWOT, development priorities
• “content” preparation - common didactic principles :
planning, active role of students, interdisc. approach, new
culture of assessment …
• development plan
• implementation
• evaluation, reflections, presentations, exchange of
experiences