Transcript Slide 1

Welcome
Leading Reflective Practice in
Schools
10th June 2009
Clandeboye Lodge Hotel
Introduction and Welcome
Dr Aidan Hamill
‘Reflective Practice as a Pathway to
Professional Understanding’
Mr Eddie McArdle Registrar GTCNI
Teaching a Passionate
Subversive Profession?
Note: not rebellious
&
Structure ? “well sort of”
•
•
•
•
Polemic
Musings
Anecdotes
Meandering & Random Thoughts
Initial Thoughts
Martha Nussbaum, Love’s Knowledge. New
York:O.U.P. 1998
“ In its determination to see only what
can enter into utilitarian calculations,
the economic mind is blind: blind to the
……
separateness of its people, to their
inner depths, their hopes and loves and
fears, blind to what it is like to live a
human life and try to endow it with
meaning”
Cautionary Note 1.
“ In our rush to reform education, we have
forgotten a simple truth: reform will never
be achieved by renewing appropriations,
restricting schools, rewriting curricula and
revising texts if we continue to …
dishearten the human resource called the
teacher on whom so much depends…”
Palmer P. J “The Courage to Teach”
Cautionary Note 2.
“A dominant force may legitimate itself by
promoting beliefs and values congenial to
it; naturalising and universalising such
beliefs to render them self evident and
apparently inevitable, denigrating ideas
which might challenge it, excluding rival
forms of thought.”
(Eagleton 1991)
“Men at some times are masters
of their fates. The fault dear
Brutus, is not in our stars, but
in ourselves, that we are
underlings.”
Initial Thoughts 2
or
Déjà vu all over again
Our Work in Context
A Model of Learning
Content- Knowledge, principles,
skills and abilities
Relationships
Emotional and
Spiritual Space
Dispositions to Learning –
Learning to Love Learning
Preparing to Teach in Secondary Schools
Edited: Brooks V. Abbot I.& Bills L. OUP 2004
• Multidimensionality: Many people / personalities
• Simultaneity: question-listen-motivate-assess
• Immediacy: momentum- pace-no downtime for
reflection
• Unpredictability: unexpected events- serendipity
• Publicness: fishbowl syndrome
• History: classes socialise into ‘norms’.
Teaching:
A Complex Interaction
“… a public recognition that effective learning
involves, essentially an ‘interactive chemistry’
between learner and teacher, which depends on
process as much as content and is an
expression of personal values and perceptions
as much as competences and knowledge.”
Day, C. “Teachers in the twenty-first century: time to renew the vision.”
Teachers and Training: Theory and Practice,
6, 1, pp 101-115. 2000.
“ We Teach Who We Are”
Parker J Palmer
The Courage to Teach
Jossey-Bass 1998
Passion
Values
Convictions
Emotions
Idealism: Moral Purpose : Mission :
Vocation: Stance
An Activist Profession
“Should this be- a subversive
profession?”
Our Collective Responsibility
To be….“active agents in the production of a new
pedagogic discourse, rather than merely the
consumers of the professional knowledge
produced by academics and educational
researchers.”
(Edwards & Brunton)
Staff Development
Excluding
RTU Courses
{an obvious and self evident truth}
For too many teachers….staff
development is a demeaning mindnumbing experience as they passively
‘sit and get’. That staff development is
often (prescriptive) in nature….and
evaluated by ‘happiness scales’.
Sparks 2004
“Tragically, however, many come with a
convincing feeling that what is inside
them is not valid because it is ‘only
personal’ to them. Somewhere along
the line, many have learnt to seek the
‘expert’ outside but deny that there may
be a potential ‘expert within’.”
Dadds 1997
Moral Visionary Profession
“…making teaching into a moral, visionary profession once more
where teachers know and care about their world as well as and
as part of their work.
It means teachers recapturing their status and dignity as
some of society’s leading intellectuals, and not being the
mere technicians, instruments and deliverers of other
people’s agendas………..
Those who focus only on teaching techniques and curriculum
standards and who do not also engage teachers in the greater
social and moral questions of their time, promote a diminished
view of teaching and teacher professionalism that has no place
in a sophisticated knowledge society.”
Hargreaves A. Teaching in the Knowledge
Society2003
Reflective & Activist Professional 1.
• concerned with the purposes and
consequences of education, as well as what
might be called technical proficiency;
• prepared to experiment with the unfamiliar and
learn from their experiences;
• have an approach characterised by openmindedness and wholeheartedness;
Reflective & Activist Professional 2.
• committed to professional dialogue in school
and beyond;
• have working patterns characterised by a
process of action, evaluation and revision; and
• assume, as life-long learners, responsibility for
their ongoing professional development
Professional Knowledge Rhona Sharpe
“ Professional knowledge is no longer viewed
as just consisting of a standardised, explicit
and fixed knowledge base. It is now seen as
knowledge which exists in use, is ethical in
its use and is changed by experience. The
distinctive nature of professional knowledge
lies in the interplay between its construction
and use. When teachers use their knowledge,
use changes what that knowledge is.”
Standards?
Exemplifications of
Competences
Competences
•
The Council takes the view that the notion of
competences goes well beyond the simple
acquisition of skills and that, although curricular
knowledge and pedagogical skills are important,
teaching is both an intellectual and practical
activity with important emotional and creative
dimensions. Essentially, teachers, while reflecting
on and evaluating their professional context, use
acquired professional judgement to select the
most appropriate options from a repertoire of
teaching strategies, and in the process of teaching
refine and add to their professional knowledge.
Hayes,D. Opportunities and Obstacles in the Competencey-Based
Training of Primary Teachers in England. Harvard Educational
Review Vol 69 Number 1 1999
If competence (standard) statements are used
as a basis for informed discussion and reflection
upon classroom practice between tutors,
students, and classroom teachers, they will fulfil
an important function. If they are used
mechanically within an inflexible assessment
regime framework, it is likely that the preparation
of teachers…. will become miserably rigid,
unsympathetic towards the realities and rigors of
classroom life, and at worst, an impediment to
creative and innovative teaching.
Dimensions of Development 1
• greater complexity in teaching e.g. in
handling mixed-ability classes, reluctant
learners, classes marked by significant
diversity, or inter-disciplinary work;
• the deployment of a wider range of teaching
strategies;
• the ability to adduce evidence of one’s
effectiveness;
• basing teaching on a wider range of
evidence, reading and research;
Dimensions of Development 2
• extending impact beyond the classroom- fuller
participation in the life of the school;
• the capacity to exercise autonomy, to innovate, to
improvise; and
• a pronounced capacity for self-criticism and selfimprovement; the ability to impact on colleagues
through mentoring and coaching, modelling good
practice, contributing to the literature on teaching
and learning and the public discussion of
professional issues, leading staff development, all
based on the capacity to theorise about policy and
practice
Final Ruminations
Is there such a word?
Professionals exhibit but also
inspire confidence!
• We trust in their:
–
–
–
–
Competence
Commitment
Conduct
Judgement
All Underpinned by Competence
Document
“ Teachers with high self-esteem know how to
value both themselves and others……...
This basic sense of self-worth is internalised,
deeply imbedded, so it is not easily
susceptible to any gross distortion by life
events, however calamitous…”
Day et al 1998
Equally such teachers are better placed to resist the pressures
of the ‘old guard’, the blandishments of political ‘short-termists’
and the stresses of the paradox that is teaching.
Competences as a BULWARK
YOUR TASK IS TO:
• Define the Mission
• Reinforce the Vision
• Bolster self confidence
• Build Communities of Practice
• Initiate & sustain the ‘conversation’
BE LEADERS
Price of Failure
• “ …do their job, nothing more nothing
less, aided in this by codified rules,
timetables and lesson plans. The
restrictiveness of their (assigned) texts
and regulations serves them to adhere to
their minimalist assiduity….the sacred fire
which once lit their work gradually dies to
a smoulder.”
»
Hamon & Rotman
Finally
Finally
The “Hargreaves Agenda
• Andy
Don’t be “Too busy rescuing drowning
people to look to see what’s causing
them to fall in.”
• David
Remember “ A society of sheep breeds
a government of wolves”
“Men at some times are masters
of their fates. The fault dear
Brutus, is not in our stars, but
in ourselves, that we are
underlings.”
All we need to do is be quiescent
and we too can be underlings.
GTCNI
www.gtcni.org.uk
‘Leading Reflective Practice in Schools’
Dr Tom Hesketh Director RTU
Reflective Practice: Implications for
Leadership
Professionalism = Competence + Virtue
• A Commitment to practice in an exemplary way
• A Commitment to practice towards social ends
• A Commitment not only to one’s own practice
but to practice itself
• A Commitment to the ethic of caring
(Sergiovanni)
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
Emerging Consensus on School
Improvement
• Twin Pillars for Transformation
“Quality of a schooling system cannot exceed
Quality of its Teachers”
(McKinsey)
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
School Leadership Matters (OECD)
• Empirically validated
• Indirect impact
• Greatest where learning needs are greatest
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
The Challenge
• Redesigning/repurposing Leadership
- Instruction centred
- Learner centred
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
The Case For
School Effectiveness Research
The Fatal Flaw
They assume that the major determinants of the
quality of pupils curriculum and pedagogical
experiences are systems, rather than teachers’
(Elliott)
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
“The quality of education depends on the
quality of teachers’ deliberations and
judgement in classrooms”
(Elliott)
“To be effective, school improvement
efforts must be directed towards what
happens inside classrooms”
(Hill)
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
Easier said than done
“Substantial changes in pedagogy and in the way teachers
work together on instructional matters is stubbornly elusive”
(Fullan)
“The hardest core to crack – is the learning core – changes in
instructional practices and in the culture of teaching towards
greater collaborative partnerships”
(Fullan)
“The priority for school improvement at the level of
management is how to encourage a process of deliberative
reflection on the part of teachers at the classroom level”
(Elliott)
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
Strategies for learning-centred
leadership
Modelling
Dialogue
Monitoring
Southworth (2004)
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
Personalising Learning
•
•
•
•
•
Learning how to learn
Assessment for learning
Teaching and Learning Strategies
Curriculum Choice
Mentoring, Coaching and Support
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
• Move Learning to top of the agenda
- Governors’ Meetings
- SMT
- Staff Meetings
- Middle Leaders Forums
• Reframing INSET
• Focus and Use of PRSD
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
• Effective Use of DATA
- Achievement Gap(s)
- Internal Variability
“Quantum improvements in student learning can be
achieved if the performance of students in all classes is
brought up to the level of students in those classes in
which students make the greatest progress” (Hill)
“When school leaders seriously address within school
variation it can make a significant difference” (Munby)
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
“Systematic data collation, analysis
and USE … can lead to the
improvement of education as has no
other educational innovation of the
last century”
(McLean)
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
• Build a Culture of Collaboration rooted in
reflective practice amongst teachers
“The Capacity of the staff working collectively to
learn, defines the limit to which the school can
support ambitious reform. Therefore school
leaders must adopt collective learning as a
central role”
(NCSL)
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
Handling education and change:
• Coping
Limited to managing the school and responding only
to directions from higher sources
• Diffusion
‘Christmas Tree Schools’
• Goal Focused
Selecting a few key goals, establishing priorities and
ignoring other pressures
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
Reflective Practice: The Leadership
Challenge
“…discover and provide the conditions under
which peoples learning curves go off the
chart”
Barth (2001)
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
What does it look like?
A group of people who take an active, reflective,
collaborative learning oriented and growth
promoting approach towards the mysteries,
problems and perplexities of teaching and
learning.
It will not happen by accident!
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
Organizational Learning Frame
• Are there regular opportunities to examine and reflect
on classroom practice and student learning together?
• Do we engage in dialogue about program and practice
across departments and grades?
• Is there a common understanding about what counts as
progress across grades and subjects?
• From the students perspective, is there some
consistency in expectations about their learning
experience across grades and departments?
• Do we evaluate?
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
• Do we gather and share data about the student’s learning
experience?
• Are there opportunities to read about, examine and share “best
practices”?
• Are there opportunities to network with others about classroom
practice and procedures?
• Do we try to learn from our students about how we are doing as
a school? How can we learn this better? What methods and
processes could we use?
• Is our relationship with parents a learning relationship (where
we learn from them, as well as them from us). How do we do
this? How can we do it better?
Hargreaves, Shaw and Fink (1997)
Dr Tom Hesketh - Director
RTU/GTC (NI) June 2009
Tea/Coffee
‘Research Lesson Studies as an
approach to Reflective Practice’
Dr Debbie Galanouli QUB and
Dr Aidan Hamill
Workshop
Workshop
1
2
1200 – 1245
1345 – 1430
Workshop Name of Worksop
Room
(A)
Whole-School approaches to Effective Teaching
and Learning
Blackwood Suite
(B)
ICT in Support of Teaching & Learning &
Reflective Practice
Diplomat Lounge
(C )
The Research Engaged School
Sheridan Suite
(D)
Emerging Practice – ePortfolios & Teacher
Professional Development
Stake Room
(E)
Leadership for Learning
Viceroy Suite
1245 – 1345 Lunch
Workshop
2
1345 – 1430
Workshop Name of Worksop
Room
(A)
Whole-School approaches to Effective Teaching
and Learning
Blackwood Suite
(B)
ICT in Support of Teaching & Learning &
Reflective Practice
Diplomat Lounge
(C )
The Research Engaged School
Sheridan Suite
(D)
Emerging Practice – ePortfolios & Teacher
Professional Development
Stake Room
(E)
Leadership for Learning
Viceroy Suite
Mr Stanley Goudie Chief Inspector DE
GTCNI and RTU: Principals’ Conference
Leading Reflective Practice in Schools
Inspection, Self-Evaluation and Improvement
Stanley J Goudie
Chief Inspector, ETI
Providing Inspection Services for
Department of Education
Department for Employment and Learning
Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure
During this short presentation I plan to
cover:
• The Inspectorate’s Journey: A Leadership
Perspective
• The Inspectorate’s Contribution: TTI; the
Reflective Teacher; Teaching: the Reflective
Profession
• Inspection, Self-Evaluation and Improvement:
What are the benefits?
• Self-Evaluation/Self-Delusion/SelfImprovement: Where will the Gorilla Sleep?
The Inspectorate’s Journey: A
Leadership Perspective:
• The need for courage, honesty,
integrity and time.
• The use of EFQM – process not
product.
• The Inspectorate 3 year
Development Plan.
The Inspectorate’s Contribution
• Together Towards Improvement
(ETI)
• The Reflective Teacher (ETI)
• Teaching: the Reflective
Profession (GTCNI)
• Self-evaluation integral to
inspection
Inspection, Self-Evaluation and Improvement:
What are the benefits?
• The main strengths of incorporating an aspect
of self-evaluation within inspection are that this
approach:
Helps promote a culture of self-evaluation which
remains after the inspection.
Provides a clear focus on improving pupils’
attainments.
Increases the confidence and ability of staff to evaluate
their own practice.
Boosts morale by celebrating good practice, and using
this as a basis for building future improvement.
Self-Evaluation/Self-Delusion/SelfImprovement: Where will the
Gorilla Sleep?
• The Birthday Gift
• As a Leader – if you get the
chance to sit it out or dance?
Please dance!
GTCNI and RTU: Principals’ Conference
Leading Reflective Practice in Schools
Inspection, Self-Evaluation and Improvement
Stanley J Goudie
Chief Inspector, ETI
Providing Inspection Services for
Department of Education
Department for Employment and Learning
Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure
Thank you and Safe Journey Home
On behalf of GTCNI and RTU