Reflection - Changes in Practice

My 32 Week Journey

MindLab - Post graduate Certificate in Applied Learning.

The last 32 weeks have quite honestly been the best and the worst of my year.  While relishing the contact with colleagues beyond my local cluster, the thought provoking resources and the robust discussions, I have struggled with the assignments as often the requirements did not fit comfortably within the scope of my work.  Finding the rhythm that allowed me to read, consider and respond to resources, and complete the assessments took a wee bit of time.
I have found joy in the discussions and hearing from teachers  about the challenges they face trying to implement changes in practice because of rigid processes that get in the way. It has been a great opportunity to reflect on our own school and see what obstacles are getting in the way of innovative practice on our own place. 

I have discovered many things about myself in the process; I was less flexible than I first thought and I had a set of beliefs about schooling  and leadership that had gone largely unchallenged for a number of years.   As a result of the learning my leadership has become more conscious, more purposeful, in the sense that I am considering style and purpose more, rather than doing things habitually.  

In my role as the school principal, I have two sets of criteria that I am appraised against.  As a registered teacher, I need to meet the 12 professional standards in the Practising Teacher's Criteria.  I also have the four criteria for leadership practice that sit within the Kiwi Leadership model.

It states in the introduction that   'Principals work within four areas of practice to lead change and to solve problems in their schools: culture, pedagogy, systems, and partnerships and networks. 
As well as being pedagogical leaders, principals are responsible for the day-to-day management of a broad range of policy and operational matters, including personnel, finance, property, health and safety, and the interpretation and delivery of the national curriculum.'   (Kiwi Leadership)

The competing priorities of the job require some strongly held beliefs that guide decision making processes and time management to stay focussed on the most important aspects of the job.   It is very easy to get bogged down with the mechanics of the job and run out of time for the most important aspect - pedagogical leadership.  The other tasks could quite easily be completed by an expert in that field with little or no education background, but the pedagogical leadership and curriculum development is central to leading a successful school.

What are the priorities?     
It is my task as the school leader to ensure that the environment and culture encourages opportunity to trial and iterate changes in practice. We need to have a growth mindset around investigation and teacher agency. We also need to remove the systems that get in the way of change, and look for ways that technology can assist us in engaging learners and working more efficiently. 

• PTC Criteria 7 (Promote a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment) 

Our current focus for professional learning is around collaborative teaching and learning. We are developing a set of collaborative norms for our school, and doing a lot of research and discussion about the pedagogy and advantages of collaboration for both the teacher and the learner. Our recent involvement in a CoL network provides us opportunity to look at practice across schools and collaborate with others in developing a model that will work in our own place.

• PTC Criteria 12 (Use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in professional practice) 

We have an established framework for teacher inquiry, but it is not yet functioning as we would like. Ideally it will be a teacher-driven self directed inquiry that excites the teacher and leads to better practice and improved student outcomes. We need to review our systems and see what we can do better to remove barriers and change attitudes.  We need to challenge existing pedagogical beliefs, become experts at reading the data and find efficient ways of recording our processes as evidence for registration. 


What is next?
For our school, our next steps involve developing a culture where we celebrate change and challenge, for both students and teachers.  We need to understand the psychology of change, including the 'joy' of the Pit, as explained by John Fisher in the diagram below.  

For me personally, this involves further professional learning in collaborative leadership and gaining greater clarity around student and teacher agency.   I am not sure yet if I am ready to continue my academic journey into a Masters Programme - still reeling from the commitment of the post-grad certificate.  However I am committed to continuing my professional learning and truly being the Lead Learner in my school. 

References:

Ministry of Education.  Kiwi Leadership for principals,; principals as education leaders http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Leadership-development/Key-leadership-documents/Kiwi-leadership-for-principals

Ministry of Education (nd). Practising teacher Criteria and e-learning . Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/

John Fisher, Process of Personal Transition, 2012. Retrieved form https://www.csu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/949533/fisher-transition-curve-2012.pdf

Professional context - Crossing boundaries and creating connections

INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION

A definition of Interdisciplinary Collaboration is 'combining or involving two or more academic disciplines or fields of study'.  It is a common practice in medicine when a patient presents with complex symptoms that require treatment from more than one specialist. It is most authentic when no single discipline can adequately describe or resolve a complex problem.

In a primary school classroom it would involve the teacher (or a group of teachers) planning a unit of work that used more than one core curriculum area, and through using essential skills or key competencies, finding answers to overarching essential questions.  We might call is project-based or inquiry learning, and it is commonly accepted in most NZ schools as a way of connecting learners with real-life and complex problems. While harder to achieve within the constraints of a secondary system of discrete disciplines, it is still possible in an environment where teachers and leaders collaborate and work flexibly. 

Interdisciplinary collaboration starts to look quite different when you take on leadership roles in a school.  Leadership often requires you to work with agencies and service providers, sometimes outside of the education sphere.  You need to work collaboratively with these people and agencies in order to achieve the shared goal that in some sense benefits your school, your teachers  or your students.  

My interdisciplinary connection map

As the Principal in my school, I have purposefully made professional connections in order to receive support in my professional work.  A Principal's role is much the same as a specialist teacher in a school - you are the only one who does that work, and so you can become isolated from colleagues doing the same work elsewhere.  The guidance, encouragement and advice I receive from my colleagues is fundamental to my progress as a leader and my enjoyment of the job. 

One interdisciplinary connection I am looking forward to developing further is the establishment of the Kaipatiki Community of Learning, involving 3 ECEs, 6 primaries, 1 intermediate, 1 college and 1 special school.  The opportunity this brings for interactions with leaders in different education contexts to mine is exciting.  For leaders across a local education pathway to discuss the  challenges and opportunities they face collectively provides space to stretch our practice and encourage collaboration within and across our schools. 

The model represented in the article "A Conceptual Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration" (Mulligan and Kuban 2015) is one that the framework of CoLs (MoE booklet 2016) can deliver well.  

I am optimistic that the collaborative and inter-school relationships that develop out of the CoL will have significant impact on both student achievement and teacher practice.  I also believe it will provide a strong framework for building leadership capacity within the CoL, and this can only benefit the schools involved and the children they serve.  

References:

Ministry of Education (2016)  Community of Learning - Guide for Schools and Kura

Barton, K. C., & Smith, L. A. (2000). Themes or motifs? Aiming for coherence through interdisciplinary outlines. The Reading Teacher, 54(1), 54-63.1.

Mulligan, Laura MacLeod   & Kuban, Dr. Adam J. (May 2015)  A Conceptual Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration,  ACRlog   retrieved from http://acrlog.org/2015/05/14/a-conceptual-model-for-interdisciplinary-collaboration./

Using Social Media in teaching

What is the place of social media in teaching?

I am a regular user of social media in my personal life.  I connect with friends and whanau through Facebook, with people that interest me through Twitter, with professional contacts through LinkedIn, watch video on YouTube, and collect inspiration through Pinterest.

In the last two years I have started using social media on my professional life also. I have connected with groups internationally that provide online learning via webinar, local groups that post and discuss current issues in our educational climate, connected with school leaders for professional dialogue, accessed webinars through VLN (virtual learning network) and more recently set up groups for our school - one for parents and another for teachers, to encourage dialogue and sharing that builds each community.

 As I have become more familiar with the various privacy settings available on each of the platforms, I am increasingly comfortable with the idea of teachers and students making use of SM to extend the parameters of their learning spaces. While there is potential for risk in online environments, there is also in the real world.  It is our job as adults in their lives to minimise the risks while allowing our students to experience the vast range of opportunities in the world to engage them in learning.  I see no difference between this and learning in the online world.  There are some great resources available for schools and teachers using online platforms in their professional work, and more recently excellent guidelines provided by the Education Council for teachers using social media personally and professionally.

At our school, we have for a number of years used the Netsafe resource Hectors World to teach cybersafety in our classrooms. This programme takes children through a series of short videos to teach them the safety steps they need to take to protect themselves and their personal information while in online spaces.
                         
We are in the process of reviewing our digital literacy and cybersafety policies and procedures, as we move in to using more devices in our rooms.  We want our students to be producers of online resource not just consumers, and so we are developing the use of class and student blogs as a first step.  I am excited to see how this will work, and how we can extend that to social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram to connect with classes within and beyond our school.  Recently our cluster became a Community of Learning, and so now we have a fabulous opportunity to develop a virtual COL  among the 12 providers involved in our cluster - ranging from ECE to Secondary , and including our local special school. Our own Virtual Learning Network (VLN)

In my own leadership practice, I have been looking at ways to connect with the two main groups of learners I work with - parents and teachers.  Initially I approached a Board member ad another tech savvy parent to help me set up a WR Parents group on Facebook.  As Facebook is a commonly used and user-friendly site we decided to set up a closed group page, meaning users needed to request permission to belong to the group.  We have made clear that the page is only for parents/caregivers of CURRENT students, staff and Board members of our school, and that the member ship is checked and permissions reviewed annually.  We also set out clear guidelines for the purpose of the page and ensure that is pinned so it is visible to all constantly.  It is used for sharing photos and videos of events so that families that cant attend can still see what we are doing, is is a space for reminders of upcoming events and tasks, we have used it for quick surveys, and for sharing information and notices. Because FB sends notifications of postings, parents and families are more likely to see this than find a newsletter in their child's bag.

Because of the success of this page, I have recently set up another closed group for the teachers, seeing it as way to engage with professional articles, videos etc that challenge our thinking about how and what we teach. We will be using it as a library of professional resources.  This concept replaces the folder of professional Readings that nobody ever enjoys collating or reading.  Facebook makes it very easy for the user to copy and paste links or articles directly into the page, giving opportunity for teachers to share something provocative or exciting with their colleagues. And no paper!

I hope this initiative will encourage teachers to share and discuss their ideas and to look for research and thinking both locally and internationally that they can use in their own practice. My hope is that this will be teacher-driven and encourage discussion and debate about best practice in our school. We need to be reflective and open to new learning in order to provide the best for our students. Change is a constant in education, and if you are not open to changing then you are not open to improvement.

As Karen Melhuish said in her masters thesis (pg4) 'the importance of reflecting on one's own needs in relation to one's learners needs is front and centre' and in my view, central to improving practice.


                                                     
                                           

References

Education Council of NZ - Teachers and Social Media   -   https://educationcouncil.org.nz/ 

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrived on 05 May, 2015 from http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han.  

Ministry of Education and NetSafe, Digital Technology: Safe and responsible use in schools; (Feb 2015)  

Virtual Learning Network - http://www.vln.school.nz/