Are we there yet? Are we there?

Originally published in Connect Magazine

This much-maligned question seems so appropriate for education's recent history. All that was normal, everything that was routine, all of our structures, have been turned upside down and hurled into the wind of COVID19. From having spoken of a future dominated by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), we have found ourselves living in it. Innovation and creativity became the new normal as we "Apollo 13" schooling into a model that met the demands of emergency remote learning. The pressure, the workload, the demands on our time and the cognitive load have all been immense, and so it seems fitting to ask "Are we there yet?". 

And, just when we think we are getting our heads around this remote learning business, things are changing again. We are going back into face-to-face teaching, albeit under conditions dominated by social distancing, temperature checks and personal protective equipment. Another new normal is on the horizon. But, as Winston Churchill might have stated, this is not the end, this is not the beginning of the end, it might be the end of the beginning, we just don't know. VUCA continues to dominate, and these are indeed post-normal times. 

Amidst all our current scrambling, particular patterns have emerged. In the absence of face-to-face dialogue with students, aspects of teaching that might otherwise be minimised or hidden have bubbled to the fore. In the initial rush to emergency remote online learning, a plethora of worksheets and online learning tools became the norm. The focus was on giving the students something to do, something that allowed them to spend time each day on school like learning while they remained safe at home. And then came the videos - teachers recording lessons to be absorbed by learners. Teaching regressed to a time when the flow of learning was unidirectional (from teacher to student) and focused on low-order skills and knowledge recall. It was a little like watching HAL, the supercomputer of Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A space odyssey" sing Daisy. For many, this was a troubling time, and they knew that much of what was good about contemporary education was missing. 

As the time of remote learning continued fresh questions and wonderings began to emerge. The pattern shifted as teachers began to wonder how might we ensure that the remote learning we are tasking our children with is engaging, empowering and thought-provoking. There were efforts to bring dialogue into our online learning environments, and students and teachers once again shared ideas and built connections. Questions such as "How do we translate the dominant patterns of dialogue and deep thinking into remote learning?" and "How do I continue to teach for understanding, and make the thinking of my students visible in this new time?" were pondered. 

Now, as we move back into face-to-face teaching, we have the opportunity to reflect on this time and to consider what might have worked and what we might need to tweak. It is said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. If this is so, what have teachers and students missed most from the version of school that was the norm before COVID19 became a thing? And, how might we restart the education system in ways that better focus us on the things which matter most?

As we look back at the early days of remote learning, we notice two things were absent. When we examine what we tried to add back into the mix as the days stretched into weeks, these two things again stand out as missing. Given the close relationship and codependence between the two, it is not surprising that once one went missing, the other did too. What might these things be? - Student agency and deep and varied thinking. 

Student agency and thinking are natural bedfellows, but they are not always immediately linked. Student agency is often associated with opportunities for student voice or choice. In many ways, this makes sense and schools should foster opportunities for these things, but agency is more than just a nice way of making decisions about canteen menus. Once we look at how schools might promote agency as a disposition with lifelong value, then we begin to see agency in a different light; one that requires thinking. 

Bandura's definition of agency fits well with most contemporary understandings of the term. According to Bandura (2001) "The core features of agency enable people to play a part in their self-development, adaptation, and self-renewal with changing times." This points to agency having an impact beyond what is achieved when a school listens to student opinion. Indeed the power of agency is most needed when individuals confront challenging times as explained by Little, Snyder and Wehmeyer (2006).

"In facing these challenges, an agentic individual is the primary origin of his or her actions, has high aspirations, perseveres in the face of obstacles, sees more and varied options, learns from failures, has a strong sense of well-being, and so on. A non-agentic individual, on the other hand, is primarily the pawn of unknown extra-personal influences, has low aspirations, is hindered with problem-solving blinders, and often feels both helpless and hopeless."

What is clear here is that agency should be a vital measure of the success that our education systems have. Beyond allowing students to play a part in their education, developing student agency will prepare them for life beyond school as empowered citizens able to shape their world. 

The link between thinking and agency should become apparent when we consider a definition of agency that values its place as a lifelong disposition. "As such, agency, like character, can be understood as a disposition—seeing oneself as an agent of change within the designed environs of one's world." (Clapp et al. 2017) As Ritchhart notes, ""agency," is the ability to make choices and direct activity based on one's own resourcefulness and enterprise. This entails thinking about the world not as something that unfolds separate and apart from us but as a field of action that we can potentially direct and influence". (Ritchhart. 2015) This requires us to think about the world in a particular manner; one that allows us to imagine the part we may play in shaping it. It also requires that students are engaging mindfully with the curriculum, that they are investigating ideas and concepts that matter and that as they do so, they are required to think. "Learning happens when students engage with ideas, when they ask questions, explore, and construct meaning with our guidance and support. . . . Exploring meaningful and important concepts that are connected to the world often means students want to take action. Providing opportunities and structures for them to do so encourages students' agency and power while making the learning relevant." (Ritchhart & Church, 2020) In this, we see the connection between deep-learning and engagement with learning that matters with learner agency. This is the type of learning that we and our students missed when we moved to emergency remote learning, and it is this that we want to ensure is emphasised as we return to face-to-face. 

What this type of learning requires is beautifully captured by Mike Medvinsky of Michigan. Mike is a coach in Project Zero's "Creating Cultures of Thinking" course and teacher of Music Production at University-Liggett School. He shares his approach to promoting student agency through a culture of thinking as follows:

I truly believe that the one's who are doing the thinking and the talking are the people who are doing the learning. And when I am the one who is talking the whole time and explaining things I'm the one doing the thinking and learning. It's truly important that I set the stage, lay the groundwork for the experience and the learners then take the initiative to do the thinking, do the learning, do the talking, share their ideas, reframe their thinking and continue this journey in our learning experience. So the more that I can take a supportive role, rather than a lead role, the learners become the active agents of their own learning. . . When a learner is truly owning their thinking, it becomes meaningful and relevant to them. When they're sitting in a class where they're just getting information and regurgitating it onto a test its not going to be anything that is an enduring understanding. (Mike Medvinsky. Secondary Music Production. University-Liggett School, Michigan)

The sort of thinking that Mike describes does not occur without the right context and culture. Unless thinking is noticed, named and valued, it won't thrive. Indeed, all of the dispositions we may aspire to develop in our children such as curiosity, imagination, creativity, empathy, critical thinking and indeed agency cannot be taught in isolation as skills to be mastered. We do not benefit from learning about dispositions. "Dispositions must be enculturated - that is, learned through immersion in a culture." (Ritchhart. 2015) A key component in getting the culture right is the act of making thinking visible. When we make thinking visible, we are able to create opportunities to notice and name the thinking that we and our students are engaging in and when we do this we encourage more of it such that thinking becomes routine. This process is well served through the use of thinking routines, and the use of such routines can unlock student agency as Erik Lindemann describes "The routines build learners' capacity to engage with complexity while inspiring exploration. As my students begin internalizing and applying these thinking tools, I become a consultant in their ongoing investigations. Curiosity and excitement fuel deeper learning as my students take the lead," (Cited in Ritchhart 2020)

So, Are we there yet?

What weeks of emergency remote learning revealed is that even where we claim to value agency and a culture of thinking, the reality might need some tweaking. Do we routinely begin the process of planning for learning with these things in front of mind? Are we asking questions that guide us towards enculturating thinking such as "What thinking might my students require here?" or "What type of thinking might my students most benefit from experiencing now?". Are we seeking to enculturate agency by seeking opportunities for student-led inquiry and subsequent action? Or, do we begin our planning process by asking "What will I have my students do today?" or "What must I explain to them in this lesson?". When we look back at the learning we planned as an emergency response to COVID19, which of these questions are revealed as our go-to response, and how might we change this narrative?

By Nigel Coutts

Clapp, E., Ross, J., Oxman Ryan, J. & Tishman, S. (2017) "Maker-centered learning: empowering young people to shape their worlds”, San Francisco, Josey Bass

Bandura, A. (2001) "Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective". Annual Review of Psychology 52:1-26

Little, Todd D., C. R. Snyder, and Michael Wehmeyer. (2006). “The Agentic Self: On the Nature and Origins of Personal Agency Across the Lifespan.” In D. K. Mroczek & T. D. Little (Eds) The Handbook of Personal Development, 61-79. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Ritchhart, R. (2015) Creating cultures of thinking: The eight forces we must truly master to transform our schools. San Francisco: Josey-Bass.

Ritchhart, R. & Church, M (2020) . The Power of Making Thinking Visible.  Hoboken NJ: Josey-Bass.

Change Management in the time of COVID19

I have written frequently about the question of complexity as it relates to change in educational institutions. It is interesting from a philosophical perspective and it is certainly important to consider how change in an organisation is a result of a multitude of interconnected factors. The potential for reliably predicting the outcome of any change effort is surely difficult, if not even impossible once the number of influences becomes large. Acknowledging the complexity that exists and seeing the potential for growth, creativity and innovation that can exist within an organisation at ‘the edge of chaos’ are useful strategies as schools face a period of unprecedented change. 

It is well known that change is difficult to achieve. A range of research studies cited by Burnes (2010) mention change failure rates of between 60% and 90%, with cultural change initiatives the most likely to fail. We also know that change is typically a slow process. In a recent interview, Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO shared that his experience in supporting organisations to make significant change reveals that he never sees this happen in less than a decade. (Listen Here)

In a previous post, I drew a parallel with the sport of curling. In curling, a heavy polished stone is hurled across the ice towards a target. Competitors running alongside the stone attempt to keep it on course using brooms to gently shape a path for it to follow. I suggested that the organisation is the stone and its trajectory is a result of many factors. The initial force (the origins of the change initiative), the surface of the ice and its interactions with the stone, (the organisation’s total context and the environment in which it operates), the changes made to the surface by the sweepers (the ongoing inputs of the change-makers) all influence how the change will evolve. When we consider this complexity we should not be surprised when our goals are not achieved.

Typically as change agents, we play the part of the curlers, providing the initial force to get things moving and then running frantically alongside making adjustments based on what we see, guided by our judgement of how to best steer the organisation (or stone) in the intended direction. Each little adjustment has an effect, some towards the goal, some in directions we had not intended. Like the curlers, we do not have complete control and we can act only on the basis of what we are able to see and understand about the organisation’s trajectory and the forces influencing it; we act with imperfect knowledge.

Change in education is notoriously slow. Education systems and schools are often compared to the giant seagoing ships in that both take a very long time to change course. If a teacher from 1890 was transported into a classroom of early 2020 they would feel quite at home. The rows or clusters of desks, the board at the front of the room, the teacher’s desk, the books and general paraphernalia of learning would all be there. They would find the routine of the day familiar too. The ringing of the bell, the movement between well-known disciplines, the rush to the playground for lunch breaks would all comfort our time-traveller’s mind. 

But, if our time travelling teacher arrived in many cities of the world today, in April of 2020, amidst the COVID19 pandemic, they would confront a vastly different context. 

Not in years or months but in days, teachers have transformed how “school” works. There has been nothing gradual about this change. It has occurred without any strategic vision. There has been no time to map the change and plan for its impact. No opportunity to develop a coalition of the willing. No one had time for focus groups. There is no plan for today or tomorrow and no plan for the long term. 

At this point in time, the exceptional efforts of educators responding in the moment is allowing education to continue. Students are learning, teachers are facilitating this and the wider community of parents and carers are playing their part. The effort has been superb. The challenge has been huge. The learning curve required for all stakeholders better resembles a cliff than anything else. Most of the structures and routines of schooling that we are all familiar and comfortable with have been transformed overnight. 

COVID19 has taken the rule book on change, torn it into small pieces and thrown most of it out the window. 

For many, the rule book on managing change is Kotter’s seminal work on the topic, “The Heart of Change”. According to Kotter, the change initiative begins with an increased sense of urgency. This is perhaps the one piece of the change model which is clearly evident in the responses to COVID19. Once the decision was made to move from face-to-face teaching to online/remote learning there was a very unmistakable sense of urgency for the change. What might be debated is the need for the level of urgency we have seen. While a move to online/remote learning might be viewed as an unavoidable consequence of school closures in response to the pandemic the immediacy of this might be debated. Could teaching and learning have been put on pause for a week or two to allow a more strategic plan for the long-term delivery of online learning to be devised? Would a longer planning process deliver more effective models for online/remote learning or has the change only been possible because the urgency required an emergency response? Would delaying the process of starting the change result in lengthy delays as systems wallowed in the thick mud that typically inhibits change? 

Kotter emphasises the importance of a vision for change articulated to its audience with clarity and passion. Simon Sinek takes up Kotter’s idea and describes the need for a compelling ‘Why’. A clear reason for why the change should be undertaken that is easily articulated and provides compelling motivation. This vision for change is what motivates action and gives the change effort its direction. In the case of COVID19, the visioning process seems to be catching up with action. We are seeing an emergency response to uncertain and volatile times. Teachers are making the best of what they have and learning new skills to deliver learning to students who have had no preparation for online learning. Families are called on to assist with the management of learning and to act as teachers. The urgency of the response necessitates that this occurs without reference to our vision for what education might be like and what purposes it should serve. In less urgent times a move to online learning would look vastly different. There would be much consideration of how this model might leverage the affordances of technology, maintain connectedness, deliver individualised content, connect learners globally and enhance learning outcomes. Multiple pedagogical models would be debated, curriculum adjustments considered and a clear vision would be articulated. This is yet to happen but must if this is to be more than a short term band-aid. 

The next factor to understand is that individuals are motivated to a large part by the degree of autonomy they believe they have in a situation. Highly controlled, constrictive and micro-managed situations will only result in minimal levels of motivation. A compelling vision delivered prepackaged and with no scope for individualisation will be as morale damaging as any forced change. Edward Deci, Richard Ryan, (2000) and Dan Pink (2009) all show that autonomy motivates. For educators, this is particularly significant as we confront change efforts imposed from above by legislature, curriculum requirements, standardised assessments and it will apply to changes resulting from COVID19. We should predict that there will be many teachers who find the changes required by a move to online learning conflict with their core values. Beyond the initial understanding of the urgency of a response to the pandemic will come a questioning of how this response is evolving. Teachers will want to shape how they deliver online learning and how they engage with their learners. They will seek and expect to be consulted on the models for online learning that are adopted and will want to understand how this aligns with both personal and organisational ideals. Creating space for teacher agency might prove crucial in maintaining motivation beyond the initial weeks of this emergency. 

Lastly, the importance of a sustained and broad effort to sustain the change effort is essential. The most compelling and engaging introduction to a change effort will produce no result if it is not backed by ongoing support and nurturing. Consistent ongoing messaging in alignment with the change effort from every point and every opportunity is essential to building and sustaining momentum. Where the change involves shifts in practices that require staff to operate in new ways appropriate and continual professional development is essential. In this case, there is also a great need to provide support to the entire school community. The success of any model for online learning will be dependent on the level to which it is embraced by all stakeholders. Parents and carers always play an important role in education but this is now elevated significantly. Schools will need to identify opportunities to support all members of this now tightly linked learning community. 

We are only in the early days of this pandemic. It is likely to be a long time before things return to normal. Already people are asking if we will ever return to the way things were. When we stop and reflect upon this period of enforced changes, will there be aspects of the new model that stay with us? What might be the pieces that stick and what parts will we want to rapidly abandon? Will there be parts of the traditional model of education that are revealed as flawed by our experimentation with alternatives? Let us hope that whatever model might evolve out of this time is a consequence of our very best thinking. 

By Nigel Coutts

Burnes, Bernard (2010) Why Does Change Fail and What Can We Do About It?, Journal of Change Management, 10 (2), pp. 241 — 242

Kotter, J & Cohen, D. (2002). The heart of change: Real-life stories of how people change their organisations. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press

Pink, D. (2009). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.

Ryan, R. & Deci, E. "Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being”, American Psychologist, 55(1), 2000, p. 68-78.