Sometimes, it seems the class you are teaching is more than you can cope with.
A whole range of factors seem to conspire against you at the start of the year and despite your efforts you don’t feel you are gaining the usual traction with your students. Whether it’s the particular mix of learners, the specific learning needs of some students or the challenging behaviour of others, things are not quite going as planned and you are starting to question your ability as a teacher and maybe even thinking now is the time to switch careers.
The truth is all teachers face times like this. The sad part is that many good teachers decide that the best move for them in these times is to leave the profession; a trend we need to fix.
It is easy to imagine that the mark of a competent teacher is their ability to successfully manage the learning needs of any group of students or the needs of any specific student purely as a result of their individual talents. Such thinking is deeply flawed but is reinforced by organisational structures that isolate teachers and privatise the teaching process. When we become more open and collaborative we see that we are not alone in our struggles to meet the needs of our students. Opportunities to share stories from the classroom, allow us to see that even the teachers we imagine as the most talented and experienced have moments where they are challenged by the learning needs of their students, have trouble connecting with individuals and confront feelings of self-doubt.
Collaborative teams of teachers and specialists are essential and should be the norm in all schools. A collaborative planning team allows teachers to formally discuss the learning needs of their students as individuals and as members of a learning community. A diverse collaborative team will bring new perspectives and understandings of the challenges and offer alternate strategies for meeting the needs of the learners. An effective collaborative team will be supportive of the teacher and ensure that the teacher is well supported. While the ultimate goal of the team is to develop a strategy that serves the needs of the learner, the first task is to ensure the teacher is looked after and knows that the team is supporting their efforts.
Membership of the collaborative team will vary depending on the specifics of the situation but should always include the child’s parents or carers. The perspective that the child’s family brings is important to any plans made for the child and their participation in the plans implementation is vital. In schools that achieve the greatest success for their students, close ties will already exist with the parent body and discussions about the learning goals of the school and the part that families can play in supporting these will be the norm.
Access to relevant professional development should be the norm and teachers should be able to tailor their access to this based on the needs of their learners. This professional development should include access to professionals such as child psychologists, occupational therapists and counsellors who have knowledge of the specific circumstances of the child and the context of their learning. Access to such specialists can be expensive and a goal of developing a more equitable education system should include providing access to these professional services for all who require it.
Believing in the growth potential of every student is critical to success. By knowing where our students are with their learning, seeking to understand how they learn and the obstacles that might impede their learning teachers can set achievable goals and map a path towards these. Knowing that the path will take many twists and turns and times progress might seem slow is part of the process. Teachers with a true growth mindset will know that there are aspects of teaching that trigger their fixed mindset and that the same applies for their students. By working and learning together it is possible to see growth as an achievable goal and from that point it becomes possible to make progress in the desired direction.
As individual teachers and as teaching teams it is important that we look after ourselves in addition to looking after the needs of our students. When we find ourselves with a challenging student or class the workload and stress escalates and as it does our capacity to problem solve diminishes. We need to understand that before we can meet the needs of our students we need to meet our personal needs. Taking the personal time to rest, reset and reflect is critical, as is time with our families and time away from thinking about work. Setting clear boundaries, disconnecting from work by turing off email and engaging with our personal interests are habits that make us better teachers.
The teacher that our students need, is the teacher who is willing to do what it takes to meet their needs but who is not willing to sacrifice their own sanity in doing so. Great teachers know their limits and know that the best way to meet the needs of their learners is by building a collaborative team around them. Great teachers seek help, ask for guidance and understand that they cannot know all the answers. They are gentle on themselves and forgiving of mistakes, recognising that every day is a new day with new hope and fresh possibility.
By Nigel Coutts
Happy Daze Booths and Suno Stool courtesy of BFX - Node Chair/Desk courtesy Steelcase
Getting creative with our learning spaces
Learning is impacted by many forces such as the learner’s disposition to the process, the quality of their teacher’s pedagogy, their emotional state and nature of the curriculum. Amongst this long list of factors is naturally the environment in which that learning occurs and the relationship between the environment and the learner. Our understanding of this relationship has grown and fortunately today’s educators are more willing to experiment with the way spaces are organised to promote learning.
Looking online you easily find a whole range of beautifully furnished learning spaces. Rather than a single, one-size fits all arrangement these spaces create zones designed to meet the particular learning needs of those using the space. Using metaphors from ancient civilisations spaces are seen as Campfires, Watering Holes or Cave Spaces; each serving a different purpose but acting together to meet the needs of a group of learners throughout a day. Campfires are spaces that allow communication on a large scale and fit the model of the lecture into a friendlier space that encourages more back and forth interaction. The Campfire space is best supported by spaces for collaboration on a smaller scale with nearby breakout spaces or flexibility in furnishings that offer this function. Watering Holes are spaces for small group collaboration and should include spaces that facilitate spontaneous interactions and socialisation. By nature, they are likely to be loud but can be adapted to the specific needs of the group. Cave Spaces are for individuals and pairs who need access to a quiet space for reflection and meditative thinking.
These books will inspire your learning space design.
Unfortunately, we are not all blessed with expansive classrooms which can readily accommodate a diversity of learning zones. The challenge becomes one of creatively using the space and furnishings you have to create flexible spaces. A good example of this can be found in one of our smallest classrooms.
Located on the top floor of the historically listed Parkes Building, 3B is a class of happy and confident students led by a teacher Emma, who was prepared to give up a teachers desk to give more space back to her learners. For the students Year Three marks an important milestone in their education as they transition from Prep into Junior School. Through the careful arrangement of desks, book cases, cushions and the addition of a playful tee-pee (a feature of some of our Prep Classrooms), Emma was able to welcome her class into a space that was designed to meet their learning needs while being a delightful and welcoming space. Within a small room Emma has created that highly prized mix of campfire, watering hole and cave space. As students settle into the space Emma plans to hand ownership over to the students and will work with them to create spaces that best suit their needs. In this way Emma is providing her students with opportunities for metacognition as they reflect on what works best for them as learners.
Emma is not alone in using the space she has creatively. Last year we were able to purchase a range of new furnishings. Looking to break the mould and explore alternate models for furnishing learning space they explored what was available and what might suit the limited space available. The result is a mix of comfortable lounges which can be arranged to form partly enclosed booths, round tables with writeable surfaces to encourage collaboration and desks at heights to accommodate standing, kneeling or sitting on the floor. Some of the furniture being explored is 'movement permissible’ and is designed to allow students a degree of wiggle room that is reported as enhancing focus for some learners. Long days of sitting in hard plastic chairs does little to assist anyone’s focus but a little comfort and the possibility to shift your weight can overcome some of the obstacles to learning that arise out of environmental factors.
A recent addition to the mix is a set of combination chair and desk. Similar in form to the desks we might recall from university lecture halls, the modern version accommodates learning with ample desk space, storage under the chair and wheels to allow a speedy reconfiguration of the room. Students are able to quickly form small groups, and then shift again to share their learning with another set of learners while taking all they need with them. The smaller footprint and ease of movement of these desk and chair combinations allows a large open floor space to be easily created to facilitate learning that requires additional room.
A tradition of the primary classroom is the use of under desk storage. This feature ensures students have what they need close by and keeps the classroom neat but can equally restrict options as students feel they belong to the one space in the room where their belongings are stored. Under desk storage is perhaps a remnant of the educations history where students would typically have a large pile of exercise books, text books, novels and a multitude of pencil cases to hold all of their stationery needs. With much of this now replaced by electronic devices less space is needed and by doing away with under desks we have created a more dynamic learning space.
The key here is that we are actively thinking about the connections between the learning and thinking we hope to make routine and the physical environment in which it occurs. Rather than being directed by our experience of school we are considering what the environment might be like and how that may best support our goals.
by Nigel Coutts
Related:
A culture of innovation requires trust and resilience
"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new”
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Albert Einstein
Two quotes by Albert Einstein point to the importance of creating a culture within our schools (and organisations) that encourages experimentation, innovation, tinkering and indeed failure. If we are serious about embracing change, exploring new approaches, maximising the possibilities of new technologies, applying lessons from new research and truly seek to prepare our students for a new work order, we must become organisations that encourage learning from failure.
There is an easy way to avoid mistakes and with the classroom remaining a largely private domain it is easily done. Rather than trying new ideas and sharing the results with your colleagues, maintain the status quo, hide any mistakes and avoid risky situations where your ideas might be challenged. Don’t volunteer for projects, don’t share new strategies and don’t ask for help when you are unsure of what to do. In many organisations, doing so will allow you to avoid critical feedback and ensure you many long and peaceful days.
The danger in such an approach is that you are locking yourself away from any opportunity for growth and restricting the opportunities available to your students. By not sharing you limit the potential benefits of your innovative ideas to the students you teach and by not asking for help you limit the scope of possible solutions to those you might imagine. What hope will your students have of developing a growth mindset or desire to try new ideas if they never see their teacher doing the same.
The alternative is to try new ideas, in public, while asking for help and seeking feedback.
Often your ideas will be criticised. Sometimes they will be misunderstood. Sometimes people will be critical of you. Often your ideas will fail, or be blocked, or ignored. There will be times when you want to hide and there will be times when you want to give up. More importantly there will be times when your idea makes a genuine difference. There will be times when your idea meets the ideas of another and together they grow into something you had never imagined. Through the feedback you receive, from the critical comments, from the questions and by learning from your blunders you will find that your ideas can make a real difference. While it is true that the more ideas you share, the more criticism you face; it is also true that the more ideas you share, the more success you have.
Being or becoming an innovator within an organisation requires a high-degree of resilience. The innovator must genuinely embrace the belief that ideas are better when they are shared. Innovators know and believe that the surest path to a truly innovative solution is to share that idea early in its development so that it might benefit from the wisdom of many minds. But for this to happen those receiving the idea must adopt a mindset of possibility. Too often our first response to a new idea is to find and share all the reasons why it won’t work or at least won’t work here. Rather than starting with “This won’t work because . . .” we need to flip our thinking and respond “This might work if we . . .”.
If schools and organisations wish to activate the innovators in their mix they must learn to celebrate the mistakes and missteps along the way. In biology the word ‘culture’ is used to describe a medium that promotes growth; a culture medium. When we embrace this idea and apply it to the culture of our schools we can see that the right culture creates the conditions necessary for growth. Innovation will only thrive in a culture where the individual feels safe to try new ideas.
The challenge for schools in creating a culture that is accepting of failure is that the messaging of this is conveyed as much in the little things as in the public affirmations of a desire to innovate. The tone of an email, the subtle reprimand, the abrupt response to a question that shuts down the conversation are all factors which restrict innovation. Genuine encouragement of innovative ideas will see individuals and teams praised for the ideas that do not work as much as they are praised for the ones that do.
I feel lucky to work an environment that encourages innovation and I have seen time and time again ideas that I have shared become better and stronger thanks to the input of many minds. Those who do not work in such an environment need to find ways to innovate within their context. Maybe innovations occurs within a small team. Maybe you share your ideas with a few trusted colleagues before sharing them with the whole school. Sometimes you need to try that new idea in private, gathering evidence of its utility as you do before you share it with a wider audience. Making connections with educators in other schools and other countries via social media can provide you with the support and sounding-board your ideas need. It may not be an easy path, and may often seem a lonely one, but your students deserve it, and so do you.
By Nigel Coutts
Change and why we all see it differently
Change is the background noise of the modern workplace. The constant force that winds its way into all we do. Thanks to forces such as technology, globalisation, ever expanding communication networks and global warming, living with change has become almost normal. At the forefront of our response to change lies education. If the young people of today are to thrive beyond the walls of the classroom they will need to be able to cope with a world characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. The children of todays Kindergarten will enter the workplace in the fourth-decade of the 21st Century. We debate the merits of teaching 21st Century Skills and what they might be while teaching children who have lived their entire lives in that very century.
Increasingly the message from those who are hiring and educating young adults, from those analysing the demands of work and life in contemporary times is that education needs to change and change rapidly. In Australia, the Foundation for Young Australians has produced multiple reports that detail the skills and dispositions children will need. In the United States, multiple research projects point to a workforce that will require more preparation, higher social or analytical skills and where continuous training is the norm. (See Pew Research) On a global level the OECD has presented their ‘Future of Work’ report and share that
‘Globalisation, technological progress and demographic change are having a profound impact on OECD labour markets, affecting both the quantity and quality of jobs that are available, as well as how and by whom they are carried out. The future of work offers unparalleled opportunities, but there are also significant challenges associated with these mega-trends.’
Other changes to the shape of work and life in the coming years result from ongoing trends in artificial intelligence, automation and the rise of the ‘gig’ economy where freelance and short term contract work is common and training and retraining for new projects is the norm. In this economy, it is more important to be able to learn than it is to be learned.
What is very clear is that change is not going away. The challenge is how will schools and individual teachers respond to this drive for urgent change.
How we respond to change varies immensely. From experience with driving change and from conversations and observations with individuals as they approach change in various forms it seems that there are broad typologies which emerge along a continuum from those who actively seek to change to those who actively resist it.
There are those for whom change is the next adventure. They are happy to embrace change and are likely to be strong advocates for it. These are either the initiators or first followers of change. For the leader seeking to implement change in an organisation this group at first make things easy and during the early phases of a change initiative you might wish everyone was as adventurous as these happy folk. The trouble is however rapid the pace of change it will not be sufficient for those who love change almost for change’s sake. They will quickly grow frustrated and while the advocate for change they may do so in a manner that ostracises others. They are also likely to move on to the next new thing just as quickly as they jumped on board with the last and as a result no change is ever fully implemented. The great idea they embrace today will be tomorrow’s old thing and while the revel in the journey everyone else gets ‘change fatigue’.
There are those who are open to change but need to be shown the evidence. They ask questions, seek clarification, engage in research of their own and challenge assumptions. They can seem difficult at times and even appear adversarial but when you understand their motivation and feed them the information they desire they are likely to become some of your strongest supporters (at least amongst others like them). These are the ones who will want the full version of the report. Who will read the twenty page document outlining the change and then ask for copies of the referenced research papers. The quick and dirty snapshot is likely to get this group off side and they will complain about a lack of detail.
There are those who need to be show how the change will impact them. They want the human side of the story and while this group also craves details they do not need charts and data but stories of how the change will be ‘felt’ within the organisation. In schools much of their focus will be on how the change will effect the students but they will also want to know about the impact it might have on their colleagues. Will this create more work, will there be time to adjust, will there be support, who will this change impact. This group are likely to look at the real world impact of the change and are likely to back their concerns with ‘tales from the coal-face’. Show them the human face of the change and how it will make their lives better and they will get on board. Smothering them with data and jargon is likely to make them suspicious.
There are also those who just want to be told what to do. They don’t really buy into the change; they don’t resist it either. They are not impressed by the research or the stories of how this will change their lives for the better. They want the snapshot version and the chance to get on with what they have to do. This group might make the process of change easy to implement but they are not likely to help you win supporters who don’t have a similar mindset and the more subtle elements of complex change will be entirely lost to them.
There are those who publicly embrace the change but in the privacy of the classroom continue as they have always done. These are the ones who have seen change come and go and have learned that by keeping their head down they can wait out this new initiative. Some will believe that they have indeed adopted the change but the reality is that do not fully understand it. Others will believe that the new idea is precisely what they have always done and again they are not understanding the new approach. Deprivatising education has many advantages including sharing best practices, enhancing collegiality and promoting collaboration; it also makes visible those who passively resist change.
There are those who are outright afraid of change. These are often the ones who are the most outspoken advocates of the status quo. They are likely to attack those initiating the change and will claim that it is too complicated, has been poorly articulated and is ill conceived. They may not have strong arguments for why things should stay as they are and they are not likely to be persuaded by reason. Once you recognise that the reaction you are seeing is driven by fear you can start to address the real issues for this group. This is a group that will definitely require one to one time and who need to see that the change is manageable. They are more likely to be persuaded to give new ideas a go by their close peers than by management. When they do come around they are likely to bring others with them.
In schools, emotion and culture are linked and change of culture frequently invokes an emotional response. “A person’s sense of identity is partly determined by his or her values, which can mesh or clash with organizational values” (Smollan & Sayers 2009 p439) When cultural change is sought in a school and it is not viewed as fitting with one’s values or it calls those values into question emotional responses such as fear, anger or sadness are common.
There are of course also those for whom the change is just wrong. They understand it, they have looked at the research, listened to the rhetoric and don’t buy any of it. As author of “Good to Great”, Jim Collins might note, these are the people who have found themselves on the wrong bus and in the wrong seats. They are likely to be great people and given the right context could do great things but if they cannot find a way to align their core beliefs with the organisations vision for change they are unlikely to be truly happy. If you are leading people like this, you might find ‘Radical Candor’ by Kim Scott illuminating. Helping people find the right place, the place where they fit is the best service we can provide those who are on the wrong bus. If you are feeling like you are on the wrong bus it might be time to read Simon Sinek’s ‘Start with Why’ and explore how doing so can help you find meaning within an organisation or point you in the right direction.
Change is always complicated. A the least it involves people, personalities, cultures, beliefs, values, emotions and identity. Change initiatives have a habit of failing and do so even when all the right steps seem to have been made. Chaos theory loves change inside complex organisations and schools are indeed complex enough to ensure the results of change efforts will be unpredictable. If we at least seek to understand the motivations and perspectives of those involved in the change, we have a chance of making the right moves.
By Nigel Coutts
Scott, K. (2017) Radical Candor: How to be a great boss without losing your humanity. Macmillan: UK
Sinek, S. (2011) Start with why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action. Portfolio Penguin: London
Smollan, R & Sayers, J. (2009) Organizational Culture, Change and Emotions: A Qualitative Study, Journal of Change Management, 9:4, 435-457
Foundation for Young Australians
Deloitte - Futures of Work
Key findings about the American workforce and the changing job market
Good to Great - Article by Jim Collins
Starting the year on the right foot
Across Australia students are returning to school. Armed with fresh stationery, new books full of promise, shoes that are not yet comfortable and uniforms washed and ready to go, students will be heading off for the first day of a new year. What do they hope to find and how might we make sure their first day back sets them up for a successful year of learning?
Above all else our students will want to know that school is a safe place where they can be themselves. Students will not take risks with their learning, engage in creative thinking, adopt a growth mindset or demonstrate grit and determination if they do not feel safe. A safe and welcoming school climate is one that embraces diversity in all its forms, is forgiving of mistakes and missteps, focuses on growth and sees learning as an iterative process. When we take the time to get to know our students, when we show that we want to hear their story, discover their interests and join with them on the learning journey that lies ahead we show our students that they are what matter most. Great teachers know their students well and use that knowledge just as they use their knowledge of curriculum and pedagogy to construct the right culture for every child's learning.
A teacher I worked with for many years would begin the term by writing each member of her class a welcome note. What made this practise special was the great care with which each note was written. As the students arrived in her class at the start of the year and the start of each term they would find their personalised note waiting on their desk. Each note was carefully crafted to show that the child was known and that their teacher was happy to have them as a member of her class. The notes shared with the child their teacher’s hopes for them in the weeks and months that lay ahead and her confidence in their ability to handle the challenges they would encounter. With this strong foundation, the first hours of the school year were dedicated to building connections and celebrating the rich diversity that the students bring to the class as a result of their backgrounds, interests, strengths and weaknesses. The time spent in these opening hours established a class that put empathy and compassion before all else.
The start of the year is the perfect time to establish a culture of thinking in our classrooms. When we value thinking, make time for it to occur, ask open ended questions that permit it and when we set the clear expectation that thinking is essential in our classrooms we build a culture that advances learning. Many teachers start the year with stories of holiday adventures but fewer begin with stories of holiday thinking and learning. This can be the perfect opportunity to model your thinking as a teacher and as a life-long learner. By sharing with our students, the learning, problem solving, thinking and wondering we engage with we become the models of life-long learning they need.
“What makes you say that?” is a powerful question and one of the Ten Things that Ron Ritchhart recommends we say to our students every day. It can be a confronting question and some learners who have not been exposed to it may see it as negative feedback. It is worth explaining to the class early on that “What makes you say that?” (or the abbreviated WMYST) is a question you will ask often not because their response is flawed but because you value the thinking that led to it. WMYST is one way to take your students beyond right and wrong answers and to move the routine of the classroom away from what Dylan Wiliam calls “ping pong” questioning where the teacher asks a question, a student answers and the pattern repeats. WMYST opens up a richer dialogue where there are multiple perspectives and students are expected to reason with evidence. Establishing an expectation that students will articulate the thinking behind their responses early on brings the advantage that before long students will automatically extend their responses with the addition “and what makes me say that is . . .”.
This is also the time to set up the conditions required to enable a “growth mindset”. Being clear from day one that this year will be full of challenges and that students will have many times when they do not immediately achieve success. Failure will be a part of their learning and is a necessary requirement for true personal growth. If we reimagine failure as a part of the learning process, as a way of finding out what doesn’t work and of exploring just beyond our personal limit, it stops being a barrier and is transformed as a hurdle on the road to success. Building on this, teachers need to be clear that they value personal growth more than right answers or high test scores. The students who take responsible risks, challenge themselves, look for what they can learn from every experience and who want to be shown where they might improve are the ones who will achieve the most.
Our recently appointed Australian of the Year, Professor Michelle Yvonne Simmons captured many of these ideas beautifully in her acceptance speech, words that will undoubtedly be shared by many teachers at the start of this year. "I’ve really lived by four mantras - do what is hard, place high expectations on yourself, take risks and do something that matters” Now is the time for us to establish a culture of learning in our classrooms that allow our students to do the same. The little things we do now, the time we spend building our classroom culture, sets us up for the great year of learning we all hope for.
By Nigel Coutts
10 Things to say to your students everyday by Ron Ritchhart
Developing and Maintaining a Growth Mindset
Becoming Learners: Making time for OUR Learning
At the heart of all that we do as teachers lies the act of learning. Our hope is that our actions inspire our students to engage in a process that results in their acquisition of new knowledge, mastery of new skills and the development of capacities and dispositions which will prepare them for life beyond our classrooms. Increasingly our focus is on developing the skills and dispositions our students require to become life-long learners. We recognise that in a rapidly changing world, the capacity to take charge of your personal learning journey, to become self-navigating learners is essential.
"The fullest representations of humanity show people to be curious, vital, and self-motivated. At their best, they are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills; and apply their talents responsibly. (Ryan & Deci. 2000)
The challenge for teachers is to recognise the value of their personal learning for themselves, for their schools as learning organisations and for their students. Setting aside time for regular personal learning is vital for our professional growth. It is something that some of our most successful entrepreneurs recognise. Michael Simmons has researched the practices of people such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. He found that each of these people can attribute some of their ongoing success to their regular engagement with deliberate learning. Michael refers to this focused, consistent pattern of learning as the “five hour rule” in which individuals dedicate at least an hour of each working day to their personal learning.
For busy teachers finding five hour each week to focus on our learning is a challenge, after all we have up to thirty learners in our classes who require our attention and every day it seems that our to do list expands. To change this, we need to change our thinking and understand that the time we spend on our personal learning is time that will ultimately enhance and enrich the learning environment we provide our students. This is a strategic thinking move that takes us away from what Stephen Covey refers to as “Fire-fighting” where our day is consumed with items which are important and urgent or “Distractions" which demand our attention but are ultimately not-important for our strategic direction. By deliberate action we are able to set aside time in our schedule for the important task of developing our own capacities.
An easy way to start a learning journey is to set aside time for personal reading. There is an ever-expanding selection of books directly relevant to our role as teachers and I have shared such lists previously. If our goal is to expand our thinking then there is great value in exploring ideas outside of the immediate field of teaching and learning.
With this goal in mind here is a short list of books from outside of the field of education which are bound to get you thinking.
Post-Truth: The New War on Truth and How to Fight Back by Matthew d'Ancona
In this book, British journalist Matthew d’Ancona presents the argument that we are living in a ‘post-truth’ era where we are accepting and tolerant of lies and reluctant to accept the wisdom of experts. It is a book that might help you understand the current political climate and one that will encourage you to re-think how we prepare our students to be sceptical analysers of information and opinion. This is a book you will want to share and one you will soon be citing in conversations.
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
We are a society that celebrates extroversion and outward displays of confidence and flamboyance but in doing so we ignore and devalue the strength of our introverts. In the classroom, our introverts go easily unnoticed. They consume less of our time and in class conversations seem to have less to contribute than their more extroverted peers. When you read “Quiet” your assumptions about introverts will be challenged and you will see the introverted people in your life through a new lens. For those who are introverts this book will help you better understand your strengths and help you handle life in a world that seems to focus on extroversion.
Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team by Simon Sinek
With his best-selling book “Start with Why” Simon Sinek started a movement committed to understanding why we do what we do. In this new book Simon and his team share the strategies they have used as they help individuals and teams find their why. If you are a fan of Simon Sinek’s ideas and are looking for your why, this book is a must read.
Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz
Gene Kranz is one of those amazing individuals who has played a critical role behind the scenes of some of the defining moments of modern times. For anyone with an interest in engineering, science, space exploration or who grew up marvelling at the adventures of astronauts this book is a must-read. Gene Kranz is perhaps best known for the role he played in the safe return of the Apollo 13 astronauts as depicted in the Ron Howard film where Gene was portrayed by Ed Harris. Gene tells the story of NASA through the eyes of insider beginning in the early days of the Mercury to flights beyond the Apollo programme. An inspiring read.
Introducing Chaos: A Graphic Guide by Ziauddin Sardar, Iwona Abrams
Chaos theory is one of those ideas that we may have all heard of but few of us truly understand. In this book, the authors provide a gentle introduction to the field of chaos theory through a mix of accessible text and supporting images. If you feel that things are increasingly becoming complex and characterised by times of chaotic change, this book is the place to start an exploration of what chaos theory has to offer. A book full of insights.
and for something completely different . .
507 Mechanical Movements: Mechanisms and Devices by Henry T. Brown
This is a delightful book and one that anyone with an interest in engineering and how things work will treasure. It is full of images of simple and relatively complex mechanical arrangements. The sort of book that would have been an essential reference items for engineers at the dawn of the 20th Century when it was originally published. If you are exploring maker centred learning this book is bound to provide fresh ideas and could inspire a novel solution to a mechanical problem.
By Nigel Coutts
Related:
Good Reads for Great Assessment
Suggested Readings to Inspire Teaching
Taking the time to think
Time is the most precious of resources.
It seems that we never have enough of it and the result is a feeling of constant pressure to do things quickly. As a result, we fall into a pattern of making quick decisions, with incomplete information and then proceed to take hasty action and seek short cuts. Our busy lives, the business of those around us, the schedules we set ourselves and the constant stream of distractions and interruptions ensure we have very little time to do things well and we never seem to get things done.
"Could it be though that the disruptive, 24/ 7, multi-channel communications we value so much are actually eroding our ability to think clearly, creatively and expansively?” (Lewis, 2016 p1)
Against this trend towards doing more, in less time and at a faster pace is a trend towards slowing down, taking time and giving our minds time to catch up.
Once we realise that as described by Chris Lewis we are moving too fast to think, we can start looking for an alternate course of action. The obvious answer is to slow down, to pause, switch off and take the time we need to reset but doing this requires deliberate action. We begin the process by recognising that taking our time, slowing down and being deliberate in the processes of thinking is a pathway towards becoming more productive, more creative and more attuned to the world around us. In what seems like a contradiction in terms, the best strategy for coping with the rapid pace of our lives is not to speed up but to slow down.
Slow Looking by Shari Tishman
In “Slow Looking” by Shari Tishman the reader finds an approach to slowing doing and taking the time needed to appreciate the finer details in the world around us.
"Slow looking is a healthy response to complexity because it creates a space for the multiple dimensions of things to be perceived and appreciated. But it is a response that, while rooted in natural instinct, requires intention to sustain."
For educators, the practice of slow looking will align well with strategies from the Visible Thinking movement. If you have used strategies such as “Looking Ten Times Two” or “Look and Look Again” you have experienced slow looking. By deploying strategies which require us to switch modes and adopt a more contemplative stance backed by deliberate efforts to notice things on multiple levels, we open our minds to new possibilities. When you use these strategies with your class you will notice a new depth of thinking emerge from your students. The initial conversation may well disappoint. Surface level thinking and seeing is ingrained and takes time and persistence to overcome. As the students begin to look more closely, to see more detail and notice more of the stimulus they are engaging with a change emerges. Gradually the students embrace the opportunity that slow looking offers.
The Red Tree by Shaun Tan
"The Red Tree" by Shaun Tan is a beautiful piece of creative work by a master of the picture book genre. Each page has multiple layers of detail and meaning. It is a book that deserves time and slow looking. In a unit aimed at Year Six students we invite students to immerse themselves in this text. We begin the exploration of selected pages using the slow looking strategy of “Looking Ten Times Two”. In this strategy students are invited to look at an image quietly for at least thirty seconds allowing their eyes to wander before they stop and list ten words or phrases about any aspect of the image. The process then repeats and can indeed repeat again. With each new looking more detail emerges. The students deliberately look for details they did not notice at the first looking. After two rounds of slow looking we invite the students to share their observations. As each student shares their notes, fresh ideas emerge and the discussion takes on a life of its own. Soon students are not just discussing what they saw in the image but are asking questions about the artist’s choices, the meaning of the image and their personal take-aways.
The strategies of slow looking are not restricted to the visual. Consider looking as a synonym for perceiving and you see its potential across multiple disciplines. Tishman provides numerous examples of “slow looking” in disciplines away from those most immediately associated with the visual and through senses other than our eyes. Consider the place of “slow looking” in science as an essential strategy for noticing what is taking place in an experiment or field observation. In music “slow looking” will allow the listener to notice subtle nuances in a piece and in literature “slow looking” encourages the reader to enjoy the language moves made by the author while the practice of slow looking is a valuable tool for the author to employ as they build descriptions.
'Slow Looking' is a highly recommended strategy and those looking to implement this in their classrooms or in their own lives should begin by reading Tishman’s book.
By Nigel Coutts
Lewis, C. (2016) Too fast to think: How to reclaim your creativity in a hyper-connected work culture. Kogan Page
Tan, S. (2001) The Red Tree. Hachette; Australia
Tishman, S. (2018) Slow Looking: The art and practice of learning through observation. Routledge; New York
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Banishing The Culture of Busyness
NESA (2017) Science & Technology K-6 Syllabus
Learning with the New Science & Technology Curriculum
In the final weeks of 2017 a new Science & Technology Curriculum for Kindergarten to Year Six slipped into the schools of New South Wales. What does this new curriculum bring and what does it reveal about the nature of learning as we approach the year 2020?
The Science and Technology Curriculum was updated quite recently. In 2012, it was released as part of the curriculum updates linked to the adoption by states of the Australian Curriculum developed by ACARA (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority). For some time now teachers have been expecting an update to incorporate the ACARA Digital Technologies syllabus. The expectation was that a new document would be released that would incorporate the skills, understandings and knowledge described in the ACARA syllabus alongside the existing Science & Technology syllabus.
The result is something different. What we have is a document with a focus on the application of approaches to thinking, problem finding and solving empowered by science and technology. It is perhaps a curriculum that will get students and teachers excited about science and technology. It also brings new challenges.
Read the curriculum and you discover a combination of the familiar alongside new ideas and a new emphasis. According to the syllabus:
Science and Technology K–6 is an integrated discipline that fosters in students a sense of wonder and curiosity about the world around them and how it works. Science and Technology K–6 encourages students to embrace new concepts, the unexpected and to learn through trialing, testing and refining ideas. (NESA, 2017 p12)
This is not a Science syllabus with an emphasis on content knowledge but one that encourages students to engage with the practices of the scientist, the curious explorer who embraces unexpected learning and has the skills to construct new knowledge.
These skills enable students to participate responsibly in developing innovative ideas and solutions in response to questions and situations relevant to personal, social and environmental issues. (NESA, 2017 p12)
It should be noted that unlike all other current syllabus documents, this one is aimed at students between Kindergarten and Year Six (5 to 12 year olds. The skills and dispositions described here are not those to be developed by students as they exit school but are the expectations for learners in their primary years; learning goals to be achieved before they enter high school. There is evidence here that contemporary thinking about curriculum design has found its way into NESA (NSW Educational Standards Authority):
Students studying science and technology are encouraged to question and seek solutions to problems through collaboration, investigation, critical thinking and creative problem-solving. (NESA, 2017 p12)
Use of the word “through” is worth noting. It is reminiscent of models for the curriculum developed by Alan Reid who suggested that a set of essential competencies should be the priority for the curriculum and that other content should be taught “through” the application and development of these competencies. In the science and technology syllabus you find:
Through the application of Working Scientifically, and Design and Production skills, students develop an interest in and an enthusiasm for understanding nature, phenomena and the built environment. (NESA, 2017 p14)
The knowledge and understanding in Science and Technology K–6 are developed through the skills of Working Scientifically, and Design and Production. (NESA, 2017 p24)
In this syllabus science is something that students do, a tool for exploration and inquiry rather than a knowledge base.
Through regular involvement in applying these skills in a variety of situations, students develop an understanding that the Working Scientifically processes are more than a series of predictable steps that confirm what we know. (NESA, 2017 p26)
This is very much so a syllabus that is entered on active and agentic students. Phrases abound such as 'Students question and make predictions', 'They pose relevant questions', 'Students explore', Students make observations', 'They use appropriate materials'.
There is also much here that supports the maker movement, indeed it is a required element of learning that students will engage with an active process of product evaluation, design, modification and production.
They question and review existing products, processes and systems, explore needs or opportunities for designing, define problems to be solved, (NESA, 2017 p27)
Students develop and apply a variety of skills and techniques to create products, services or environments to meet specific purposes. They select and use materials, components, tools, equipment and processes to safely produce designed solutions. (NESA, 2017 p27)
And across both Design & Production and Working Scientifically students are required to engage in practical activities, to learn by doing and by making with tools and materials. 'Students must undertake a range of practical experiences to develop knowledge, understanding and skills in Science and Technology’ (NESA, 2017 p25)
There is also a significant emphasis on thinking and the syllabus identifies four modes of thinking which are at the heart of STEAM learning. Computational Thinking, Design Thinking and Systems Thinking join Scientific Thinking to ensure that 'Productive, purposeful and intentional thinking underpins effective learning in Science and Technology.’ (NESA, 2017 p35) As the syllabus notes this will require scaffolds for students and strategies that they can deploy as they engage with opportunities to apply their thinking skills 'as they encounter problems, unfamiliar information and new ideas.’ (NESA, 2017 p35)
The scope of the syllabus is exciting and potentially engaging. If taught well and as intended it should go a long way to preparing students for future learning challenges. As an integrated approach to STEAM based learning with science, technology and approaches to problem solving at its heart it offers students opportunities to use their skills and knowledge in concerted efforts to solve problems that matter. How such an integrated approach to this type of learning is to be maintained as students enter Stage Four and the siloed world of disciplines that is typical in High School is not made clear. Will student find that science learning beyond primary school is not what they expected it to be even if what they have become used to is more closely aligned to the real world of science and technology?
The challenge is to provide Primary School teachers with the support in all its forms for this syllabus to be fully realised. Professional development, modelling of practice, mentoring and resources will be required. Genuine inquiry, design and production of the type outlined in this syllabus is both messy and comes with ‘unexpected’ costs. All of this will need to be planned for and the costs of this factored into budgets. Now that the document is available for implementation schools will need support in bringing it to life.
By Nigel Coutts
Culture, Change and the Individual
A recent post by George Couros (author of The innovators Mindset) posed an interesting question about the role that culture plays in shaping the trajectory of an organisation. The traditional wisdom is that culture trumps all but George points to the role that individuals play in shaping and changing culture itself.
"As I have connected with many educators around the world, they have often confided in me how different their school or organization has become because of that one person in that one new position. Sometimes it is a superintendent, principal, curriculum director, or a myriad of other administrative roles. Once in a while, that person makes it better, but more often than should be acceptable, one person in a short time can change the trajectory of a culture negatively."
(Read the full article)
George concludes that "one person can make the most significant difference on the whole”. So, what are the implications of this for those struggling to bring about cultural change? Is it the case that one person can indeed change the culture of an organisation? Is culture perhaps less resilient than we are led to imagine and is it just a consequence of the individuals with the greatest influence? Or, is something else at play here?
Fortunately for the field of sociology, culture is a complex concept. It is a co-construction of all those involved, the environment and the local and broader social context within which it exists and evolves. The culture of an organisation is difficult to understand and most efforts to describe the culture of an organisation will oversimplify the matter. Add to this what we have learned from post-modernist perspectives on the effects of observation and the complex dialogue between the observer and the observed and we see that culture is at least a messy field. Further along a continuum where at one end culture is a consequence of deliberate action and at the other it is as unpredictable as waves on a stormy sea we find complexity theory. Complex organisations, such as schools are described as emerging dynamically from their initial states but as these initial states are not fully understood the evolving organisation is seen to be on an unpredictable trajectory.
Complexity and Chaos Theories have much in common - Image - Pixabay
With this in mind it is not surprising that most efforts to bring about cultural change fail. 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. Mason (2008) does offer some hope for those wishing to bring about cultural change, ‘despite complexity theory’s relative inability to predict the direction or nature of change, by implementing at each constituent level changes whose outcome we can predict with reasonable confidence, we are at least influencing change in the appropriate direction’ (Mason, 2008 p46) Mason suggests that by making a concerted effort, at every point of contact available, change agents can drive cultural change at least in the desired direction even if not towards a desired goal. It might be possible to drive a school towards a focus on something like “quality teaching”, but the exact shape of that new culture is largely unpredictable.
This evidence points to the resilience of culture, it does not appear to be something that can be readily shaped, and yet as George indicates there are numerous examples of school cultures which have seemingly shifted with one change in staffing. How might this be so?
Change has, to a large degree become the norm in schools and the pace of change seems to be accelerating. From new curriculum, changes to assessments, measures of accountability, shifts in public perception, evolving and sometimes revolving ideals about pedagogy, to changes in the broader society that education serves, epitomised by the “new world of work” that our students will inherit, change is woven into the educator’s mindset.
With these changes, has come a shift away from teacher agency towards external control. Education is big business and a key factor in government policy. Driven by neo-liberalism and globalisation, education is shaped and controlled by factors which more often than not lie outside of the classroom. Standardised assessments, content heavy curriculums and teaching standards in an environment of competition and blaming of teachers for supposedly declining student performance have changed the shape of the profession.
The net effect of this climate of control and cyclical change is that teachers have adopted either a culture of compliance or silent dissent. Each change is viewed as fleeting, a new fad that will have its moment in the sun before slipping quietly into antiquity, replaced by something new. Teachers learn to bend with each new breeze or hide. What changes is not the culture of the school but the visible actions which sit on the surface. These superficial changes are easily implemented. They are actionable through efficient management or effective leadership. A change in leadership or key personnel is able to bring about change but the underlying culture remains as one of compliance or silent dissent.
The question then is what might it take to shift the culture of our schools from one of follow the fad to one where it is the norm for teachers to actively seek out what works best for their students. How might we create the conditions for a culture of creativity, collaboration and critical thinking within a profession that effectively communicates an understanding of what works for students to all stakeholders. How do we bring about genuine cultural change? Maybe it is as simple as restoring agency to those best able to do something good with it?
By Nigel Coutts
Burnes, Bernard (2010) 'Call for Papers: Why Does Change Fail and What Can We Do About It?', Journal of Change Management, 10 (2), pp. 241 — 242
Mason, M. (2008). What is Complexity Theory and what are its implications for educational change? Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(1), pp. 35-49.
A Question of Scale: Meeting a Global Need
I recently spent ten days in Cambodia accompanying students on a service trip where they developed their cultural understanding and spent time improving the environment of a local school. While laying pavers and digging a ditch I had a chance to reflect on the difficulties facing education in a country like this. I came away with questions and few answers.
For the children of Cambodia education is critical to their future success. As the country races to move past the legacy of its recent history and build a stable economy and political structure its people recognise that education is going to be the key to success. Moves are afoot to get more children into school, off the streets and away from a life of begging and selling trinkets to tourists. Schools are replacing orphanages and organisations that focus on keeping families together are having success. By creating conditions that allow children to attend school while the parents earn a sufficient income to support the whole family, change is taking place.
Children are learning to read and to write in Khmer and in many cases in English. They are developing fundamental skills in numeracy and are learning about their country, the world and their place in it. When you visit a classroom, you see the very familiar scene of students sitting in rows of desks, the teacher at the front of the room delivering the lesson, asking questions, taking answers. The students have text books and readers. There are a few computers scattered around the school, there is a small library with a minimal collection of books. To meet demand the school runs on two shifts. One set of students attend in the morning, the second shift attends in the afternoon ensuring the school is able to serve the largest number of students.
Although the fundamental architecture of most schools might have changed little in the last century, digging beneath the surface shows that these classrooms have more in common with classrooms that were the norm in Australia and America in the early 80s.
What you don’t see are students engaged in project based learning, inquiry, independent research, problem solving or creativity. Learning here is about providing access to the essential skills and fundamental knowledge that the students need and only have access to when it is delivered by their teachers. Without ubiquitous access to free-flowing information from the internet, with limited access to information in books and literature the role that the school plays is not the same as it is in contemporary western nations.
The challenge is one of scale. How does a school system that is so stretched by demand that it must run two shifts each day, six days per week adopt modes of teaching that are more time consuming and require access to abundant resources? How do schools justify to parents programmes that are not tightly focused on developing essential skills in reading in numeracy or that do not match a model of schooling that is valued on the basis of its alignment with the perceived model of what school should look like? These are challenges facing progressive educators the world over but in Countries like Cambodia the pressure is enormous.
Clearly Cambodia needs an educated workforce if they are to compete in a global market, but what should the focus of that education be. It is difficult to argue against a focus on literacy and numeracy but what besides this should be taught. Perhaps more than anything else Cambodia needs a population adept at creative problem solving. A youth empowered to look at the problems facing their communities and see in these new opportunities. Will reading, writing and counting be sufficient for this?
Change is undoubtedly coming. Thanks to mobile internet access to information is exploding across the country. Here scale and growth are working in favour of the people. The cost of data is being driven down by demand and with this comes new possibilities for education. Currently a significant inhibitor of access to education beyond school or beyond the narrow curriculum schools can deliver is the cost of text books. Access to low cost data will overcome this barrier and bring with it opportunities for a greatly expanded curriculum. With cheap data comes access to a world of learning fueled by online courses and MOOCs developed for the western nations and available globally. Self Organised Learning Environments (SOLES) become a possibility and bring further opportunities for learning.
What changes will need to occur within Cambodian schools so that they might maximise the benefits that mobile internet will bring? How will teachers be provided with the skills they need to transition from being dispensers of knowledge to facilitators of learning in an internet enhanced classroom? How will schools continue to be havens of learning and places of safety where children can focus on having their needs met when learning moves into the cloud and can occur anywhere, anytime?
Cambodia is one example of a nation confronting these challenges. Its recent history brings the unique challenge of a population that is disproportionately young (Average age is 25.3 years compared to Australia at 38.7 years). These challenges are occurring across the entire developing world, millions if not billions of people demanding a brighter future where the fruits of education translate into a world of work that rewards smarts, not physical effort alone. How will education meet this challenge and does a contemporary education focused on creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication scale to the extent required?
by Nigel Coutts
Related - Reflections on a Service Trip to Fiji
Exploring the Changing Social Contexts of Learning
Contemporary learning environments might be best understood when viewed as a complex mix of environments and overlapping social networks. Learners fluidly move between social networks and their learning is influenced by their participation within and across these physical and virtual networks. Understanding how mobile, global and virtual social networks influence our interpretation of socio-cultural theories of learning might allow us to better understand the interplay of settings and contexts within which learning occurs and in doing so better understand how learning may be facilitated.
The socio-cultural perspective on education has its origins in the work of Lev Vygotsky (Göncü & Gauvain, 2012) and is an approach which considers the individual and their interactions with the social environment as central to understanding the processes of learning. Learning is said to be that which occurs through interaction between the individual, and all that their biology brings to the table and the social context in which learning occurs. Such an approach shifts our thinking about learning and development as processes contained and constrained within the individual’s biology to a more diverse understanding that incorporates the social context within which all learning is seen to occur. For educators, this approach encourages us to look at the learning environment and the social context in which the learning we design for our students occurs and 'presents a fuller and more accurate picture of children’s learning and development.' (Göncü & Gauvain, 2012 p126) Sociocultural, and the in some ways related social-cognitive approaches build upon earlier research that focused on the individual as the unit of development but seek to explain the differences which were observed across groups and contexts which could not be explained without a wider frame of reference.
By expanding the frame of reference to include the social context within which learning and development occurs a more complex image emerges of the interactions and processes which are at play. Vygotsky's (1978) research shows how interactions between the child and their social environment enables learning. He explores the gap between what a child can do now independently and that they can do with assistance. Termed the 'Zone of Proximal Development’(ZPD), this is the gap into which teachers hope to move their students (Vygotsky, 1978). Teaching strategies such as formative assessment (Black & Wiliam, 1998) seek to identify where the ZPD is for students and then provide appropriate learning situations which scaffold student’s growth through this zone. Effective teaching will provide a context that allows students to achieve success on learning initially pitched within this zone with guidance while moving towards internalisation of new learning evidenced by success when the scaffolds are removed. It is with this process in mind that we develop teaching programmes and curriculums.
Given the multitude frames which might be used to inform our understanding of what culture is, (Jary & Jary, 1991) how it is constructed and how it shapes and is shaped by interactions with individuals and groups it unsurprising that there are multiple perspectives upon the nature of socio-cultural learning. This complexity is expanded when comparisons are made between socio-cultural perspectives and social-cognitive perspectives are considered. Emerging from the work of Albert Bandura (1977) social-cognitive theories like socio-cultural approaches are concerned with the learning that occurs within societies and the cross-cultural differences which such perspectives reveal. 'In contrast, social cognitive researchers have devoted considerable attention to the role of social variables in learning, how motivational processes affect learning, and how social cognitive principles can be best applied to enhance students’ learning from instruction.’ (Schunk, 2012 p117) A further differentiator is evident in the significance given to vicarious learning or learning purely through observation of others that is present in social-cognitive theory but is not evident in socio-cultural theories which emphasise translation of observations of others into action or learning by imitation of the observed behaviours. Social-cognitivists would show that learning can be acquired without the imitation phase.
For teachers, social-cognitivist approaches shine a light on the factors which result in motivation towards learning. Learning is said to be enhanced when individuals have positive self-efficacy for learning (Bandura 1977). Motivational theories such as self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) and attribution theory (Weiner, 2004) point to factors such as autonomy, purpose and mastery (Ryan & Deci) and locus of control (Weiner - internal/external stable/unstable controllable/uncontrollable) as key factors which influence engagement and perceptions of success. In social-cognitive theory these factors are described as acting upon the individual through changes in levels of self-efficacy. When social aspects of learning are accounted for the provision of a safe, supportive and nurturing learning environment is broadly considered to be significant (Tirri, 2011)(Marzano & Pickering, 1997). The complexity of social environments within which learning occurs presents challenges to educators looking to manage the environment in which learning occurs. Students are less likely to engage with challenging learning in settings where they feel unsafe or believe that their attempts to engage are likely to be judged negatively or where the rewards available are low. (Atkinson, 1957) (Dweck & Legget, 1988) (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000).
A shifting emphasis on what is valued as the outcome of formal education places greater emphasis on the capacity of individuals to be creative collaborators. In ‘Participatory Creativity’, Edward Clapp (2017) details the importance of collaborations between individuals in a form of collective agency derived from the work of Bandura. Collective agency acknowledge the role of the individual within efforts of a greater collective. Informed by this perspective and Cskiszentmihalyi’s view of creativity as a product of social systems, Clapp builds a model of creativity that results from the collective efforts of society and focuses on the processes through which ideas evolve rather than a more traditional view which attribution of a product to an individual. Creativity in such a model is like learning in socio-cultural perspectives a social phenomenon.
Significant differences in the socio-cultural setting within which the individual experiences learning can be shown to account for varied outcomes. An example of this can be seen in the exposure to language which occurs in different settings. Hart & Risely (2003) show that a five-year-old child growing up in a home with parents categorised as professionals would have been exposed to 45 million words. By contrast a child growing up in a working-class family would have been exposed to 26 million words and only 13 million if growing up in a lower-class family. This gap in exposure must be seen as more significant than a deficit in vocabulary within a socio-cultural perspective that emphasises the development of language as a critical component for development in general. According to Vygotsky, children learn to use language regulate their psychological functions (Göncü & Gauvain, 2012) and language is an essential tool in the scaffolding and modelling of learning that occurs both within schools and other environments in which learners learn. This gap in exposure presents significant equity challenges for educational systems.
Traditionally the socio-cultural setting in which learning and development occurs has been defined by the physical settings in which the learner is situated and the culture that is attached to that. Relationships between the individual and their immediate family play an important role in the early years of learning, as the child grows the social context in which they learn widens and peers, teachers and the wider community begin to play a part. As the child interacts with a growing number of social contexts they are able to draw upon an expanding set of models and observations as they learn to regulate their behaviour and adopt (and modify) the cultural norms required for adult life (Göncü & Gauvain, 2012). In more recent times this social context has become increasingly difficult to define.
Through a variety of factors, such as globalisation, increased mobility and technology enabled networks, the individual is increasingly found to exist simultaneously across multiple cultures and societies (Leander, Phillips & Taylor, 2010). These multiple contexts and cultures bring to the learner new challenges and require learning of multiple norms along with the pressure to activate the appropriate norms for each context.
The once clear boundaries of the social context of learning and development is increasingly blurred and stretched by technologies and networks. In seeking to understand how this space influences learning and development it is necessary to consider the individual, the interacting social networks (physical and virtual) and the technology as agents which influence development. At best the experienced reality is ‘complicated’ (Boyd, 2014) as the individual within the virtual world is able to fluidly shape and reshape both identity and context. 'When teens engage with networked media, they’re trying to take control of their lives and their relationship to society. In doing so, they begin to understand how people relate to one another and how information flows between people.' (Boyd, 2014 p92) The blurring of social contexts further complicates the learning environment experienced by young people when it is recognised that they spend much of their time living within a culture that the adults in their world know little about. The norms, language, symbols, signs and meanings of the virtual worlds may be borrowed or appropriated from the physical world but are often wildly misinterpreted when decontextualised. Further still access to resources, knowledge and tools derived from technologies and their networked lives are viewed with suspicion in many traditional learning environments thus bringing artificial barriers to learning and de-contextualising the skills learned in school from those valued in the ‘real world’.
From the research of Vygotsky, Bandura and others across socio-cultural and socio-cognitive perspectives we have been provided with a theoretical tool kit with which to better understand the interplay of the individual, society and culture. As we move further into an age dominated by technology and networks it is incumbent on all those with an interest in learning and development to look at the interplay of forces which act upon the individual. By seeking to understand the influences that physical and virtual contexts have on learning we can begin to imagine a model of education which makes best use of the diverse environments in which our young people are immersed.
By Nigel Coutts
Atkinson, J. W. (1957). Motivational determinants of risk-taking behavior. Psychological Review, 64, 359–372.
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998), Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment, King’s College, London: School of Education.
Boyd, D. (2014) It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Csiksgentmihalyi, M. (2013) Flow: The psychology of happiness’ and creativity: The psychology of discovery and invention. New York; Harper Perennial.
Clapp, E. (2017) Participatory creativity: Introducing access and equity to the creative classroom. New York: Routledge
Dweck, C., & Leggett, E. (1988). A social cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95, 256–273.
Göncü, A., & Gauvain, M. (2012). Sociocultural approaches to educational psychology: theory, research, andapplication. In K. R. Harris, S. Graham, and T. Urdan (Editors-in-Chief). APA Educational Psychology Handbook: Vol.1. Theories, Constructs, and Critical Issues, 125-154.
Hart, B., & Risley, T. (2003). The early catastrophe: The 30 million word gap by age 3. American Educator 27(1), 4– 9.
Jary, D., & Jary, J. (1991) Collins dictionary of sociology; second edition. Glasgow: Harper Collins.
Marzano, R. & Pickering, D. (2009) Dimensions of Learning: Trainers manual 2nd Edition. USA: ASCD Publications.
Ryan, R., & Deci, E. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68-78.
Schunk, D. (2012). Social cognitive theory. In K. R. Harris, S. Graham, and T. Urdan (Editors-in-Chief). APA Educational Psychology Handbook: Vol.1. Theories, Constructs, and Critical Issues, 101 -123.
Tirri, K. (2011) Holistic school pedagogy and values: Finnish teachers’ and students’ perspectives. International Journal of Educational Research 50 pp159-195
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. (M. Cole, Trans. & Ed., V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1934)
Wigfield, A., & Eccles, J. S. (2000). Expectancy-value theory of motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 68–81
Inquiry vs Direct Instruction - The Great Debate and How it Went Wrong
There is a debate taking place in the world of education. It is not a new debate but recently it has gathered new energy and the boundary between polite discussion of opposing views and hostility has been stretched. The debate is that between those who are advocates of inquiry based learning and those who believe direct instruction produces the best outcomes.
Like most conversations which occur within the public sphere of the online social media world, the debate has quickly devolved into a dichotomous debate where each side seeks to win points at the expense of the other. Humans have a natural tendency towards tribes, as biologist Edward Wilson writes "The tendency to form groups, and then to favor in-group members, has the earmarks of instinct.” It is a characteristic that may have once served us well but in modern times it focuses our attention on what makes us different rather than helping us to find a common ground. In debating topics like direct instruction vs inquiry based learning our tendency to form tribes causes us to drift from a rational position to a more extreme and one sided view.
There is in this debate a middle ground. Claxton and Lucas deal with this debate and the reality that most educators fall somewhere between the two extremes in their book Educating Ruby. They place Trads (traditionalists focused on knowledge transfer) and Roms (romantics who feel children learn by osmosis) at the extremes of the educational spectrum and Mods (Moderates) in the middle. "Almost everyone who works in education is a Mod. But because Mods prefer to tinker quietly than to bang big drums, it is easy to underestimate how many there are” (Claxton & Lucas, 2015)
The middle ground between Inquiry and Direct Instruction is that place where we take a little from option A and a little from option B. Sometimes we go with direct instruction and at others we go with an inquiry approach. This leads to models where children are taught the supposed fundamentals of a discipline or topic and then allowed to engage in some inquiry. Sometimes this model works, sometimes it misses the point. Often the inquiry component is redundant by the time students get to it, sometimes the direct instruction is an opportunity to lecture at students, sometimes the students are told what they need to know but are not taught how to make effective use of it.
Mixed models like this and indeed the debate between Inquiry and Direct Instruction seems to largely miss the point. Somewhere in the posturing and flag waving we lose sight of what we are indeed arguing for. Maybe we were never quite sure what our argument was. Simon Sinek (2011) claims very few people understand their “why”. The debate between Inquiry and Direct Instruction seems like a good example of this.
Contemporary advocates of Inquiry are for the most part all hung up about what children need to learn to succeed in a changing post knowledge world. The process of learning to learn and conduct meaningful inquiry, to find and solve problems is seen as central to the modern curriculum. While the origins of inquiry models might lie with a methodology of allowing students to uncover the knowledge base of the curriculum this is less the case in modern times. When we shift inquiry away from being a pedagogical method for teaching content, to a valuing of particular skills we see that Inquiry Skills and Dispositions are curriculum elements; the what students need to learn rather than the how they learn it.
But advocates of inquiry get caught up in a debate with advocates of direct instruction about the methods of teaching; the pedagogy. Advocating for the importance of Inquiry does not mean that one abandons direct instruction but that the curriculum is a skills based curriculum that teaches inquiry skills through and alongside other content. What a valuing of Inquiry, Problem Solving, Problem Finding, Project Management etc. does not require is an abandonment of direct instruction, only a rethinking of some of the skills we focus on. If we value, the development of inquiry we spend less time on methods that facilitate memorisation of content.
Direct Instruction is about the pedagogy but it gets caught up in a debate about the curriculum. Advocates of direct instruction claim it is the best method for scaffolding the development of student skills and knowledge, but then focus their energy debating the sort of content that should be directly taught. Advocating for direct instruction should not mean that one is committed to teaching basic skills and knowledge. Direct instruction does not preclude teaching students how to find problems, solve problems, act in creative ways, collaborate with others, and take charge of their own learning.
Advocates of Direct Instruction should be able to teach methods, skills and dispositions required for inquiry and advocates of inquiry should value scaffolding students as they learn the skills of inquiry. Indeed, as Claxton and Lucas state most teachers do exactly these things.
Where the debate goes very wrong is seen if you consider it from the perspective of questions like ‘what is the intended outcome of learning?’ and ‘what do our students most need from their time in school?’. They need to learn how to conduct inquiry, to be problem solvers and finders. They need to be able to communicate their learning and learn with and from others. They need to be able to critically evaluate information and ideas. They need to be taught how to do these things. They need to be guided through the process. They need to see how experts approach these processes. They need opportunities to practise these skills with appropriate levels of support and scaffolding. They need to be given tools to use and be shown how and when to use them.
The debate about inquiry and direct instruction does not serve our students well. It is a distraction from conversations which are more important and the sooner we move past this and focus our attention on how we best prepare our students to thrive in a world that values life-long learning the better.
By Nigel Coutts
Claxton, G. & Lucas, B. (2015) Educating Ruby: What our children really need to learn. Wales; Crown House Publishing
Sinek, S. (2011) Start with why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action. Portfolio Penguin: London
Why humans, like ants, need a tribe. by E. O. Wilson - http://www.newsweek.com/biologist-eo-wilson-why-humans-ants-need-tribe-64005
Related Posts:
Inquiry Based Learning is dead, long live inquiry.
Contemplating the consequences of constructivism
Finding a new paradise for education in times of chaos
Sugata Mitra describes learning as an edge of chaos phenomenon, a concept that seems to fit so nicely with the very idea of learning as a process for deriving a new sense of order out of disorder. The chaos and complexity that is inherent in educational systems (schools in particular) is inescapable.
Through any lens schools are complex places. A melting pot of human, social, political, economic, technological, physical and philosophical tensions. At once the stronghold of our cultural traditions and facilitators of our future wellbeing, schools serve as pillars of stability constructed at the event horizon between our now and our tomorrow. Perhaps at this point in time more than ever is this tension between the role that schools play in indoctrinating our youth into the ways of society at odds with the imperative to prepare them for their futures.
Sardar describes these as “postnormal times”. "Ours is a transitional age, a time without the confidence that we can return to any past we have known and with no confidence in any path to a desirable, attainable or sustainable future.” (Sardar, 2010) At the edge of chaos schools confront the pressure to pass down the knowledge of this past that we have increasingly left behind and cannot return to, while preparing our learners for a future we can hardly imagine.
But this contradiction in purpose should not cause despair even while we come to understand its implications. As educators, we are in the business of helping individuals and even whole societies of them to confront and adapt to change. When we empower our students to step into the role of learners, as we shape their dispositions for learning and as we take their understanding of their world to the edge of chaos and beyond, we prepare them for a world of complexity, uncertainty and change.
When we value the process of learning and recognise that the capacity to learn and relearn is our most certain pathway to success in a world of uncertainty, we begin to imagine a future that is a paradise for education. Freed by technology from the need to be societies' dispensers of information, educators can focus their attention on the skills and dispositions of learning. With vast fields of knowledge as our playgrounds we are able to instill our learners with a love of learning and the skills and mindsets they require to be powerful life-long learners.
Learning and creativity are endeavours which should be understood as closely connected. Creating is placed at the top of Bloom’s revised taxonomy of learning with good reason. Creativity might be seen as learning in its purest form, where the learner moves beyond what is known and explores new territory. Creativity is what allows us to take learning beyond the edge of chaos and is required if we are to bring any sense of order to the complex and changing world we confront.
Mihaly Csikszenthihalyi describes how the creative process is stirred into existence. "The creative process starts with a sense that there is a puzzle somewhere or a task to be accomplished, perhaps something is not right, somewhere there is a conflict a tension, a need to be satisfied.” The volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world of the postnormal overflows with opportunities for creativity. The challenge for schools is to reimagine learning as a creative endeavour. To scaffold the processes required for intelligent action, to train our students to maximise their cognitive tools and to provide a strong foundation of knowledge and skills upon which they can innovate.
When we change our thinking away from learning as a process of accumulation and see it as one of creativity, we are able to shift the focus of our efforts and provide opportunities that require our students to blissfully think and act with what they know at the edge of chaos.
By Nigel Coutts
Mihaly Csiksgentmihalyi (2013) Flow: The psychology of happiness’ and creativity: The psychology of discovery and invention. New York; Harper Perennial.
Mitra, S. (2014) The future of schooling: Children and learning at the edge of chaos. Prospects, 44:547-558
Sardar, Z. (2010). Welcome to postnormal times. Futures, 42(5), 435-444.
What truly drives change in Education?
You do not need to look very hard to find a report claiming that schools and education needs to change.
According to Sarah Goner of “The Hechinger Report” the latest study by the Bureau of Labour Statistics in the US indicates that "Without changes in education, the future of work will leave more people behind". The Foundation for Young Australians (FYA) identifies from their research eight “enterprise skills that are essential for young people as they "engage with a complex world and navigate the challenges they will inherit”. Skills such as problem solving, communication skills, critical thinking, creativity and teamwork are listed. The FYA goes on to state "Given that many young people remain ill-equipped for what employers are demanding, we need to better promote these skills in our education and training systems".
Foundation for Young Australians - The New Basics - Access the Full Report
Lists of essential skills, competencies or dispositions are common and there is much overlap. The enterprise skills identified by FYA echoes those presented by others such as the Four Cs of the Partnership for 21st Century Learning (Critical thinking, Communication, Collaboration & Creativity) and the Seven Cs developed by Lucas & Claxton in “Educating Ruby” which adds confidence, curiosity, creativity, commitment and craftsmanship. The Australian Curriculum makes a good effort at a similar list with information and communication technology, critical & creative thinking, personal & social, ethical understanding and intercultural understanding sitting alongside a back to basics appeasing mention of literacy and numeracy.
The OECD has used their extensive research base to develop a response to the question of “What do children have to learn?” An intertwined model of knowledge, skills and attitudes & values results. According to the OECD students require; disciplinary, interdisciplinary and practical knowledge, cognitive & metacognitive, social & emotional and physical & practical skills, and an unidentified triad of attitudes & values.
More evidence for the need to change education can be found in the recently released work of Miranda Jefferson and Michael Anderson. The title reveals the authors position “Transforming Schools: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration” and they state their case for change eloquently "Education needs to take account of the prevailing conditions of postnormality (chaos, complexity and contradiction) to equip young people for their rapidly changing future.”
In Britain the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has added their voice to the clamour of those calling for change. Their report titled "First Steps” claims that it "deals with the most important part of the UK’s long-term growth strategy – improving education”. The CBI has a list of characteristics that they feel we should aspire to, “The system should encourage young people to be Determined, Optimistic and Emotionally Intelligent” this will produce a “Compelling Individual”
The answer according to CBI includes a “clear focus on attainment for every child”, “better parental and community engagement leads to more vibrant schools”, “better teaching” a curriculum with "rigorous expectations of every child, on both knowledge and the development that we expect schools to deliver” and holding schools accountable for delivering all of these outcomes. Australia’s Productivity Commission added its voice to the conversation in a recent report that became the subject for an article by Ross Gittins of the Sydney Morning Herald. The Productivity Commission states "A good school system ensures that people have the key foundational skills — numeracy, literacy, analytical skills — and the capacity to learn so that they can easily acquire knowledge throughout their lives. And‘soft’ skills, such as teamwork, collaboration, leadership and creativity are equally essential to adaptability and retention of employment”. According to Gittins "It's obvious our classroom teaching isn't as effective as it needs to be, but we've done little about it.” and the productivity points the finger at teacher effectiveness and calls for "a more rigorous micro evidence base about what works in schools and how it should be implemented”.
The pattern here is clear, schools need to change, education needs to shift its focus and the point of action is at the coal face with better teaching and accountability. But this seems to ignore the most significant obstacle to change, the elephant in the room perhaps.
Assessment is probably the strongest driver of education and the most significant obstacle to change. While high stakes testing focuses on low order skills, an emphasis on recall of knowledge and learned strategies for responding to predominantly content based questions progress will be stifled. Open a dialogue with teachers about the need to teach dispositions and it will not be long before someone says “That’s all very good, but I need to get my students ready for the test”.
Not that students suffer when we provide them with a curriculum that includes content and competencies, capabilities or dispositions. As research by the likes of David Perkins, Ron Ritchhart and Guy Claxton makes clear: If we teach our children to think then they will do better on the test and they will do better in life. Nevertheless, educational reform would occur at a faster pace if an at least equal emphasis was placed on gathering evidence of students attainment of the dispositions that so many are claiming to be essential. What we test is what we value and if we do not test for dispositions such as creativity, critical thinking and collaboration they will continue to be second rate citizens to foundational skills in numeracy and literacy.
By Nigel Coutts
Without changes in education, the future of work will leave more people behind - Sarah Gosner
Foundation for Young Australians
Claxton, G. & Lucas, B. (2015) Educating Ruby: What our children really need to learn. Wales; Crown House Publishing
Miranda Jefferson & Michael Anderson (2017) Transforming Schools: Creativity, Critical Reflection, Communication, Collaboration. London; Bloomsbury
OECD 2030 Framework for Education
Educational Disadvantage - Socio-economic Status and Education Pt 3
Pedagogy and curriculum that engages students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds and is deemed personally relevant to the lives they live, are seen as important factors towards equality of outcome by Wrench, Hammond, McCallum and Price (2012). Their research involved designing a curriculum and pedagogy that would be highly engaging to students of low-socioeconomic status. 'The interventions involved curriculum redesigns that set meaningful, challenging learning task(s) (culminating in high quality learning products); strong connection to student life-worlds; and a performative expectation for student learning.’ (Wrench et al 2012 p934) 'Themes included: identity and agency within a community context; models of communities of practice that focused on learning in social settings; and, a holistic approach to the constructions of well-being and engagement.’ (Wrench et al 2012 p935)
The inclusion of ‘place-based’ learning and experiences that created a sense of community were found to be important factors along with well-being aspects of a holistic programme that engaged learners with their learning and allowed students to better engage with their aspirations. 'Re-designing the curriculum with a well-being focus provided the opportunity for students to explore and imagine possible futures and aspirations beyond their current life-worlds.’ (Wrench et al 2012 p943)
In exploring a pedagogy of poverty Haberman (1991) found that the tendency is to align the students with a model pedagogy, one that is reactive to the perceived needs of a setting where economic disadvantage is the norm. ‘Simply stated, we act as if it is not the pedagogy that must be fitted to the students but the students who must accept an untouchable method.’ (Haberman 1991 p292) Haberman notes that in schools with a low-socioeconomic status teachers are not judged for their failure to educate their students but for a failure to elicit compliance. This results in a particular pedagogical style dominated by top-down control with limited student agency.
This ineffective pedagogy is absent from quality schools regardless of their student population replaced by the strategies of ‘good teaching’. Student involvement with issues they believe are important, discussion of human differences, student planning of activities, student application of ideals such as fairness and justice, inclusion of real-life experiences, heterogeneous groups, critical thinking, polishing and improving work and active reflection are the hallmarks of quality teaching according to Haberman (1991).
Programmes such as ‘School is for Me’ (DEET NSW, 2006) aim to alter the way that students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds perceive and engage with school. By focusing on presenting students with engaging messages around who possesses valued knowledge, who has ability, who is in control, who owns the place and who has a voice in the school the program aims to reveal to students that school is a place for them and not one that is owned and controlled by teachers or others external to their community. The success that such a programme has had in engaging students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, who had previously shown disengagement from school reveals that funding alone will not produce equitable outcomes. Changes to the messaging systems of pedagogy, curriculum and assessment need to occur so that all students see the personal relevance of school to their lives.
In a deficit discourse students of low-socioeconomic backgrounds are described as disengaged and having low-aspirations which schools need to raise but this view is contradicted by research undertaken by Reid and Faye (2014). This research indicates that indeed students in their study 'positively expressed a desire to be engaged in their learning and to succeed in their schooling.’ (Reid et al 2014 p205). What the students required was assistance in mapping a path towards their aspirations and dreams and help in expanding their capacity to aspire, something schools can and should play a part in.
Shifting how we view the purpose of education plays a part in discourses of educational disadvantage. When viewed as a screening measure differences in educational outcomes, even those that occur systemically and for reasons beyond the individuals control are excused. In a society where education is imagined as a process for screening candidates into future career pathways based on the identification of ability, the failure of this system to account for differences not related to ability is excused for the good of the result. 'It means that unequal incomes and unequal social standing in adulthood are seen as the outcomes of greater or less merit in an impartial process of selection'. (Connell & White 1991 p20) If education is about something more than screening students and if we are able to see that a multitude of factors play a part in allowing for academic success we will look to maximise the place that our educational systems can play in the future lives of every child and every community.
by Nigel Coutts
References
Barr, A., Constable, E., Pike, B., Bartlett, D., Lomax-Smith, J., & Welford, R. Scrymgour, M., Firth, V. & Gillard, J. (2008). Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians. Ministerial Council on Education.
Bauman, L., Silver, E. and Stein, R., (2006) Cumulative social disadvantage and child health, Pediatrics, Vol. 117, No. 4, April.
Connell, R., Johnston, K. & White, V. (1991) Rethinking the relationship between poverty and education in Running Twice as Hard: The Disadvantaged Schools Program in Australia. Geelong, Deakin University Press.
Department of Education and Training (2006) School is for me: Pathways to student engagement. Sydney
Foucault, M. (1990) The history of sexuality: Volume 1: an introduction (Melbourne, Penguin).
Gonski, D. (2012). Review of funding for schooling. Canberra: Dept. of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.
Haberman, M. (2010). The pedagogy of poverty versus good teaching. Phi Delta Kappan, 92(2), 81-87.
Levin, H. M. (1998). Educational vouchers: Effectiveness, choice and costs. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 17(3), 373–392.
Lim, P., Gemici, S., Rice, J., & Karmel, T. (2011). Socioeconomic status and the allocation of government resources in Australia. Education + Training, 53(7), 570-586.
Najman, J., Bor, W., Morrison, J., Andersen, M., & Williams, G. (1992). Child developmental delay and socio-economic disadvantage in Australia: A longitudinal study. Social Science & Medicine, 34(8), 829-835.
OECD (2012), Equity and Quality in Education: Supporting disadvantaged students and schools, OECD Publishing
Reid, A. & McCallum, F. (2014). 'Becoming your best’: student perspectives on community in the pursuit of aspirations. The Australian Educational Researcher, 41(2), 195-207.
United Nations (1948) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Accessed Online 22.4.2016 http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
Vinson, T. (2007) Dropping off the edge: the distribution of disadvantage in Australia A report by Professor Tony Vinson for Jesuit Social Services and Catholic Social Services Australia. Jesuit Social Services / Catholic Social Services Australia
Vinson, T., Rawsthorne, M., Beavis, A., & Ericson, M.(2015) Dropping off the edge: Persistent communal disadvantage in Australia. Jesuit Social Services / Catholic Social Services Australia
Watson, L. & Ryan, C. (2010). Choosers and losers: The impact of government subsidies on Australian secondary schools. Australian Journal Of Education, 54(1), 86-107.
Wrench, A., Hammond, C., McCallum, F., & Price, D. (2013). Inspire to aspire: raising aspirational outcomes through a student well-being curricular focus. International Journal Of Inclusive Education, 17(9), 932-947.
Educational Disadvantage - Socio-economic Status and Education Pt 2
An unavoidable element of the discourse around educational disadvantage or equality is how we define and assess equality. One definition will see this as being in equality of access to education, funding for education and/or resources. Such an approach has largely been seen in government funding models however subtle variations on this theme have resulted in significant differences in resulting policies.
A simplistic funding model would see each school that is funded by the government receive a fixed amount per student (something like $9,697 per primary student and $11,945 per secondary student in 2011 (Gonski et al 2011 p59)). In Australia subsidies for non-government schools (Independent and Catholic) has resulted in relative disparities in socio-economic status with government schools. Parental choice for school type has resulted in a higher concentration of high-socioeconomic status families in non-government schools according to Watson and Ryan (2010). 'Adverse peer effects generated by high concentrations of low-SES students in public schools can be expected to place further downward pressure on student performance in the public school system’. (Watson & Ryan 2010 p104)
This concentration of low-socioeconomic status children in public schools means that funding demands for these schools will be higher conclude Watson & Ryan (2010). Complicating the distribution of students between public and private sectors is research by Levin (1998) who found that families with high-socioeconomic status and high academic achievement levels are more likely to choose a school other than the default public school option for their children. ‘Families that are better-off may be more likely to take advantage of school choice than those that are worse off because of better access to information, greater ability to afford transportation, a higher penchant to exercise educational alternatives, and greater generic experience with choice and alternatives.’ (Levin, 1998 p379)
An alternate funding model was proposed by Gonski et al in what is commonly referenced in the media as the Gonski Report and has given rise to the social media campaign ‘I give a Gonski’. According to Gonski 'Public funding arrangements need to react to the nature of the educational challenges faced by a system or school given its characteristics and student population, regardless of whether it is in the government or non-government sector.’ To do this a new schooling resource standard was suggested; 'The standard would be explicitly linked to expected educational outcomes, rather than historical levels of resource inputs, and geared to providing all students with the opportunity to meet agreed national educational outcomes.’ (Gonski et al 2011 p69) Gonski uses socio-economic status as a value in determining the need of schools using data from Australian Bureau of Statistics to adjust the required funding level. This report resulted in additional funding for schools to be provided over six years starting in 2014. This funding is now under review by the present government.
Models such as that outlined by Gonski are aimed at providing schools with the level of funding they require to achieve a national standard of educational outcomes and aim to take into account many of the factors which influence the success of schools in areas of economic disadvantage. 'Likewise, pressing for additional skilled support to help ensure the successful launching of children’s education and to help maintain their meaningful engagement in school and post-school training and education, would also address another of the recurring features of the most disadvantaged areas'. (Vinson, 2015 p14)
As the largest percentage of school operating costs are directly associated with teacher salaries (78% for private schools (Watson & Ryan 2010 p92)) it is not surprising that much of the debate around school equity relates to teacher quality and teacher/student ratios. Attracting quality teachers into areas of socio-economic disadvantage is a goal proposed to enhance the quality of learning that occurs but is one that significantly oversimplifies the reality of what is required.
Having attracted quality teachers into an area the imperative is to then keep them and to extend and enrich their capacities. Access to professional development is essential and this carries direct and indirect costs. A culture of collaboration and efforts to develop professional learning communities are effective strategies towards this goal. Free quality Professional Development is increasingly available through a mix of social media and free events such as Teach Meets. A school culture that promotes participation in these learning communities has benefits for all.
In Part Three we turn to the question of pedagogical adjustments which benefit students from from low socio-economic backgrounds.
By Nigel Coutts
Full references published with Part Three.
Educational Disadvantage - Socio-economic Status & Education Pt 1
The role that education plays in issues of social equity and justice cannot be undervalued. It is acknowledged by the United Nations as a human right, 'Everyone has the right to education’ (United Nations, 1948) and as outlined in the Melbourne Declaration on the Educational Goals for Young Australians 'As a nation Australia values the central role of education in building a democratic, equitable and just society— a society that is prosperous, cohesive and culturally diverse, and that values Australia’s Indigenous cultures as a key part of the nation’s history, present and future.’ (Barr et al, 2008). Such lofty assertions of the importance of education as a right and national value should be sufficient to ensure that all Australians have access to an education of the highest standard with equitable outcomes for all, the reality is that this is not the case and the reasons for this remain complex, divisive and politically entrenched. Discourses of equity, power and societal expectation play a part in helping us understand how access to education and disparities in the quality of outcome experienced shapes Australian society and advantages some to the detriment of others.
The connections between socio-economic status and education are intertwined such that a deficit in one is linked to a deficit in the other. 'The persistent social and economic marginalisation of individuals and groups within society has significant detrimental direct and indirect impacts. Such marginalisation tends to create a “vicious cycle” of disadvantage, limiting access to educational opportunities, which in turn leads to poor labour market outcomes and low earnings.’ (Lim, Gemici, Rice & Karmel, 2011 p570) The connection between socio-economic status and educational achievement is made clear by Professor Tony Vinson whose study of factors resulting in disadvantage and its distribution across Australia states that 'The report highlights the particularly strong link between intergenerational poverty and low educational attainment.’ (Vinson, 2007 p1) Vinson’s study outlines how disadvantage on measures such as education, health, criminality, access to services, employment and community services is unevenly distributed and 'finds that just 1.7 percent of postcodes and communities across Australia account for more than seven times their share of top rank positions of the major factors that cause intergenerational poverty’ (Vinson, 2007 p1).
Vinson reveals the complexity of the interconnections between aspects of disadvantage and the complexity that exists as one tries to describe its causes or identify solutions. 'Poverty, low parental education and single parent family structure are not simply proxies for a single underlying disadvantage but have additive effects on the life chances of children.' (Bauman, Silver and Stein, 2006 p1326) While implicated in many studies as a factor (Connell & White 1991)(Lim, Gemici, Rice & Karmel, 2011)((Vinson, 2007 & 2015)(Bauman, Silver and Stein, 2006) (OECD, 2012), equity of educational outcome alone can not explain the distribution of social disadvantage and measures to minimise its influence will not be achieved through educational reform alone. As Connell and White assert ‘Poverty and education is an issue no one likes to own. It is complicated, it is frustrating, and it does not lend itself to grand gestures’. ‘In fact the issue is both welfare business and school’s business’. (Connell, Johnston & White 1991 ch2 p 1)
'The observation that children reared in socio-economic disadvantage experience developmental delays and intellectual deficits raises basic questions to do with appropriate social and welfare policies.' (Najman, Bor, Morrison, Andersen & Williams, 1992 p833) This finding by Najman et al reveals a connection beyond academic achievement and indicates a connection between low-socioeconomic standing and attainment of normal developmental milestones. This research indicates that more needs to be done to redress the influence of socioeconomic standing than improving schools as there are broader health issues implicated in this study. A discourse of school blaming or school failure oversimplifies the reality of the situation but is a common element of analysis. The OECD when addressing ‘Equity and Quality in Education’ writes that 'Educational failure also imposes high costs on society. Poorly educated people limit economies’ capacity to produce, grow and innovate. School failure damages social cohesion and mobility, and imposes additional costs on public budgets to deal with the consequences – higher spending on public health and social support and greater criminality, among others.’ (OECD 2012 p3) The implication in the phrasing ‘poorly educated people’ is that the remedy lies within the school and the quality of education received, broader societal issues that impede the capacity of the school to achieve equitable outcomes for students are overlooked in such a simplistic analysis.
Understanding the complexity and interconnectedness of the issues causing and impacted by socio-economic disadvantage allows individual elements to be addressed singularly while not ignoring their relationship with others. As Foucault warns 'we must not imagine a world of discourse divided between accepted discourse and excluded discourse, or between the dominant discourse and the dominated one; but as a multiplicity of discursive elements that can come into play in various strategies.' (Foucault, 1990, p. 101) Such an approach is useful within education and for those operating within educational systems. Identifying the multiplicity of discourses connected to power and policy that influence the trajectory of social endeavours such as educational reform is essential.
By Nigel Coutts
In Part Two we explore definitions of Equity and in Part Three Pedagogical response.
Full references will be published with Part three
Project Zero Turns 50
This year is the fiftieth birthday of Harvard’s Project Zero, a research project designed to explore the nature of thinking and learning and from this suggest pedagogies which align with what we know about the mind. For its birthday celebration Project Zero shared insights from its five decades of research with presentations from Howard Gardner, David Perkins, Shari Tasman, Steve Seidel and Daniel Wilson. The presentations revealed the changing nature of the work of Project Zero from its early days and focus on arts education to its current position as a research organisation with broad interests across education but with a focus on thinking, understanding and the workings of the mind.
By keeping changes in Mind in mind, we might move beyond replicating classrooms from the 1850s
Daniel Wilson set the tone of the presentations by stating that educators must keep changes in Mind in mind. The implication being that as our understanding of the mind expands our interactions with it through learning and teaching must also evolve and expand; something that Wilson shows has not occurred historically. This has been the work of Project Zero and projects such as Teaching for Understanding and Making Thinking Visible provide teachers and most importantly learners the frameworks required. The great value that Project Zero brings lies in the research basis for its work and the clear connections its researchers make with practices which are applicable in the real world and real classrooms.
Howard Gardner took us back to the early days of education where in the 1850s much of the structure of education was invented and implemented for the first time. Over subsequent years and decades our thinking about the mind changed from behaviourist notions with a strict focus on the visible behaviours which could be manipulated through rewards and punishments, testing of intelligence where what was considered intelligent was what the test tested, towards a science of cognitive psychology and an interest in what might lie behind the behaviours and on to more modern understandings from neuroscience. Beyond the individual social factors for thinking and learning evolved and with each new piece of research our understanding of Mind has expanded and evolved. From its early days of exploring linkages between the arts and the mind to today, Gardner shows how Project Zero has evolved our understanding.
David Perkins in his engaging storytelling style shared with us the story of the Evil Empire of IQ and revealed that contrary to popular belief intelligence is so much more than is revealed by a score on a test. Perkins asked the question "what does it mean to be smart” and his response showed that the errors in the common understanding. He reminded us that the evolving understanding of the mind shows:
- Smart as multiple - we are not all smart in the same way nor are we smart in a singular way. There are the smarts we use when we are being creative and these are not the same as the smarts we use when we are being business minded and these are not the same as the ones we use when being social
- Smart as learnable - that through the development of thinking strategies and the use of scaffolds for our mind we can enhance our smarts
- Smart as dispositional - that much of what we consider as smart are indeed dispositions and that can be developed or enhanced and that the utility of these dispositions requires not only the capacity for the disposition but the desire to deploy it and a sensitivity to its utility in given circumstances all of which can be learned
- Smart as performative - It’s not the knowledge, it’s what you do with the knowledge, It’s not knowing a lot it’s how you think with what you know.
Perkins concluded by urging us to consider the implications for this broader definition of what it means to be smart and what this looks like in the classroom. "Imagine a classroom where what’s central is not repeating what you know or repeating the standard routines, but this further layer of exploration putting that knowledge to work. In Jerome Bruner’s famous phrase “Going beyond the information given” That's what should be our earmark for a really rich generative setting for learning “Going beyond the information given”.
Shari Tishman focused on the work of the Visible Thinking project; "Visibility as a force for learning - a rich area of research Project Zero - two decades and going strong”. Tishman asked "What happens when instruction is designed to help learners externalise; to make visible their thinking to themselves and one another?” With examples from the classroom Tishman showed that by making thinking visible we allow learners and teachers to understand where they are with their thinking, how they got there and to move forward to a deeper understanding. She shared how the use of thinking routines such as “Notice, Know, Wonder” allows for a deep engagement with learning and takes students beyond recall of knowledge, towards understanding.
Steven Seidel urged us to “turn teaching on its head” in response to what we now know about Mind. In his words:
"The radical preconceptions of the minds we have been hearing about and our new understandings of how people learn suggest we probably need a radical reconceptualisation of what it means to teach and indeed I think we do, just as these streams of research and theory have led us to turn our concepts of mind on their head, so to speak, clearly we need to turn teaching on its head as well. "
"To be sure while we have evolved our understanding of the mind in many if not most schools, classrooms and other learning environments, we have not changed our minds about what it means to teach. We may have changed our minds but we haven’t changed our practice so much. If you look in on most classrooms today you’ll see variations on old models of teaching, not radical reconceptualisations of what it means to learn and therefore to teach."
Sadly, as Seidel noted "Paradigms don’t shift until they are ready"
Seidel urged us to see teachers as curators of three core principles at the heart of education; as curators of curiosity, curriculum and culture.
- Teachers as curators of curiosity, both their students and their own - students and teachers as creators of knowledge - Seidel noted that teachers are well placed to develop and extend our understanding of the curation of curiosity.
- Teachers as creators of curriculum - building on what is there but also on what is within the community and what matters to learners. “A different model of a curriculum, one that is long term, often place based, open to taking new directions as it unfolds, aesthetically rich, community connected and oriented to produce products and performances" - not a teacher proofed commercial curriculum or one mandated by government and monitored by high stakes testing.
- Teachers as creators of Culture - Not as transmitters of the culture of the dominant society. but to "think of things as if they could be otherwise, to use our imaginations in service of our ethical sensibility and to recast our works as teachers toward the creation of just, equitable and democratic classrooms and school cultures”
Learning as . . . according to Steven Seidel
The work of Project Zero is ongoing and increasingly global. In the words of Howard Gardner, it is an institution that is not the lengthened shadow of one man as imagined by Ralph Waldo Emerson but is the shadow of a whole community. It is a community dedicated to the betterment of education for all, and one that seeks to understand and respond to debates around the purposes and processes of education with sound research and respect for the complex nature of the subject.
As a teacher who has benefited from the thinking of Project Zero I thank all involved and wish you a happy birthday. We will watch with anticipation to see what comes next.
What if? Reflections from the ACSA Conference
Last week I spent three days thinking about curriculum and all that it means to teaching and learning thanks to the Australian Curriculum Studies Association’s biannual conference. It was three days of deeply thoughtful conversation and learning with just the right mix of academic research and ideas for grounded practice straight out of innovative classrooms and schools. With keynotes by Alan Reid, Dan Haesler, Bob Lingard, Robert Randall and Jan Owen combined with Masterclasses from some of Australia’s leading educators there was much on offer. The biggest challenge was deciding which workshop you would attend when every session offered such outstanding opportunities.
One of the very clear take-aways from the three days is that there is a great pool of talent and wisdom within the Australia’s education profession. Our educators are passionate, informed, thoughtful and knowledgeable, they are enthusiastic and driven to meet the challenges of these times of chaos, complexity and change head on and they always put the needs of their learners first. With so much professional wisdom to draw upon Australia should be leading the world. Unfortunately too often the key decisions are made in isolation from the professionals who know best, by politicians and policy makers without adequate consultation with the expertise within the profession.
It is also apparent that Australia has an equity issue when it comes to education. This is the conversation that is lacking from the national agenda of education reform with its focus on blaming teachers and schools for a supposed decline in Australia’s ranking on international assessments. What is also shown by this data is that more interesting questions about the distribution of academic achievement are revealed. Socio-economic status has in Australia a significant impact on educational achievement and the achievement gap between those with low and high SES is greater in Australia than in many other countries. We need to engage in conversations about why this is so what might be done about it.
Innovation is happening in Australian schools and it is happening across sectors, sections and locations. Greg Miller is the founding Principal of St Luke’s Catholic College in Marsden Park a school with a clear vision and a desire to explore what is achievable when building a school from the ground up. Their vision statement reveals a thoughtful imagining of what is possible; "With a commitment to ‘Live the Good News’, St Luke’s nurtures faith-filled, curious children to become creative contributors and innovative problem solvers for a changing world.” With his team of educators Greg is creating a culture for learning backed by the structures and spaces which best serve their collaboratively set goals. This is a team of educators who will not be held back by ideas of what education should be like.
Kurri Kurri High School realised that their Year Seven students were not engaged with their education so they made changes, big changes. They engaged with an expert, listened to their teams, noticed what was happening and implemented a new model that disrupted the norms. In place of the traditional timetable and typical class structure they moved to a model that integrates interdisciplinary learning, collaborative teaching and matches the structure of the class to the learning intentions. Students spend their time in Hubs, Pods and Huddles. A Hub involves up to sixty students learning with three teachers and this allows for the teacher with the most expertise in the learning at hand to lead while the other two move into the role of expert learners with the students. From Hubs, students move to Pods with up to 20 students and one teacher and here learning becomes increasingly targeted on the individual. Huddles are a group of three students with an emphasis on metacognition and reflective practice. With learning spaces adjusted to suit and aspects of consistent pedagogy and identification of non-negotiable learning across disciplines students benefit from a learning platform that drives their learning forward. The best indicator of their success is the manner in which students are able to describe where they are with their learning journey, what got them there and where they need to go next.
There are schools building communities of practice to identify and target goals that matter to them. Hilltop Road Public school identified a need to target how their students articulated their learning. This resulted in an action research project which targeted metacognition and was led by the school’s executive team functioning as a community of practice rather than a more traditional leadership team; a team of learners exploring what was most needed and what would suit their context. Lakemba Public school implemented observational rounds to develop and evolve collaboratively constructed lessons. A team of teachers plan a lesson together; one member of the team delivers it to a class with the other team members observing. At the end of the lesson everyone involved in planning the lessons discusses what worked and what can be improved. Critique of the lesson is open as it comes from those responsible for planning it.
Strategies for leadership and change management were shared. Dan Haesler challenged us with questions from Appreciative Inquiry, questions we do not normally ask but ones which encourage real reflection on our practice. “When are we at our best?”, "Now wouldn’t it be great if . . “, “What’s stopping us . . “ and “What do you want to do?”. By beginning with a reflection of what we like most about our current context and exploring ideas that evolve from that with a clear expectation that we do dwell on obstacles early in the process, we arrived at a set of actionable possibilities stated in language that would assist with implementation. Cameron Paterson had us engage in five minutes of free writing as a way of exploring a problem related to leadership, curriculum or innovation. This is a strategy Cameron uses with his students when he wants them to think deeply about a topic before exploring it in a more collaborative setting. Five minutes of focused writing without the option to stop or pause brings a new dimension to the task of writing and encourages ideas to flow and take charge unhindered by the usual demands of accurate spelling and grammar; this is pure ideation. With a paragraph of ideas we moved into small groups and utilised the Brainstorming Possibilities Protocol to share a puzzle and gather potential solutions.
A highlight was Professor Alan Reid sharing his ideas for the evolution of the Australian Curriculum. One of his recommendations cut to the core of much of the current debate in education around which pedagogical methods supposedly have the most effect. Professor Reid recommends ACARA works to minimise the negative effects of the artificial split between curriculum and pedagogy. This split ensures that a content heavy curriculum and its associated assessments will dictate a mode of pedagogy which best serves learning of this content. A curriculum with greater emphasis on dispositions of learning, problem finding, solving and inquiry would be better served by a pedagogy that facilitates these modes of learning. Until the curriculum aligns with pedagogies which target dispositions for learning we are likely to be confronted by research that favours pedagogies that best serve knowledge building. Bob Lingard described the binary of contemporary curriculum concerns which must balance what knowledge students ought to know and what sort of people they ought to become. This all points to the heart of the question that seems to have always confronted education: What and whose purposes does education serve?
Other voices rounded out the conference. We heard the story of a refugee from Deena Yako and were challenged to seek a richer understanding of the backgrounds of the students we teach. Deena encouraged us to acknowledge the culture of our students and to not shy away from conversations about the culture and the worlds that refugees have left behind them; to allow them to share their past and their memories of their home. Omar Musa challenged our thinking with his poetry. Confronting and gritty, Omar’s poetry shines a light on Australian life that many of us turn a blind eye to; the lives of the disaffected and marginalised youth living in our suburbs away from the privileged, romanticised ideals of Australia as a land of opportunity and yet through his words he shares a deep patriotism and desire to make his home a better place for all.
And finally, the conference was a great opportunity to connect with other educators and share stories. We are a community of learners with a passion to share our practice and in doing so we make the profession stronger. The future of the Australian Curriculum matters and needs to be high on the list of priorities for all educators. We can either sit by and let it along with assessment and teacher accreditation be things that happen to us, or we can unite and shape these things in the way that we know will best serve the needs of our learners. Bob Lingard's call to action is profound, “You don’t want to be the one who knew change was needed but didn’t do anything about it”.
By Nigel Coutts
Modern Spaces for Contemporary Learning
Think back to how you felt after the last day you spent at a conference or course. If things went well you probably came out feeling enthused by new ideas but also exhausted and fatigued in ways that you don’t after a regular day at work. If the presenters have done their job well and you choose your workshops wisely, the day should have been full of learning that resulted from you having to think. Days like this should work our brains hard and it should be no surprise when we are fatigued by such an experience.
Conferences bring other fatigue inducing factors. A change of routine, the temptations offered by the catering and day under artificial lighting. They also often require long periods of motionless sitting, in chairs that offer little genuine comfort, arranged in cramped rows that afford little to no personal space. Conferences are a great escape, but it is nice to return to our normal routines and give our minds and bodies time to reset.
Now imagine you are student in a traditional classroom; a student in one of those classrooms that looks just like classrooms did in the 1800s. Let’s assume that you have teachers who challenge your thinking, who are engaging and present lessons full of stimulation. Every lesson throughout your day is a model of quality teaching and you leave every class wanting more. Let’s assume your classmates are actively engaged in their learning and inspire you to do the same. This is perhaps the dream learning experience and yet at the end of the day it should still be no surprise that you are feeling more than a little fatigued by the experience.
With your brain awash with ideas you head home. After an evening of extracurricular activities, daily chores and an hour of homework you finally get to bed. Throw into the mix a busy and at times challenging social and family life and the average day brings a significant cognitive load. While you sleep your brain busily processes the learning from the day before, makes new connections and extends your knowledge banks.
In the morning, you awake and do it all again. And then again the next day and then the next.
In reality, amidst the mix of spectacular lessons are a whole lot of fairly average experiences and some you would rather forget. There are probably whole sections of the curriculum that you don’t connect with and teachers with whom you have barely connected with at all. There are classmates who are distracting, disruptive and difficult to learn with. There are changes to the routine, interruptions and special events which break the flow of your learning. Lunchtime and recess are often the highlight of the day. Boredom more than fatigue becomes the enemy and the mind wanders.
This is when traditional classroom seating comes to the rescue. Uncomfortable, hard and restrictive seating brings your mind back into the room but takes it nowhere near the learning. You notice the painful pressure points and are overwhelmed by a desire to fidget as you try to find a more comfortable position. At this point any distraction is a welcome one and you long for the lesson to end so you can move again. All learning has stopped.
Fortunately, there are alternatives and many learning institutions are exploring what is possible. Inspired by innovations in the corporate world from tech giants such as Google office design has seen some radical changes in the past decade. Beige is out, colour is in. Static, rigid seating is out and movement permissible options abound. With options for sit/stand desks the notion of office seating is completely challenged. Meetings occur in spaces resembling lounges and sitting on the floor or in a comfortable bean bag is more than OK. Google images of 'innovative office spaces’ or combine IDEO or Google or Pixar with office spaces and you will be amazed at what you find. Places that are as imaginative as the products produced within them.
Search for Innovative Office Spaces on Google and this is what you find.
Schools are starting to embrace these new ways of thinking and companies that design furniture for them are responding. Look at the catalogue of any of the large manufacturers of school furniture and you will find items you would happily place in your home. The shift is away from a one size fits all mentality to spaces that are full of comfortable options with the flexibility needed to adjust to changing circumstances. The most innovative spaces combine comfort with a sense of whimsy which invites creativity and inspires the imagination. Why learn in a classroom when you can learn on a pirate ship or in a pod that looks like it grew out of the floor.
As with all change in schools the biggest obstacle is tradition. We have strong ideas of what a classroom should look like and balk at ideas which challenge this. Many believe that rigorous learning can’t possibly take place in environments which do not align with images of the traditional classroom; the type that they experienced. We need to challenge these ideas and show that it is indeed possible to create spaces that are a joy to learn in and where comfort, creativity and learning go hand in hand. Contemporary learning expects a great deal from its students and they deserve spaces which ease the physical load while inspiring their best thinking.
By Nigel Coutts
For ideas look at these manufacturers:
- BFX Furniture - https://www.bfx.com.au/
- Furnware - https://www.furnwareaus.com.au/
- RAECO - https://www.raeco.com.au/