LEAP International Seminar 2011 - The context of 21 st century school leadership

1. LEAP International Seminar 2011 - The context of 21st century school leadership Professor Steve Wilson School of Education University of Western Sydney

2. Themes of the Seminar • Qualifications? Evidence of analytical thinking, breadth of understanding, capacity to use evidence: Masters level. • Accreditation? Based on key attributes and capabilities. Portfolio relating to leadership, innovation, change agency and student outcomes. • Selection? As above; discerning a capacity for pedagogical leadership. What this is about is the focus of my presentation.

3. Framing the context of pedagogical leadership • The key challenge of 21st century pedagogical leadership in schools is to facilitate the learning engagement of students so that they feel their learning is meaningful. At the same time, students need to experience intellectual challenge in their learning. • The key role of the pedagogical leader is to provide teachers with a supportive narrative that enables them to understand how, amongst confusing expectations, their work fits in with this goal, and how their work can be constructed to achieve these learning outcomes. This narrative needs to be around the evolving nature of 21st century learning.

4. Nature of 20th century learning

6. Strengths of 20th Century learning – research findings into learning engagement The “signature practices”, as summarised by Carrington (2006, p.103), include: • Higher order thinking, holistic thinking, critical thinking, problem-solving and lifelong learning • Learner-centred (relevant and meaningful; connecting learning to students' lives outside of school) • Integrated and negotiated curriculum • Co-operative and collaborative learning • Authentic, reflective and outcomes-based assessment • Heterogeneous and flexible student groupings

7. Weaknesses of 20th century learning • Curricula not applied locally or contextually • Learning decontextualised; not problematised • Low levels of intellectual challenge for students • Acceptance of binaries – either / or; not sophisticated or useful • Lack of explicit teaching AND lack of student autonomy and creativity • Lack of student direction of their learning • Lack of student learning motivation and engagement

8. Nature of 21st century learning

10. Past and Future Schooling (Leadbeater, 2008, p.69)

11. Research into 21st Century Learning Online Key resources: http://learning21c.wordpress.com/ UWS 21st Century Learning research Blog iNET(International Networking for Educational Transformation) iNET Australia Cisco Global Education Leaders Program https://www.transformglobaleducation.org New Media Consortium Horizon Report– emerging technologies Charles Leadbeater Home Page Innovation Unit, UK ‘Personalised learning’ report from Futurelab

12. Research into 21st Century Learning Books Carrington, V. (2006). Rethinking middle years. Early adolescents, schooling and digital culture. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Leadbeater, C. (2008). What’s next? 21 ideas for 21st century learning. London: The Innovation Unit. Miliband, D. (2006). Choice and voice in personalised learning. In Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (Ed.). Personalising education. Paris: OECD.

13. ‘Next practice’ pedagogies Young people have the opportunity to: • Access and create knowledge • Build networks and learning communities • Frame learning around personal learning agendas • Help learning ‘come alive’ for children and young people.

14. Access and create knowledge • student-driven access to knowledge sites, and learning autonomy • skills development in applying quality criteria to knowledge sites • research-based approaches • problem and project–based learning • synthesis, reconstructing and publishing ideas • use of student-led blogs and wikis

15. Build networks and learning communities • group-based approaches • collaborative approaches within and between schools, and with community organisations • technology-enhanced project-based learning • emphasis on high level (quality) learning products • teacher as ‘leader-networker’ (classroom leader, co-learner, network facilitator)

16. Frame learning around personal learning agendas 1 Personalised learning (Miliband; Leadbeater) • Diagnosis of individual student needs; • Teaching learning strategies to respond to student needs, including teaching students to understand their own learning needs and take responsibility for them; • Curriculum choice, including breadth and personal relevance; • Reforming school organisation to accommodate above; • School-community and school-parent partnerships to drive above. “Many of the basic building blocks of traditional education: the school, the year group, the class, the lesson, the blackboard and the teacher standing in front of a class of thirty children, have become obstacles to personalised learning” (Hargreaves 2005, p.7).

17. Frame learning around personal learning agendas 2 • Expecting and maintaining academic quality AND relevance • Discussing learning as part of classroom activity • Listening to and incorporating student ideas about what and how to learn • Building learning on student prior knowledge, experience and interests • Facilitating student decision-making about learning • Framing learning as contextually meaningful and applied • Linking conceptually challenging material to everyday experience

18. Help learning ‘come alive’ for children and young people • Having students understand the purposes and goals of learning • Assist students in framing their own learning goals, and makes their own judgements about progress • Framing learning as creative, and as a discovery • Having learning be active, open-ended and problematised • Having personalised and networked approaches outlined above

19. As school leaders, how do we achieve sustainable changes in learning and pedagogy? • Innovation implementation is managed by a comprehensive team/s within the school • Has leadership with authority within the school • Driven by implementation plan with clear goals; embedded in school plan, including a component on how and when to scale up innovation if successful • External support strategically used • School (not externals) drives research and evaluation – particularly evidence about learning outcomes for students • School has a vision and plan about how innovation will continue once external funding / support is discontinued