Are we there yet?

1. Are we there yet? What really matters in leading educational change Shona Smith, Deputy Principal, Waitakere College

2. Are we there yet?

3. Thanks for the NASDAP Scholarship Harvard Yard Harvard Graduate School of Education

4. Leadership: An Evolving Vision • What really matters in school improvement • Making the learning robust • Assessment for learning • Using new technologies to support 21st century learning

5. Back to New Zealand based research School Leadership and Student Outcomes: Identifying What Works and Why School Leadership and Student Outcomes: Identifying What Works and Why Professor Viviane M. J. Robinson School of Teaching, Learning and Development Faculty of Education The University of Auckland Auckland, New Zealand Number 41 October 2007 • BES on quality teaching for diverse students • BES on Professional Development • Viviane Robinson on leadership • Jane Gilbert • Rosemary Hipkins

6. Making Changes Are we there yet?

7. NZ Curriculum : how as well as what • Effective pedagogy Teacher actions promoting student learning

8. It matters 5-6 times more which teacher you get than which school you go to. Richard Elmore

9. De-privatising teaching Fullan, 2008, What’s worth fighting for in the Principalship (revised)

10. Internal accountability requires alignment Internal alignment of responsibility expectations accountability system Collective expectations Individual responsibility Richard Elmore

11. Teacher beliefs and expectations “The attitudes, values and beliefs of individual teachers and administrators • about what students can do, • about what they can expect of each other • and about the relative influence of student, family, community and school on student learning are key factors in determining the solutions that schools construct...” Elmore, 2004

12. BES on Teacher Professional Learning and Development Teachers need to: • understand the purpose of any new learning • have deep knowledge of how students learn in their curriculum area • be able to interpret assessment information and work out appropriate teaching and learning strategies

13. Effective professional learning • ...engages teachers in debate, challenge and reflection on their own theory of practice in a way that motivates them to be open to professional growth. BES on Teacher Professional Learning and Development

14. So if we want to make it happen... • Focus on what is happening in classrooms • Look closely at the academic tasks • Articulate the desired pedagogy • Develop a common language for classroom observations

15. Instructional leadership • “Modelling instruction means centering the school’s mission around pedagogical improvements that result in student learning.” Michael Fullan, 2008 • “...identifying what works and why.... it is the combination of description, practical examples and theoretical explanation that makes for powerful professional learning.” Viviane Robinson, 2007

16. Moving from the technical to the cultural

17. Moving from the technical to the cultural • Schedules • Structures • Roles • Types of PD • Protocols, rubrics • Assessments • Accountability systems • Beliefs about student learning • Pedagogical content • Knowledge • Norms for group work • Discourse about practice • Mutual accountability • Distributed leadership Technical Cultural

18. Thinking about pedagogy in your own school... • How well aligned are our teachers’ individual beliefs about students and learning with our stated collective goals?How might we achieve closer alignment? • How do teachers know what we mean by good practice? How do they respond to being observed and observing others?

19. Making Changes at Waitakere CollegeAre we there yet?

20. Waitakere College - Context • Collaboration, data sharing and trust between schools • Setting targets, PD, using achievement data to inform practice • Focus on teacher positioning, relationships, classroom practice • Achieving at Waitakere - West Auckland school cluster • Literacy and numeracy focus • Te Kotahitanga

21. The Vision • Challenging, innovative and future-focused programmes • Raising levels of achievement for a diverse student population. • Our graduates will be recognised as thinkers, contributors and participants in the local, national and global community. • Our teachers will be recognised as highly effective practitioners who have the commitment and skills to make a difference for our students.

22. The Vision

23. Raising academic achievement for all students through differentiated learning. • Improving literacy and numeracy • Increasing NCEA achievement • Gifted and talented students. • Maori students. • Pasifika students. • Refugee students • High expectations • Using language, symbols and texts • High expectations • Learning to learn • Excellence • High expectations • Thinking • High expectations • Treaty of Waitangi • High expectations • Community engagement • Inclusion • High expectations • Community engagement Strategic goal NZ Curriculum link

24. Enhancing teaching • Building staff capacity to enhance lifelong learning and implement the key competencies. • Effective teacher profile • Explicit teaching of thinking and learning skills • Review of all curriculum areas Looking towards 2010 • To build staff capacity to use emerging technologies to support 21st century learning goals. • Effective pedagogy • Effective pedagogy • Teaching as inquiry • Thinking • Learning to learn • Encouraging reflective thought and action • Coherence • Key competencies • Effective pedagogy • E-learning and pedagogy Strategic goal NZ Curriculum link

25. WAITAKERE COLLEGE EFFECTIVE TEACHER PROFILE (ETP) • Part of performance review and induction • Used in classroom observations • Used in Principal’s flying visits • Basis for student feedback

26. WAITAKERE COLLEGE EFFECTIVE TEACHER PROFILE An effective teacher at Waitakere College Acknowledges that they are responsible for what happens within their lessons and allows no perceived external factor to restrict the learning opportunities given to students.

27. An effective teacher at Waitakere College : • Actively works towards the learning and achievement of each student. • Uses evidence to reflect on the needs of their students to establish appropriate learning goals. • Provides learning opportunities for students to use their prior knowledge and experience.

28. An effective teacher at Waitakere College : • Plans and manages the lesson to ensure appropriate learning outcomes. • Actively promotes explicit learning intentions with differentiated learning opportunities. • Uses explicit achievement criteria so that students know how their work will be assessed.

29. An effective teacher at Waitakere College : • Actively seeks opportunities to interact with students in a respectful and caring manner. • Creates a secure learning environment with clear expectations, routines, rules and consequences. • Seeks opportunities to engage in written and oral exchanges with students to foster learning. • Uses a range of teaching strategies within a lesson to promote active learning.

30. Waitakere College Classroom observations Reviewer:Teacher Subject Class DateTe Kotahitanga observations taking place this year: Yes/ No

31. Waitakere College Classroom observations Reviewer:Teacher Subject Class DateTe Kotahitanga observations taking place this year: Yes/ No Strategies used need to be identified

32. Effective Teacher Handbook Strategies for: • Literacy • Thinking Skills • Differentiation

33. Thinking skills: Building Capacity Staff Involvement • Learning Initiatives Task Force • Thinking Team Teacher Only Days 2007-9 Staff PD Carousels

34. Thinking skills: Building Capacity • Initial focus Gifted and Talented • Exploration of authentic tasks • PD re differentiation & explicit teaching of thinking skills • Linked with NZ Curriculum

35. Insights from cognitive and neuroscience We need new metaphors for intelligence, knowing and feeling • Grasping and feeling with the mind • Actively adapting and structuring experience into understanding Kurt Fischer, Harvard • cf Jane Gilbert – knowing is a verb!

36. Waitak’s Thinking Curriculum • What good thinkers do ( habits, dispositions) • Habits of Mind • Bloom’s taxonomy • Model showing critical/creative/ caring/analytical thinking • How good thinkers approach a task/issue/question/problem… • 6 Hats • Different approaches to questioning • Tools for Thinking • Graphic organisers • Thinkers’ Keys • De Bono’s Thinking tools • DATT Directing Attention Tools • Metacognition – thinking about thinking • Understanding how to think at a high level – making use of Blooms in students designing their own questions, choosing higher order tasks. • Encourage all students to reflect on their own thinking and learning processes.

37. Thinking Week 2008, 2009 • Yr 9-10 core class lessons (sequence of 4) • Thinking focus for Junior assemblies • Inspirational thinking quotations each day

38. Thinking Week 2008, 2009 • Thinking strategies in all subjects • Wonder windows in Science lab • Quizzles and puzzles in home groups

39. Year 10 Thinking Week Lesson 4Divergent Thinking

40. Understand what DIVERGENT THINKING is • Learn some tools for divergent thinking • Define divergent thinking • Use compare and contrast map, bubble map, venn diagram and EPR chart. Learning Objectives Success Criteria

41. Activity 1:Compare and Contrast Map

42. Activity 2: Personal Involvement Questions What if you had to choose between your family and your sport?

43. Activity 3:Values Questions Reasons for: Reasons against: Reasons for AND against

44. Activity 4: ReflectionMetacognition: Thinking about my thinking during Thinking Week

45. THERE ARE SILLY QUESTIONS…

46. If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?

47. THERE ARECONFUSING QUESTIONS…

48. If you try to fail and succeed, what did you just do?

49. THERE ARE INTERESTING QUESTIONS…

50. If the speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second, what is the speed of dark? HUH?