My latest EdTalks: Developing cultural responsiveness in schools

Developing cultural responsiveness at Cobham Intermediate from EDtalks on Vimeo.


Last year when I was the Deputy Principal at Cobham Intermediate, I was asked to be filmed for an EdTalks special on cultural responsive practice and what this can look like in action in a school setting and how we were going about developing a culturally responsive environment. 

I focused my discussion on the way this happens from a relational position and how the staff at Cobham Intermediate began this journey together working on their practice, and then spread that learning to their classrooms. I tried to outline how important it has been for staff to consider the tikanga in the school and that the values they are developing around this practice will be beneficial for all, while reminding us all that the kaupapa of a school is developed as part of a school’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi and being part of a bicultural nation, and that this is an important position for all schools.

Meeting the needs of Māori in English-medium schools

This week I read a CORE Education blog post by Alex Hotere-Barnes called "Developing warrior-scholars, rethinking success".   It was mainly devised from an interview Alex did with Kia Aroha College Principal, Dr Ann Milne, of whom I have been a huge fan of for some time.  The blog struck a real chord with me, the concept of 'white spaces', holistic achievement and really just about how Kia Aroha are approaching teaching and learning from a cultural identity perspective.  I would strongly encourage you to read Alex's blogpost as it was hugely insightful and bang on in terms of radically re-thinking innovative educational change that meets the needs of our Māori learners.




  Tamara Bell: Te reo Māori in English medium schools from EDtalks on Vimeo.


I was reminded of this Ed Talks I filmed way back in 2012 when she discusses 'Whitestream' rather than English-medium schools and how the majority of our Māori and Pasifika kids are in these schools, not immersion, something I have always been acutely aware of and concerned with.  How are we meeting their needs?  How can we do better - this is a huge focus for our school again this year and we have just finished constructing our school wide goal, which is trying to build on the steps we took to work towards our 2015 school goal.  As you will see below, our focus is strongly targeting the needs of Māori - and you won't get any apologies or regret from us for that.



Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui e hoa mā - if you want to make a difference for your Māori learners and whānau, put them to the front, no excuses.

Leadership and Change - a reflective memo

TASK: Write a reflective memo on 3 readings related to leadership and change, and introduce the focus of your case study and the models you have chosen to apply. 

What? 

A Rich Seam: How New Pedagogies Find Deep Learning - Fullan & Langworthy.

This report discusses three new forces impacting on education today and going forward into the future.  The first force is 'new pedagogies' and relates to the new learning partnerships that develop between and among students and teachers when resources and digital tools become ‘pervasive’. The second force is 'new change leadership' which 'merges top-down, bottom-up and sideways energies to generate change faster and easier than anything seen in past efforts at reform'.  The third force is 'new system economics' where the essential and powerful learning resources and tools, which accelerate the first 2 forces, become more affordable for all.  The report gives the background to why change is happening globally, what the new pedagogies are all about, how they can be viewed in modern education and what the possibilities are if the new pedagogies model is developed in schools.

This report is an excellent resource for anyone in education.  It comes from a well respected and internationally known educator (Fullan) who has numerous highly regarded books and papers published in relation to key educational concepts within future-focused learning like change management, leadership, collaboration, digital tools etc.  The report is well structured and references a huge amount of research, both from international experts as well as New Zealand experts, which I found reassuring, to know there were links to our education system.  One of the most beneficial aspects of this report was the numerous school stories, including teacher quotes, statistics & data, tables of relevant information etc. as I was able to directly link and substitute these examples with some of our own information in relation to my school context.  I believe this report is an essential resource for education leaders and all teachers to read as it is engaging, informative and very motivating.  You come away for a better sense of the immediate need for change and the possibilities the new pedagogies model could provide us with.

Leading Quality Change - Fullan

This Core-Ed EdTalk video was filmed in March 2015 and is a recording of the presentation Michael Fullan gave to Canterbury leaders. During the presentation Fullan goes into detail about what quality change processes look like and links this to the international project he is involved in which includes clusters of schools from around the globe, including New Zealand.  The clusters are a part of a global collaboration called New Pedagogies for Deep Learning, which has the objective of bringing to life the new pedagogies model as described in 'A Rich Seam', in a variety of schools all over the world "creating a coherent suite of sustainable educational solutions, designed to achieve and support the strategic outcome of students reaching education success enabled by a technologically advanced society". 

I was lucky enough to actually attend this presentation in person. One of his key points is that the glue for successful change needs to come from leadership from the middle, where our principals and school leaders are participating and driving the change collaboratively - they should be a force for change but they must be a learner as well, where they can influence the climate of the school and create a non-judgmental culture, demonstrating how we are all learners, who make mistakes but value learning and are transparent about their own learning.  Fullan also shares the three keys to maximising impact, referencing Robinson's BES (2009) work and how leaders need to be moving towards the right drivers of capacity building, systems, pedagogy and collaboration. 

He acknowledges the unique context of education renewal in Christchurch as a result of the earthquakes and how the Ministry of Education's Investing in Educational Success initiative could dramatically change the landscape of education in our city.  He acknowledges that the key component of increasing collaboration and sharing expertise across a wider community of schools is a positive step and it will create many exciting benefits for our students however there are still things that need more thought and our leaders should be helping to collaboratively shape the best pathway forward wherever possible.

Positive Change Processes - Jansen

This video of Chris Jansen, a lecturer at the University of Canterbury was recorded at the Educational Leaders Forum 2011.  Chris explores the change process, and how to make this more of a positive experience. He describes the process of Appreciative Inquiry, which maintains a positive focus.  He shares the 4 Ds of appreciative inquiry and what the focus is for each step.  The first step is Discover - where leaders pair up, record a positive story from their own experiences and then share it with their partner.  Next is Dream - where the pairs now articulate their stories to the wider group, and all the participants pull together the themes. Following that is Design - which is where the strategic planning occurs, building on from the previous steps where the themes were identified of things that worked well and the final step is Deliver - which includes sequenced action planning, operational goals being established and the vision becoming grounded in the process.  

Chris shares examples of Canterbury schools and clusters that have used the Appreciative Inquiry process successfully and have also included the wider school community as part of this process.  This allows leaders to collaboratively take ownership and more importantly, 'authorship' (Breakspear, Sheahan, Thurbon, 2008) and has enabled leaders to collaboratively work on and implement a shared vision for their cluster of schools when they could be considered, in some aspects, competitors.

This video is a very easy watch and Chris explains things clearly and succinctly.  I particularly connected to what he was saying as I have a personal connection to both Chris and his work.  Chris is one of my lecturers for another course I am taking this year, EDEM682, and I have also been following the clusters and schools he discusses in the video so was already familiar with how they had been using the Appreciative Inquiry model to collaborate at leadership level.  This links beautifully with the Fullan video above 'Leading Quality Change' as it also references the need for inquiry and collaboration at a leadership level and how this can impact on the success and sustainability of change in schools.

So What?

Digging deep into these three excellent readings/resources, amongst many more and drawing on the findings of my review of the two change models; Davis' 'Arena of Change' (2008) and the Hall and Hord's CBAM model (1987), I have decided that the focus of my academic case study for assignment 3 of EDEM630 will be "What have been the benefits and challenges of implementing BYOD across Cobham Intermediate?  

As part of this case study, I will look closely at what the role of leadership has been throughout the pilot and whole school implementation phases and how this has impacted on what challenges and benefits have arisen for both staff and students at Cobham Intermediate.

I believe I will find strong links between the successes we have experienced and Fullan's findings in terms of what quality change processes look like, for example one huge success we have experienced has been the shift to using Google Apps for Education and Hapara Teacher Dashboard, an effective online tool to manage and monitor Google Apps for Education student activity.  One of the reasons this has been so successful is that it has direct links to many of the key drivers for successful change like enabling improved systems, increased blended (online and face to face) collaboration between staff and students, building capacity in terms of all staff being able to access and manage online student work and finally and most excitingly, this has been a learning experience for our teachers and leaders.  They were, and are still, all in the learners seat with this move and have been very transparent about how new this is for them, what challenges they are facing, what professional development they need and how they can tap into the strengths and expertise that their students may have to learn from them.  The Māori concept of Ako is common place throughout all of our BYOD journey.  Ako means both to teach and to learn and it recognises and values the knowledge that both teachers and learners bring to learning experiences.  This has been extremely prevalent in the area of learning with digital devices and it is exciting to see some of our teachers let go of their need to be in the dominant teacher role and embrace the learner role, while our kids lead the way forward!

Now What?

Being a part of the leadership team at Cobham, I want to look closely at how leadership has influenced the outcomes of our BYOD journey - what worked or did not work, how could things have been improved if different decisions had been made at leadership level and how has leadership decision making influenced other ecologies (Davis, 2008) within our context.

I would also like to examine what concerns were identified by staff in the early stages of moving to BYOD, if or how these were addressed and what their concerns are now, aligned to CBAM (1987), as we move towards the end of our first year as a BYOD school.

As part of my learning tasks and to assist with my case study research for assignment three, I would like to interview my principal with 3-5 carefully selected questions related to the BYOD journey at Cobham so I can apply the learnings from the interview to my findings for my case study.  This is particularly important as I only begun my job at Cobham in January this year and as with any major change to practice, the move to BYOD has been several years in the making, with several more to come I imagine.  The more we learn and discover about what benefits our students and staff are experiencing versus what challenges are being faced, the more leadership want to improve the current systems and processes in our BYOD strategy to ensure we are providing the very best BYOD experience our school community deserves.

I believe it would be valuable as part of my case study to draw parallels, where possible, between the successful elements of our BYOD journey and the links to the three forces with 'A Rich Seam' (2014).  I believe the three forces - 'new pedagogies', 'new change leadership' and 'new system economics' are intertwined with the rationale for BYOD and if we get BYOD right, it will be a great example of the new pedagogies in action.

REFERENCES:

Breakspear, S., Sheahan, P., Thurbon, D. (2008). Talent Magnets. Retrieved from http://www.simonbreakspear.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Talent-Magnets.pdf 

Fullan, Michael. (2015). Leading quality change. EdTalk in Canterbury at CORE, April 2015.

Fullan, M. & Langworthy, M. (2014). A Rich Seam: How New Pedagogies Find Deep Learning, London: Pearson.

Hall, G. E., & Hord, S. M. (1987). Change in schools: Facilitating the process. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Jansen, Chris. (2011). Positive change processes. Educational Leaders Forum 2011, Christchurch.

Robinson, V., Hōhepa, M., & Lloyd, C. (2009). School leadership and student outcomes:  

Identifying what works and why. Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Education.

Mapping your e-Learning journey

What?

The e-learning planning framework is a tool to help teachers and school reflect on and evaluate their e-learning capability.  It can be used to support schools through a process of self-review and ongoing development and improvements, by identifying their current position and therefore indicating what their potential next steps may be.  There are five dimensions within the eLPF - Beyond the Classroom,  Learning and Teaching, Technologies and Infrastructure, Professional Learning and Leadership and Strategic Direction.  Running across the dimensions are five phases of 'e-maturity' that describe how technology is adopted and integrated into teaching and learning. The phases are pre-emerging, emerging, engaging, extending and empowering,  and "the phases not only describe development in technology integration, but also describe pedagogical development, from teacher-directed to collaborative, co-constructed learning" (Enabling e-Learning).

In 2010, I was extremely fortunate to be a part of the original CORE Education team who created the eLPF and can assure you it was a difficult task to create succinct but relevant indicators for each dimension, across each stage, that fit the NZ educational context but aligned to other national and international research.  We spent months researching prior to the consultation phase and Stephen Marshall's e-Learning Maturity Model-eMM played a huge part in informing our work, as did Hall & Hord's Concerns-based adoption model - CBAM and Mishra and Koehler's Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge - TPAK

What is really pleasing to see is the improvements to the original framework we produced.  The first version was lacking any real and meaningful links to whānau besides within the Beyond the Classroom dimension, mainly due to the restrictions in the size of the document, trying to keep things concise and not too lengthy.  Now, important links to whānau and the wider community are found throughout almost all dimensions.  What also was missing was the ability for whānau and students to engage and offer their perspective.  It is fantastic to see latest versions have made those improvements and the framework now offers the opportunity for students and whānau, as well as staff to complete it.    What is also exciting is when we first released the eLPF, it was in a document form only, released on Enabling e-Learning and linked to form the Virtual Learning Network (VLN).  It quickly became obvious that for this tool to be truly useful for schools, it needed a more in-depth, responsive way of administering the framework and allowing people to engage with it, collate the data and then provide an analysis of this data, as many schools were struggling with this part.

So What?
The development of the flexible and efficient eLPF online tool made the administration and analysis of the eLPF data so much easier and more valuable for schools as it provided them with an overall picture of where they were at and therefore, what their next steps might be.   I I would encourage you, if you are able to and haven't already, to look at the using the eLPF online tool at your own school.

It is also important to consider what questions may go unanswered.  What can the eLPF not offer or tell you?  Having been involved with the eLPF from its conception here in NZ and used the tool as both a facilitator of professional development, a teacher and now as a school leader I feel I can accurately identify what is still unclear for me.  The questions that I still have after using the eLPF is how accurate can you be when mapping you school position at each dimension against a phase of development?  I know for a fact, every time I have administered the eLPF, there is a huge range of responses, but to be able to position your school overall, the average tends to become the default.  How do you record this succinctly within your findings, without going into a blow by blow analysis of each staff member?

One of the biggest challenges I have seen happen often with the use of the eLPF in schools is the tendency for schools to travel backwards on their journey!  Quite often the first time schools administer the eLPF and teachers complete the online tool, the results can indicate that a school is working at the extending and empowering phases.  However, the next time the elpf is administered it shows a shift backwards, with the school now positioned at emerging or engaging.  This can raise a lot of questions for staff and leaders in particularly.  What I have found is the reason for this is that when staff start looking closely at what specifically is happening in their classrooms, what their next steps are and they start to research and plan changes necessary to better meet the needs of modern learners, teachers often find out that their original evaluation of where they thought they were was incorrect.  It often comes down to 'You don't know what you don't know', meaning that as teachers learn more about what e-capability looks like at the empowering stage, the more they realise that there is still a long way to go.  And that this is an ongoing process, often with a feeling of one step forward, two steps back.  This is precisely why the image below shows circular arrows to indicate that this is a process of inquiry, where you will often need to re-work, re-learn things multiple times.  It clearly shows that at each phase you may go around and around for sometime before finding your way forward.  It also highlights that at the beginning phases, pre-emerging and emerging, the focus for schools and staff can often be driven by the technologies but as you move through the phases, the decisions within a school about relating to the 5 dimensions become driven by curriculum learning needs rather than just about the technology.

Image retrieved from https://magic.piktochart.com/output/1650583-how-to-use-the-elpf

Now What?
Prior to me working at Cobham Intermediate, they used the eLPF online tool with staff and school leadership in 2014 to identify where they were placed.  I would like to re-administer the online tool, bringing in members from our students, BoT and parents this time to add to the wider picture of where we now are.  I want to use this information and data to help us design our new strategic plan for ICT/e-Learning at Cobham Intermediate for 2016-2018.  I also hope that by re-administering the eLPF later in this term, we will be able to see some clear areas of shift for our staff and this will give them a good sense of achievement and confidence, being able to look back and see what impact the shift to BYOD is having on the development of teacher skills and knowledge and more importantly, the impact on student engagement and achievement.


References

Enabling e-Learning (2011) . Professional Learning: e-Learning Planning Framework. Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/e-Learning-Planning-Framework 

Hall & Hord. (1987). The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM): A Model for Change in Individuals.[Electronic version http://www.nas.edu/rise/backg4a.htm]

Mishra & Koehler. (2006) Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). [Electronic version http://www.tpack.org/]

Marshall, S. (2010). A Quality Framework for Continuous Improvement of E-Learning: The E-Learning Maturity Model. Journal of Distance Education 24(1):143-166. http://www.jofde.ca/index.php/jde/article/view/606/1030