Chapter 1: Setting the Stage
As I read the opening chapter of " The Lead Learner" I glanced over at my pile of must read books and realised I am one of those leaders/ teachers/ educators/ that are living the tension between "innovation" and "traditional strategies" as I spot my much loved copy of Dylan Wiliam's book 'Embedded Formative Assessment'. As I complete marginalia in our current book and during my every day I frequently ask myself how can I integrate the innovative learning of tomorrow with the traditional strategies that we know build the key knowledge and skills needed today?. I hope this book provides me with some answers and also raises questions that continue to make me refine my thinking and develop my thinking in the area of clarity, coherence whilst developing my capacity and the capacity of my class (teachers and students).
I found the Gavin Hay's reflection on the journey of Marist in 'Voices From the Field' spoke to me - as I too believe within my own learning and in the school system we have at times swung like a pendulum between focusing on content driven practices, skills needed for 21 century learning and are slowly realising the importance of balance between it all.
I feel I have a long way to go however I do know at the core of who I am as a leader is the desire and core purpose of someone that understands the importance of enhancing the learning of students and staff and try every day to model effective learning in my daily practice and short term and long term decisions. When I completed Figure 1.5 I had a tendency to be more aligned to ambidextrous leadership responses and intend to continue on with activities 1.2 - 1.4 over the weekend. I look forward to discussing the activities and seeking feedback as we continue reading this book.
Reflection questions:
What do I know now that you didn't know before you started reading?
I am not sure I didn't know the difference between 'traditional' and ' innovation' but I didn't realise how easy it is to focus on one over the other rather than keeping them both in balance. This book has also helped develop my understanding of the difference between a lead learner and an instructional leader.
What questions are you facing as a leader?
How do I as a leader keep the pressure of 'jobs' from impacting me and drawing me away from my primary role as a leader which is ' ensuring all students/ staff are getting more than one year's growth in one year's time? How do ensure the 21 Century skills are taught in authentic settings but also time is given to explicitly teaching them at a point of need bases rather than in a hit and miss fashion? How can I encourage student voice and path a way of autonomy in learning where it is purposeful and allows for the whole group to learn together/ from each other? How can I involve the staff in setting the school goal so they have ownership? How can we find the 'gaps' in the learning and use these to drive the vision of our school so all staff and students achieve more than one year's growth?
What are the key differences between being an instructional leader and a lead learner?
Some of the key differences between an instructional leader and a lead learner appears in the title themselves. Instructional leadership is one that instructs others - almost like it is from the outside directing inward through observations, looking at data and driving others to continue to improve. Where as the lead learner is someone who leads through their actions - is modelling through the hands on work they do, working collaboratively with the team to solve problems and listens to the ideas of others rather than having to have all the answers. A lead learner has a clarity around the direction of the students/ staff to ensure growth. Building the capacity of all so to ensure learning continues and that self and others are building the PCK whilst maintaining a growth mindset and understanding the importance of life long learning. Just to name a few differences.
Clarity, coherence and capacity - which one resonates with you? Over the last few years I think my focus has been around developing my understanding of clarity. I believe I have become a better learner, teacher and colleague because my clarity have become clearer. I have also developed my understanding of how important it is to have clarity around where we need to go as learners (staff and students) but also how we can get there. It also includes having clarity around the needs of the students and our next steps.
I look forward to discussing the next two questions in our leadership meeting on Monday.
I have really enjoyed reading this first Chapter of 'The Lead Learner' but I have equally enjoyed reading the above blog and certainly agree with many of the points raised here by Leanda. I related to the ideas expressed regarding the balance between the two ideologies and I actually found it liberating to read that we can have both innovative teaching and learning as well as identifying the importance of planning, teaching and assessing key concepts and skills.
ReplyDeleteI have always felt my instinct as a teacher and a leader lead me to question the quality and progress of the learning rather than the focus on the strategy, even highly recommended strategies. I feel this is an approach shared by others on the leadership team which has lead to a measured approach to change and progress in the school. It is so easy to get on the 'band wagon' of the next innovation with the danger of losing the focus; the learning
I know many strategies that would be considered 'traditional' which have resulted in outstanding learning progress for particular learners. In fact some of our intervention programs such as 3rd wave and R 3 are examples of great teaching strategies, especially for particular learners. I celebrate the ideas on Pg 5, which have been reframed in the blog above when we talk about, 'it is all about he learning'; How people learn and how people get better at learning. I enjoyed reading Leanda's reflections on her own learning journey as an educator.
The section that spoke to me the most in the chapter ( pg 11) however is the section regarding the importance of the balance between high levels of expectations for student and staff achievement whilst ensuring high levels of flexibility. This is further developed in the concept of capacity building; learning independently AND collaboratively. When I read the above blog; ideas articulated from an excellent educator, it affirms for me the dangers to avoid as a leader, and that is of stifling flexibility and independence by a micro managing approach. Again the focus is the learning and the shared high learning expectations for all. I think trusting the high quality of the educators on staff is critical. For this to be successful I believe the trust must be matched with equal levels of rigorous discourse around data and expectations. When this is achieved a synergy of creative minds working towards a shared purpose is visible. The creation of this synergy is I believe a distinguishing feature between an Instructional Leader and a lead Learner.
I too enjoyed reading both your posts. I also appreciated the fact that we can have a balance between innovative teaching and learning as well as identifying the importance of planning, teaching and assessing key concepts and skills. In my role I feel that I am probably not as hands on with the learning as others in the school however being able to up my PCK through my work in R3 I feel that I have been reignited with a passion to make a difference to the students I have the privilege to work alongside. I am learning as much from them as they hopefully are from me.
ReplyDeleteI also believe that the 2 styles of leadership Instructional vs Transformational (Fig 1.2) are not mutually exclusive. I see in Bern an inspirational leader who espouses, on a daily basis, to lead by her example. I sympathise with her and the demands placed on Principals that constantly take her away from her core work, that of working along side staff and students in improving the learning. LIke Leanda, I too find that often the 'task orientated jobs' take away from my role as a leader. I probably see my role at this stage in my career as not so much a leader of learning (in the academic sense), but in my dealings with student management, a leader or guide in assisting the students to become the best members of our community they can be and in the future significant members of our society.
This section also touched on the importance of not only focusing on how students learn but also how they take command of their own learning - become the drivers of their learning. As leaders our role is to think 'deeply' about how our students learn, this cannot be done in isolation. It requires us to 'develop an approach to engaging with each other, both staff and students, as we learn'.
I look forward to future chapters unpacking clarity, coherence and capacity in more detail as I learn best through examples.
In this first chapter I found myself becoming the lead character where somehow I don't keep the ideas 'out there' but continually reflect on each new revelation as "Am I doing that? Is this how I embrace new learning?'. The dichotomy of balancing traditional strategies with 21st century skills is one which drives many of actions plans and hence our planning and programming to ensure that students are actually learning and experiencing growth.
ReplyDeleteThe simple statement resonated with me "We must lead by focussing on learning" and I feel Bern has put considerable emphasis on this with teachers,students and parents promoting an environment that encourages us to focus on the needs of the students and staff.
I am looking forward to the section on 'Crafting' as this section will be a personal approach to looking at my leadership skills and how I can assist our team in 'moving learning forward'.
PS Thought I would be very left brain ( logical and sequential) even though I am left handed and should be right brain dominant but found out my thinking was ambidextrous. I am interested to see how we will all respond to activity 1.6.
"I feel I have a long way to go however I do know at the core of who I am as a leader is the desire and core purpose of someone that understands the importance of enhancing the learning of students and staff and try every day to model effective learning in my daily practice and short term and long term decisions".
ReplyDeleteLeanda, that first line in in this sentence I copied from you made me feel so much at ease and lowered my anxiety. Reading this, I too realised I personally have a long way to go, and to see you of all people (someone who I view as VERY knowledgeable and 'in the know') also feel that way made me feel so much better.
As we have all stated, I really enjoyed reading this chapter, as well as reading the above posts. I feel I have a better/more informed understanding now of the reasons why Bern and the leadership team have made some of the changes they have at our school in regards to pedagogy and teaching strategies employed, and the importance of implementing these changes for student and teacher learning.
One of the things that resonated most with me was the question on how do we as teachers prepare our learners for today and tomorrow’s society and workforce. Nelson Mandela’s quote “The children of today are the leaders of tomorrow” came to mind straight away and I questioned myself on whether I would be happy for the students I am currently teaching and have taught to be the leaders of tomorrow and whether we as a collective teaching staff have successfully set these children up to be the leaders, innovators and problem solvers of tomorrow. In my own reflective thoughts this reading made it clear that not only is there is room for both ideologies, but it is imperative that we adopt strategies from both to meet the needs of the learners. As Bern stated, we have seen outstanding learning progress (for particular learners) come from strategies that would be considered ‘traditional’ and at the same time, we have seen outstanding learning progress come from strategies that would be considered ‘innovative’. The struggle here as leaders is to strike a balance between both ideologies and implement an approach where the focus is on the learning and HOW students learn.
The idea of becoming a lead learner is both a little daunting but exciting at the same time. Like Elly, I look forward to future chapters on unpacking clarity, coherence and capacity in more detail as I too learn best through examples, and wish to better understand the ways in which students learn and how to implement an approach where the students needs are being met.
From the very beginning of the chapter 'Setting the Stage' I found so many alignments with my own practise as a classroom teacher, with questions and dilemmas I face with enabling all students to access the curriculum and enhancing 21st skills. this in actual fact is 'my stage'.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter validated my own experiences where I reflected on my practise and the outcomes achieved by my students where perhaps there was an imbalance between 'traditional academic rigor and 21st-century skills', a sentiment that was further validated by Gavin Hayes, 'On the surface the students seemed engaged, but our projects lacked academic rigor and often did not create any sustained cognitive dissonance'.
12 pages in and I feel I have far greater agency to not make such binary decisions for the students in my class, that my students require me 'to be flexible and directive' in my approach. As a lead learner I need to reflect on prior decisions and ensure my current and future decisions are based on what is most impactful on student growth. Most importantly, how I can best reflect on clarity, coherence and capacity, and communicate and support others through their learning journey.
Sorry for the late reply.
ReplyDeleteI have enjoyed reading the feedback from all the member of the leadership team and agree with so many valid points that have already been covered. Just as you do Jen B, I constantly ask myself "am I doing that?" and "how can I do this better".
The Key question on page 3 really made me stop and think. "How do we ensure that our decisions are substantially causing learning for all students in core academic knowledge and 21st century skills?" As I am still a relevantly new teacher who was raised in an education system that would be defined as "old school" it was refreshing to note that a balance of traditional methods and 21st century skills are important for learners and that exploring errors and misconceptions have a greater effect on learning when when students already have a surface level of understanding.
After our course today, I made a clear connection to page 5 regarding the importance of knowing our learners. Today we focused on identifying what we know about one particular student in our class and from what we knew we had to identify what points were about the student as a learner and what points we were about the student as a person. As I predicted, most educators highlighted what they knew about their students as learners and can identify the needs of each learner however, we knew little about our children as people. My reflection on this activity was that the more we know about our students interests, home life, culture, mental and physical health ect the better we can equip ourselves to lead more meaningful and purposeful learning for students. By understanding students we can inform our teaching to design student centred learning that our students can connect with and relate to.
I am sure most teachers agree that we know our low and high students and the students who have main voices in our class. My goal throughout this term is to develop the relationships with the middle students, the ones that can slip between the cracks and aim to understand their learning needs better. In turn, I hope to use this information to review what their needs are as a learning and if I am offering them the right opportunities for success.