‘When our attitudes and perceptions are positive, learning is enhanced: when they are negative, learning suffers’. (Marzano)
While the Dimensions of Learning is predominately a professional development opportunity for teachers to develop a process to improve their planning pedagogy, and hence student learning, I have used components of their strategy to seduce teacher learning. I asked myself the question, ‘How was I going to ensure our teachers maintained positive perceptions and attitudes to enhance their learning, understanding and adoption of the Teaching and Learning Framework’.
Clyde Fenton School has undertaken a complete cultural paradigm change over the three years, resulting in a 66% winnowing of teachers involving some tough times for us in our local and extended context. New teachers have moved in and replaced the old culture with high expectations of achievement and a willingness to be a positive player in the new culture at Clyde Fenton School. The experienced teachers who stayed on at Clyde Fenton School have taken on new leadership roles and have been responsible for mentoring our neophyte teachers and coaching other teachers transferring in.
Historically, teachers have been the gatekeepers of all information and school has had a focus on teacher-centred learning for students. If we want to make a difference to student learning outcomes teacher centred learning has to change to teachers facilitating the learning experiences of students. Students now need the knowledge and processes to find their own information so technology and research skills play a significant role in their learning experiences, not forgoing the explicit teaching of literacy and numeracy skills.
Fullan states ‘Take any hundred books on change, and they all boil down to one word: motivation’. With that in mind I thought long about the processes I would incorporate at Clyde Fenton School because I really knew the importance and impact the Teaching and Learning Framework could have on student learning outcomes if we got the change initiative right – and conversely what a missed opportunity would bring if we failed.
Fullan quotes John Kolter, ‘behaviour change happens mostly by speaking to people’s feelings . . . In highly successful change efforts, people find ways to help others see problems or solutions in ways that influence emotions, not just thoughts’. This was the real stretch for me as a leader. Whilst I already use many of the positive influences re change paradigms I really wanted to motivate teachers to see and experience the improvement in their teaching pedagogy and student learning outcomes so it would have a lasting effect on them and the school vision for the future. If successful, the adoption of the Teaching and Learning Framework strategies would build leadership and teacher capacity and be strategically placed for our future growth and sustainability.
To engage the adult learner, I scaffolded a number of learning strategies for our teachers to connect them to the change process, inform them of the facts and motivate them to improve their pedagogy. The journey for different teachers at Clyde Fenton School has been dissimilar in length but they all know where we have been heading re researching our pedagogical strategies.
By asking the following three questions, all teachers had a connection to our action research project: 1. the Teaching and Learning Framework is only a fad and it will soon pass so I can continue doing what I have always done; 2. There might be something in this for me I will see it through and see what I might get out of this; 3. If improving my pedagogical strategies improves student learning outcomes, I am happy to give it a go.
Teachers were then asked to identify what they considered to be change factors for the future. Areas identified were:
Globalisation has affected different cultural traditional roles. Family and community support is sometimes non – existent and therefore adding to the problems schools have in supporting the full range emotional skills. Increasingly, the number of students who have completed year 12 is a current goal for our National education agenda – therefore placing more stress on education systems to produce literate, numerate and socially adjusted students. I asked staff the question, ‘how will teachers improve intellectual rigour and close the social gap?’ Teachers were beginning to recognise the need for different approaches to their teaching strategies because of the change factors they had identified – if they were going to raise the bar intellectually changes to their teaching practices were required.
As a change agent who is very enthusiastic about improving student learning outcomes, I am well aware of the one factor making the biggest impact on student learning experiences– teachers in classrooms! Sharing the work of John Hattie, Professor of Education, University of Auckland, assisted in making teachers aware of the range of issues that influenced student learning outcomes. None of our teachers had actually read Hattie or new about ‘effect size’ but they were particularly interested in what had the greatest influence on student learning.
After consolidating our strategies for the first six months of 2007, I introduced a little chaos to our teaching staff by introducing the Teaching and Learning Framework through a whole school professional development strategy. We used several protocols to engage teachers in reflective practices and connect with the five principles and twenty practices. As a teaching group, we completed the CBAM survey (Appendix 1) to ascertain where teachers were at re their readiness to take on the Teaching and Learning Framework. The C-BAM tool is used when planning and implementing new practices – it outlines the composite representation of the feelings, preoccupation, thought, and consideration given to a particular issue or task by members involved in implementing of the innovation.
Initial teacher responses reflected the broad range of emotions when change is being introduced; especially taking into account teachers different worlds of learning.
John Joseph defines confidence as the belief in one’s capacity to get what one wants and motivation as how much someone wants something. When these two factors are used together, it is easy to graph learners into five different categories: anxious; high flyer; competent; struggling; underachiever. Obviously, if I could use these two concepts with teachers and transform them into high flyers I was well on the way to improving their pedagogical practices and therefore student learning outcomes. Joseph also talks about the competent but cynical teacher who can influence agendas one way or the other. The strategy I used to combat the cynic is to use them first in the teacher practical options of the research. After talking with them and establishing the best practice they had to share, they were generally more accepting of the role I wanted them to take and sometimes have been great advocates of the direction we are taking.
As principal, I display attributes of both motivation and confidence to be a positive role model for staff anticipating the high flyers in the school to follow suit. I have a belief that by working with the high flyers and facilitating opportunities for their intellectual growth I will be able to build strong leadership capability to lead the next layer of teachers along the learning paradigm. Teachers were asked to comment on how they were feeling and their concerns regarding the introduction of the Teaching and Learning Framework:
Evaluation (Appendix 2) of the C-BAM tool identified teachers requiring a range of professional development opportunities to become proficient at using the Teaching and Learning Framework as their pedagogical framework. A number of teachers were at the ‘informational’ stage of concern – ‘I would like to know more about it’, requiring the provision of clear and accurate information and change related to current practices. Several teachers were at the ‘personal’ stage of concern, requiring potential personal concerns to be addressed directly and had a need for change to be implemented progressively over time. Other teachers were at the ‘management’ stage of concern, requiring answers to specific – ‘how to’ questions and needed to avoid considering the future impact at this time. Finally, a large group of teachers were at the ‘collaboration’ stage of concern, requiring the need to be provided with opportunities to develop skills needed to work collaboratively.
The follow-up professional development experience was the unpacking of the Teaching and Learning Framework into its five principles and 20 practices. The training was a mixture of theory and practical type experiences to cater for different types of learning style. Teachers received the clear and explicit information required to consolidate their understanding of the Teaching and Learning Framework. I noticed teachers were more engaged with the process and were making more positive comments about the framework.
To continue the scaffolding process each of the three professional learning units were given one of the Teaching and Learning Framework principles and all of the associated practices listed below it over a five-week period – members stated as many different teaching strategies as they could in each of the practices, (Appendix 4). Strategies have been compiled against each of the learning unit areas.
Teachers are now being videoed in their classrooms, (Appendix 3). Each session is negotiated before the cameraman appears and then edited ready to be reviewed by the teacher. The first two teachers videoed were the ones who made a fuss at the presentations with cynical comments about how much work Teaching and Learning Framework would be and how they were not going to be involved. Because both teachers were making negative comments about the Teaching and Learning Framework, I targeted them for the first video clips and interviews. Talking to the teachers about their best practice and celebrating their successes, with them seduced them into the process to the point where they become leaders of the video concept at a staff meeting sharing their video with other teachers, and in particular, reflecting on the ‘how’ component of the teaching strategy (Appendix 5).
This action research process is only in its infancy and will continue over the next few years as we build our internal webpage of the good teaching practices that teachers are using at Clyde Fenton School. We need to improve our reflective practices, as well as improve our understanding and use of the Dimensions of Learning.
It has been interesting exploring different leadership strategies which are adding further depth to my existing skills. I am particularly pleased with the time I have allowed for teachers to process each of the stages I have implemented. To ensure all teachers are on the same page as each other, the scaffolding process I am implementing is not going to be rushed and all teachers are going to be skilled at each of the stages before I move onto the next stage.
We are now approaching exciting times with video clips, still photos, case studies of the teacher ‘how’, teacher strategies and vignettes are being compiled on our intranet site. Student learning outcomes continue to improve as we improve our leadership strategies and teacher pedagogy.
Discuss presentationBibliography
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* For the comprehensive, unpublished appendix items referred to in this paper, please contact the author.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mr Bryan Hughes is Principal of Clyde Fenton Primary School, in Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia.