The leader, context and Leadership Style.

Leadership is understanding people and involving them to help you do a job. That takes all of the good characteristics, like integrity, dedication of purpose, selflessness, knowledge, skill, implacability, as well as determination not to accept failure.

~Admiral Arleigh A. Burke

Introduction

Leading a secondary school environment is a complex task. The principal is the leading learner in the school and the role model to the staff and the community. The NSW State school Principal is in a pivotal position, accountable for the leadership and management of the school, bound by state legislation, policies and priorities of the government (Boston 2000).

Two conceptual models have dominated the study of leadership of schools: instructional and transformational leadership. Hallinger (2003) concludes that the suitability or effectiveness of a particular leadership style is strongly linked to the external environmental factors and the unique local context of the school.  There is also thought that both transformational and instructional leadership styles are evolving in the context of global educational reform. The models focus explicitly on the way educational leadership brings about improved educational outcomes. Early research by Blake and Mouton (1986) acknowledged that leadership styles have different effects in different circumstances.

The theme of changing leadership styles depends upon, or is contingent on the context.    Early contingency theories (Tabbenbaum & Schmidt 1958) focus on a one dimension continuum of leadership style, whereas Hallinger (2003) outlines that the most appropriate leadership style is dependent on the four variables- the leader, the led, the task and the context which gives a framework in which to explore the contingent nature of leadership. The essence of a contingency approach to leadership is that leaders are most effective when they make their behaviour contingent on situational forces, including member characteristics (Dubrin 2010). When we consider the complex nature of schools and the member characteristics, we can understand the importance of contingency leadership. The study by Anthony J.Mayo and Nitrin Nohria concluded that when it came to long-term success, the ability to understand and adapt to changing conditions equals in importance the executive’s personality traits or other competency. Understanding the context, or the spirit of the times, was a major contingency factor in applying the right leadership to achieve success (Dubrin 2010).

Leader in Action: A leader in the work place.

This leader (Ms.Coogee) has been in NSW public education for 24 years, 4 years as classroom teacher, 16 years as Head Teacher of a Curriculum Faculty and 4 years as Deputy Principal, and recently securing a Principal position for 2011. Her career has stretched across a variety of school contexts, large western Sydney metropolitan school, large coastal country high school, inner city partially selective co-ed multi-cultural school based in the eastern suburbs of Sydney and the newly appointed school is culturally diverse with a student community dominantly from non-English speaking background and includes an Intensive English Centre on the campus.

Leadership journey with technology.

Everyone is the Architect of his or her own learning.

Appius Claudius. Roman Politician

Ms. Coogee possesses leadership traits that have allowed her to embrace her school communities successfully: competent, intelligent, inspiring and hardworking, however it has been the ability to align a schools human resources to embrace quality teaching using technology (Digital Educational Revolution) to improve educational outcomes for both students and teachers that has indicated her transformational leadership style. In the role as Deputy Principal she was responsible for the implementation of all aspects, including IT support, net book student management, communication of information about the project to parents, teachers & student, teacher learning & support, supervision of technical service officer, net book student user agreements, classroom preparedness and 1.1 learning pedagogy etc.

Situation: 180 net book computers being delivered to every year 9 student in the school. Teachers have limited experience of 1; 1 learning beyond the computer room environment and are expected to embrace this new tool for learning. Staff are generally apprehensive, many saw this as a crisis in their teaching career, many questions surrounded teachers understanding of pedagogy with laptops, negativity of hardware reliability, time restraints, limited professional learning experience pre-arrival of net books, interest low, commitment low, lack of vision/models of learning possibilities and fear of the great unknown.

Action: The question for school leaders and school leadership teams is to embed a new way of learning with the new DER Device. The leadership of the school’s ability to improve learning with the DER devices sat firmly in the hands of Ms. Coogee.  A change in learning focus and a revisit to the NSW Quality teaching framework was necessary, along with a focus on teacher learning as the first step in transforming the classroom.  The professional learning vision for teachers was paramount in leading change. The question for school leaders and school leadership teams is how to embed a new way of learning with the new tool. The project outcome was to gain greater student engagement in learning, which would be represented by on-task behaviour and less challenging behaviours interrupting the learning of others.

Human resource leaders emphasise the importance of people…. They believe in the importance of coaching, participation, motivation, teamwork and good interpersonal relations. A good leader is a facilitator and participative manager who supports and empowers others. Leadership frameworks.

Task: The leadership of the implementation of DER (Digital Education Revolution) became labeled a project at the school. ‘Litehouse4skools’ was the project and the phase of transforming learning began. Ms.Coogee led the project. On reflection, the project appeared like a well-drafted plan, however the project was an ongoing change contingent process, which was an evolving and responsive series of actions that ebbed and flowed as the context played out. It was all about the people not the technology.

• Consulted teachers and Students using Data analysing tools, surveys qualitative etc.
• Formation of Team of champions that were credible, influencing others, motivated, organisational commitment, sustained embedded elearning with leadership of emerging technologies.
• Developed Access (created a transparent ICT support system for hardware) and Motivation, Socialisation (opportunity to connect), Information exchange, knowledge construction and development that was based on Salmon 2003, 5 Stage Framework.
• Students as Mentors for teachers in initial implementation.
• Communities of Practice. Personal Learning environments and networks were developed as learning communities within the school and within faculty teams. (Wenger 1999).
• Connectivism Theory was embedded across the school with particular referencing to social networking in using Web 2.0 tools. (Siemens 2004)
• Ongoing and relentless snippets of professional learning with Mentors/ Champions supporting teacher learning. Creation of Blended learning exemplar lessons.

Results: The leadership of the project team resulted in whole school change in classroom practice. 100% improvement in take-up of technology, including the embedding of blended learning lessons in classrooms. Learning reflected a varied approach in the use of technology as a learning tool and teaching strategies reflected a change in pedagogy. Learning results indicated a broader and varied approach to teaching activities and greater student engagement in learning. Teachers revealed a greater understanding of the potential for online and elearning. The staffs were better prepared for the evolving nature of technology and had set up networks within and outside the school community. It goes without saying; the project was not all good.  The negative aspects were indicated by the blockers and disengaged teachers who did not partake in any development and who continued as they had always done. Some teachers even went so far as to retire, stating emphatically that they would never be able to teach in a quality manner with technology.

Leadership style of Ms.Coogee

Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves it’s amazing what they can accomplish. Dwight D Eisenhower

Throughout the project Ms. Coogee was assertive, firm and maintained a pressure & support leadership approach. Staff was encouraged in the model to not ‘opt out’ and the expectation was for all to be involved to improve the collective. Risk taking was encouraged and rewarded with support of professional learning and mentors to assist the teacher/learner. Staffs were continually reminded about the overall benefits for longevity in teaching and the need for change in classroom practice in preparation for the new context of learning. The focus was on the staff and the improvement of their skills, however endeavouring to move from over indulging in self-interest, more on the need for a team approach.

Ms. Coogee was relentless in the focus, led by example by ongoing small innovations that sometimes didn’t work, but allowed staff to see the need to problem solve and learn from that experience.  Ms. Coogee keeps a focus and maintained a relentless approach for an improved outcome for all teachers.  It goes with out saying that Ms. Coogee continued to drive the project forward in preparing with the team a Learning Day for year 9 students to embed quality learning into their psyche of using the net books away from them being just gaming devices. The approach was focused on the development of a learning community, where learning was facilitated and the learning of all its members, moving to a place that continuously transforms the situation to embrace the ever-changing learning context.  Her approach was relations-oriented. She led with e energy, intensity and emotional expression and showed a great capacity to keep staff enthused. Her strong beliefs, in the benefits of the technology to improve the quality of teaching life for staff was quite evident and the passion for improved happiness in their teaching was paramount.  Ms. Coogee wanted staff to be excited about learning new things and then transferring this to the classroom with students.

Leadership Style and Leadership Behaviour Analysis.

Transformational leadership focuses on what the leader accomplishes yet still pays attention to the leader’s personal characteristics and her relationship with group members. The essence of transformational leadership is developing and transforming people (Semler 2006). Observing the actions and the accomplishments of our chosen case-study leader, it is apparent the qualities of transformational leadership are displayed and that the style is orientated around relationships. This style is needed to suit the organisational culture of a secondary high school. The leader takes into account which contingent forces are at play including the led, the led as team, the task and the context.

The leader we studied reflected many qualities embedded in Transformational Leadership including: (Dubrin 2010)

• Raises people’s awareness with a vision, priorities and targets.
• Helped people look beyond self-interest and helped people to search for self-fulfillment
• Helped people understand a need for change and led teams with a sense of urgency.
• Committed to greatness and adopted a long range broad perspective about technology, teaching & learning.
• Concentrated on building trust, sensibly persistent and concentrated on putting resources where they were most needed.

Relationship-Oriented Attitudes and Behaviours.

It is also apparent that the effective leadership displayed by Ms.Coogee is reflected in the relationship power as opposed to the position power that comes from a title. This can be evident in the title of principal, building relationships with people and inspiring them are the keys to leadership success, often we see many outstanding leaders in schools, from all levels, in particular, the teacher/leader in the classroom who inspires their students to achieve amazingly well.

The relationship-oriented leadership model fits comfortably in a school setting due to the human aspect of the school context. Relationship-oriented leaders focus on the following aspects and these are reflected in many teachers and educational leaders who bring about outstanding learning results.

• They focus on aligning people and value worker opinions.
• Create inspiration and visibility.
• Satisfy higher-level needs. They inspire staff /students to higher achievement. Create a sense of belonging; give staff/students a sense of control over their life at school.
• Give emotional support and encouragement, including promoting principles and values.
• Be a servant leader who has a desire to help others. This caring aspect of the workplace is that leader helps staff and students to achieve their goals, not just the leaders goals.

A servant leader is more concerned with helping others and not concerned with power and prestige. They listen to understand their staff concerns, to better understand the course of action. Trust and being trustworthy are pivotal in the servant leader behaviours, staff want a boss, not a pal, and always looking to lend a hand. The servant leader shows a great deal of sensitivity to group members and prioritise to helping others.  Research indicates from a study of 182 workers that servant leadership has a positive relationship with organisational citizenship behaviour, job performance, and staying with the organisation (Liden 2008).

Education is an ongoing myriad of change brought about by governments and changing policy. Often leadership in large secondary schools is compromised by lack of human and material resources. It is evident in our Case study that at times, Ms.Coogee was limited by resources; the adaption of leadership style was appropriate for the circumstances. The statement by Professor Geoff Scott 2003 rings true in his development of the School Leadership Capability Framework in Learning principals, “It is the combination of brains and heart that ultimately makes the difference”.

Summary

The overriding purpose was to discover, what leadership styles and situational/contextual approaches to enlighten the reader to the way these may apply to a Secondary High School context. It is fair to say that it would take an ongoing development of practice to adapt to changing situations. Teaching and schools are diverse and varied places where there never seems to be ‘one size fits all’ approach to leadership. Theories of contingency and situational leadership build on the study of leadership style by adding more specific guidelines about which style to use under which circumstances. Leaders are most effective when they make their behaviour contingent on situational factors not under the leader’s control. Situations shape how leaders behave, and also influence the consequences of leader behaviour (Dubrin 2010).

Professor Geoff Scott conducted intensive research into Principal leadership and what is apparent is the ongoing contextual flux of change evident in our schools.

“The world of the principal which emerges from this study is uncertain, constantly changing and entails having to judge continuously the significance of and respond successfully to a relentless influx of local events and broad external forces. Principals work in a context which is exceedingly complex, in which human, technical, policy, organisational and pedagogical factors are constantly intertwined. As principals try to negotiate the swampy realities of this daily practice they must paradoxically be able to give both clear direction yet be responsive and flexible, be able to both listen and lead, and be deft at using both top-down and bottom- up strategies. They need to have moral purpose and vision yet is pragmatic and politically adroit. Theirs is a world characterised by an endless series of brief encounters and challenges to be faced, assessed and resolved. The most common challenges involve issues concerning poorly performing or problematic staff; threats of or actual physical violence; dealing with aggressive or litigious parents; having to undertake nominated transfers of staff; a world in which what one thought were little problems can suddenly blow up into something unexpectedly large. It is a role, which appears to cycle between exhilaration and deflation. And it is a role which few outsiders appreciate for its complexity, risk, relentless uncertainty and ambiguity at the practical day-to-day level.”

Professor Geoff Scott 2003.

References: Educational Leadership.

“Be a leader not a pal”, Managers Edge, March 2007, p 3.

Blake, R.R. and Mouton, J.S. Executive Achievement: Making it to the top, McGraw-Hill, Oxford, 1986

Boston, K, 2000. Leading and managing the school: A statement of key accountabilities for principals in the effective leadership and management of NSW Government schools. NSW Department of School Education. 2000.

Dubrin, Andrew, J. 2010. Leadership: Research findings, Practice & skills. Cengage Learning, Mason USA, 2010.

Hallinger, Phillip, 2003.  Leading Educational Change: reflections on the practice of instruction and transformational leadership. Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol. 33, No. 3, November 2003.

Horner, M 1997, ‘Leadership theory: past, present and future’, in Team Performance Management, Vol.3, No. 4, MCB University Press, pp. 270-287.

Liden, R., Wayne, S.J., Zhoa, H. & Henderson, D. 2008, “Servant Leadership: Development of a Multidimensional Measure and Multi-Level Assessment,” The leadership Quarterly, April 2008, pp. 161-177.

Mayo, Anthony J. and Nohria, Nitrin, “Zeitgeist Leadership”, Harvard Business Review, October 2005, p. 55.

“Ricardo Semler’s Huge Leap of Faith,” Executive Leadership, April 2006, p. 6.

Rowley, J 1997, ‘Academic leaders: made or born?’, in Industrial and Commercial training, vol.29, no.3, MCB University Press, pp. 78-84

Scott, Geoff. 2003 Learning Principals: leadership Capability and learning research in the NSW Department of Education and training. University of Technology: Quality Development Unit for the NSW Department of Education and Training. 2003.

Salmon, G. 2002, e-Moderating: The key to teaching and learning online, 2nd ed., Routledge Falmer, Oxon

Salmon, G. 2009 Running e-tivity plenaries – 5 Stage Model, E-tivities – The Key to Active Online Learning. Viewed online on 4 May, 2009 at http://www.atimod.com/e-tivities/5stage.shtml

Saunders, S. 2008, ‘Social Psychology of Adult Learning’, in Athanasou, J. (ed.), Adult Educational Psychology, edn 2, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, ch.3.

Siemens, G. 2004 Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. Viewed online on 18 May, 2009 at http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm

Wenger, E. 1999, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, Cambridge University Press, USA.

Net books & Web 2.0 tools to underpin social Learning & social software to ‘create a paradigm shift’ for student engagement in NSW DET Schools.

Title: How authentic mentor structures in schools will support teacher practice (pedagogy) in the use of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom to improve student engagement.

To research the success of a teacher mentoring program to support (Communities of practice/Learning communities), inform & evaluate teacher practice* (pedagogy) to effectively use Web 2.o tools (Social software, social learning) in the classroom to improve student engagement *.

The research will evaluate the establishment of a mentoring (champion) structure to support teachers implementation of the Quality Teaching Framework (QTF) using blended learning lessons utilizing Web 2.0 tools such as Edmodo (asynchronous twitter like social collaboration tool), wikis (a asynchronous tool for content management), and BlogED (blogging tool for use in knowledge creation) to create quality social learning experiences (Communities of Practice) as an effective way to promote student engagement. This research proposal will investigate complex and inter-relational social constructs in the classroom and teacher support structures in the school.

The overview of the Research Proposal.

1) The success of teacher practices in the take up of Web 2.0 tools within the secondary classroom through a supportive Professional learning structured mentoring (Champions) program

And;

2) Then the degree of successful classroom social learning experiences with Web 2.0 tools to engage the students in learning (less off-task behaviour and deeper learning achieved by the creation of knowledge).

2. Research Context and background.

Three aspects will be researched to underpin student engagement.

• Champions/Mentoring professional learning Structure
• The leverage of social networking and personalized tools introduced by Web 2.0 tools.
• Learning is anchored in the concepts of ‘communities of practice’ & learning communities.

The report, The impact of e-learning champions on embedding e-learning, has been released by the national training system’s e-learning strategy, the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, and looks at the use of e-learning champions as a change management strategy.

The theory of e-learning champions presents systems and structures, which could be applied within a secondary school environment. The hierarchy of curriculum Head Teachers and the implementation of curriculum requirements are imperatively grounded in the effective leadership demonstrated by Head Teachers. The presence of an effective 2^nd in Charge and champion/mentor who supports the Head Teacher can be a structure that can be established to support teacher learning.

The label Web 2.0 and the emergent social software has been a ‘paradigm shift’ from the first generation of Web pages that were static, giving way to a new generation of web technologies which are essentially social & connecting (Alexander 2006).

The third consideration for this research proposal is the creation of an effective learning community with the teachers as a learning community and students in the classroom as a learning community connecting to a bigger world wide learning community. The educational shift in the emphasis from learning as a focus on the individual to learning as part of a community and the technological advancements has facilitated the emergence and rapid growth of learning communities.

The definition of teachers practices* in this research proposal & definition of student engagement*.

a) Teacher practice* for this study would be defined as lessons that contain a number of blended learning activities with the focus on Web 2.0 tools.

b) Student engagement* for this study would be defined within the Blooms Digital taxonomy. Where students indicate a level of thinking that moves from Remembering through the phases to Creation of new knowledge (Churchers 2008).

3. Literature review on the significance of Champions, Social software (Web 2.0 tools) & Communities of practice to enhance student Engagement.

“Significance of Champions”.  What underpins teacher mentoring support and teacher mentee engagement?

The champion model for organisational change explores the understanding of e-learning pedagogy and how we can embed these structures into an educational setting. Specifically, in the secondary high school setting, the model of ‘champions’ theory appears to support the ‘paradigm shift’ needed for the change from the traditional classroom setting before net books to support innovative use of Web 2.0 tools to engage students in authentic learning experiences using the net books. The Department of Education and Training has an embedded corporate mentor scheme, however this does not stretch across the entire organisation and certainly not to the classroom teacher. The Mentor/Champion model is adapted inconsistently in local contexts. Therefore the notion of researching the practical considerations of embedding a champion model into secondary state schools has significant benefits for the statewide take- up of teacher learning, classroom practice and student engagement in use of the net books to improve learning.

The key findings of the champion model for organisational change indicate (Jolly, Shaw, Bowman, McCulloch 2009) significant recommendations in the establishment of champions within the secondary context[i].

Mentoring was considered in the 2003 work by Sue Kilpatrick and Helen Bound Learning Online, Benefits and Barriers in Regional Australia, who identified that mentoring works well when timetabled, when there is large peer group involvement to keep students engaged, when both teacher and institute mentors were used and both took on different roles.

What aspects of Web 2.0 tools are appropriate for learning in the secondary school environment indicated in the research?

The use of Web 2.0 tools for youth and the way in which emerging technology is very much a part of their everyday learning has direct relevance to how we should be endeavouring to engage our students. Important lessons for the use of emerging technologies are that none of these media are static; all are in rapid and often convergent development. Young people like to choose the technology/media that suits their immediate needs and that learning is socially situated and needs to respond to new forms of ‘tribal’ community that are enabled through technologies such as net books (Peters 2005).

Seely Brown (1999) outlines the notion that Web + is a transformative learning technology, a medium that honours multiple forms of intelligence-abstract, textual, visual, musical, social and kinesthetic and a medium that leverages the small efforts of the many along with the large efforts of the few.

At the 1999 Conference on Higher Education, Seely Brown (1999) outlines the theory of creating learning ecologies, as he provocatively comments, how the world might be changing and how we might actually recast or reframe some of the classical problems in education and distance learning in new terms. He presents his learning ecology as the way to shape the chaos; we call the World Wide Web.

A dialogue created by Web 2.0 tools underpins the aspects that can engage students. Dialogue and a Conversational framework (Laurillard 2002) are imperative in the successful learning notions of WEB 2. 0 tools. Given we agree on the essentially conversational character of the teaching and learning process, we look to e-learning technologies (Web 2.0 tools) that reflect the interdependent relationships between all the aspects of the learning process. The process situates the learning as the relationship between the learner and the world, mediated by the teacher. The interactive dialogues identified as discursive, adaptive, interative and reflective are categorised as the conversational Framework that are applicable to any academic learning situation. Kolb’s ‘Learning cycle’ (Kolb, 1984) furthermore verifies that learning occurs through an interative cycle of experience followed by feedback and reflection, then this reflection is used to revise action.  It is clear to say that a core structure of conversational frameworks remains at two levels, interpersonal dialogue and the internal dialogue (within the student). Wiki’s & Blogs (Web 2.0 tools) operate on this level, often undergoing internal conversations as problems and topic focus shifts within the interpersonal dialogue and the internal dialogue. Churchers (1997) updated Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy accounts for the new behaviours, actions and learning opportunities emerging as technology advances and becomes more ubiquitous.

How will the social experiences, support the mentored teacher can be established & how do learning communities underpin this idea?

The Web + tools support the notion of social learning and points to a move away from an individualistic focus (Vygotsky’s 1978) and recognises the contribution of others to a every individual’s learning. The philosophy underpinning learning communities is most commonly attributed to Dewey (1938) and his recognition of the importance of the social nature of all human learning. A learning community can be defined as “…any group of people, whether linked by geography or some other shared interest, which addresses the learning needs of its members through proactive partnerships” (Kearns, McDonald, Candy, Knights & Papadopoulos 1999, p. 61-62).

Learning communities are not closed systems (Himmelman 1994) and they operate like evolving entities, which empower the members to increase feelings of self-determination and empowerment. Each member contributes, reciprocates and collaborates for the benefit of the community. Learning communities encourage the human networks and there is an established bind of behaviours that reflect trust and mutual understanding (Lofts 2009).

4. The Research Perspective.

It is often said in educational management; ‘ the difference between classrooms is greater than the difference between schools’.  The teacher plays a key role in the success of the classroom. This research proposal focuses on the teacher and the classroom. The measure will be reliant on the interrelationships of the teacher and the students and what teacher practices successfully underpin student engagement. The positivist perspective would fail due to its nature to generate generalized knowledge and predictive insights. The objective nature of positivism fails to problematise the subject, as research subjectivity is critical to the emergence of understanding and explanation of the social world.

The proposal has 3 aspects; mentoring by champions, aspects of web 2.0 tools for successful learning and lastly the collective synergies of learning communities. One cannot understand the complex nature of this research without focusing on the social interactions and how individuals operate in their life-worlds. The teacher plays an active part in the accumulation of knowledge and understanding to inform the research.

The context of the classroom is interdependent on the subject and is critical in the emergent understanding of the social practices that will inform our understanding of successful mentoring/championing, how web 2.0 tool embrace social learning and how the teachers, in the classroom transform the space into a learning community and where the knowledge is a collective formed from the participation of the individual in social interactive learning experiences with Web 2.0 tools.

The measure of how the teacher makes sense of the chaos using social collaboration and the sharing of teacher experience to inform the collective of teachers in the mentoring scheme will be interdependent. The emergent observations will be meaningful to the participants, not a generalised set of tick lists across a large sample of participants. Therefore the research will construct meaning that will be interpreted for the participants to move toward an understanding of  ’student engagement’, and the collection of interpretations and recommendations to inform further understanding of successful student engagement.

The research will analyse the process of mentoring, teacher take up of the blended learning lessons, the supportive attributes for successful mentoring and then the interpretation of student engagement in higher order thinking, i.e. the creation of knowledge to inform and engage students in learning.

The research will endeavour to understand the classroom as a social setting and where teaching and learning is understood as an interpreted set of meanings for teachers to inform learning and students success in moving from lower order thinking to higher order thinking skills.

The Central activity will be observation and interpretation of the research data, which will involve focus groups, interviews, video footage, surveys, questionnaires and personal reflections, including blogs, wikis and personal online reflection spaces. The researchers will be the teachers who interpret for ongoing understanding of the complexities of the classroom environment. The participants (the teachers) and researchers (the teachers) will aim to understand the particular contexts and the interrelationships with students.

The mentoring by the champions will be interdependent upon the individual social relationships and the supportive school structures that underpin the champion. The concept, ‘not one size fits all’ will apply to the individual take up of the technology and the success of teacher practice in each classroom.

The inter-determinate nature of this research will inform ongoing practice and will not be reliant upon generalised predictive insights that could be applied across an entire educational system. This research proposal is individually constructed set of subjective insights as recommendations. This research is not dependent on absolutes for application to any classroom social environment.

5. OUTLINE of the Research

a) Research Problems/questions.

• The success of teacher practices in the take up of Web 2.0 tools within the secondary classroom through a supportive Professional learning structured mentoring (Champions) program

And;

• Degree of successful classroom social learning experiences with Web 2.0 tools to engage the students in learning (less off-task behaviour and deeper learning achieved by the creation of knowledge).

b) Research Context.

Roll out of Net book computers to all Year 9 (now year 10 and Year 9) students in State schools to enhance learning. The school is a large co-ed partially selective state high school, which provides an excellent, cross sample of cultures, religious, learning abilities and socio-economic diversity. Our teaching staff also represents diversity, from newly appointed teachers, mid career and long serving staff. The leadership of implementation of the laptops has been the responsibility of senior executive, including professional learning (including emerging technologies in social networking, innovative platforms etc), hardware, program implementation etc.  We have been innovative in our professional learning, leading with champions, collaborative online spaces; we are measurably further ahead of most schools. The net books have been in the school for almost 6 months now, with our now present year 10 students, and Year 9 taking delivery week 2 term 2. Years 9 have had them for 6 weeks.

• We have established a Lighthouse school team of Champions who have established Blended-learning Lessons facilitated by web 2.0 tools. The champions are enthusiastic about the benefits of web 2.0 tools and have experience in the establishment of personal learning networks and social software /networking as a community of practice.
• Mentees have volunteered to be supported in the mentoring scheme by the champions in the school.
• The School has established a supportive instructional series of professional learning activities in the school to support the uptake of the Web 2.0 tools.
• The diagram below outlines the mentoring implementation structure process established in the school.[ii]

c) Potential participants.

A comprehensive large secondary NSW state high school. The participants will be:

• 10 curriculum areas with a Head teacher
• Teacher mentor and mentee from each KLA.
• From these 10 faculty areas, 2 participating mentee teachers and their mentors, and the volunteer teachers class will become the sample for the study.

d) Research Approach:  Ethnography

Consultations with experienced e-learning champions who have begun to trial Web 2.0 tools in their classroom. The champion would be part of recording their own journey and as ‘insider’ records their observations.  The teachers would interpret and endeavour to make sense of the supportive success or failure of mentoring to embed changing pedagogy for teachers to engage students to improve learning and demonstration of on-task behaviour through the use of collaborative web 2.0 tools in the classroom.

Modeling and mentoring would be crucial to the success to embed Web 2.0 tools into the classroom, so participants would record the processes of mentoring and record within a reflective journal.

Interesting to note that teachers have individual understandings of what constitutes ‘on task’ behaviour and the traditional view of the classroom. The nature that youth 15-19 are able to multi-task and the concept of a classroom being completely void of noise.  Such, social collaboration involves both online communication and ‘face to face’ interactions. The degree of how each teacher imbeds the blended learning sample lessons will be highly individual and open to how the teacher makes sense of this.

e) Research methods

Phase 1.

• Establishment of ‘champions’ team. ‘The lighthouse team’
• Establishment of Collaborative online Learning community. http://litehouse4skools.wikispaces.com/
• Establishment of mentoring structure.

Phase 2. Researching: and implementation of mentoring structure for classroom application

• Prior to implementation: Collect Reflective Online space outlining goals of the mentoring classroom practice. Example: Blog   http://deniselofts64.edublogs.org/
• Established Protocols of the mentoring Structure with champion and the teacher as participant and researcher.
• Teacher establishes a #1 set criteria for ‘student engagement’ based on moving through the revised Blooms Digital Taxonomy (Churches 1997).
• Mentoring of teacher by champion, including demonstration lessons, evaluation of syllabus directions, establishment of blended learning lessons in preparation to apply to the classroom.
• Instructional program on Web 2.0 tools for classroom use.  Face-to-Face and Online assistance. Example: http://pre2009.flexiblelearning.net.au/flx/go/home/projects/2007/pid/440  http://litehouse4skools.wikispaces.com/
• Establishment of “Learning community” Teacher lighthouse team.
• Before application to classroom: Collect Reflective field notes and survey of teacher & Students to establish shared concept of student engagement in line with Blooms revised Digital Taxonomy.
• Teacher implements blended learning lessons with support of mentor.
• Student work samples, video footage, qualitative survey, teacher field notes and student reflective online space.
• Video footage was analysed using an established set of criteria # 1.
• Work samples, qualitative survey results and teacher field notes, student online reflective spaces are checked for their reliability through the triangulation with the anecdotal evidence from the teacher field notes.

The mentoring scheme in the school is based around participant observation, specifically the teacher, as researcher will be the enquiry method used for this research. The teacher as researcher methodology facilitates practitioners (teachers) using their “expert knowledge and understanding of practice in their research of their practice ”  (Loughran, Mitchell, & Mitchell, 2002, p.3).

Qualitative Surveys, including reflective use of the Web 2.0 tools to serve both purposes, one as learning content, and used as a reflective tool. Blogs (web 2.0 tools) would be used to experience learning of the tools and then to use to reflect on own learning. Student surveys would be reflective tools about their own learning and what aspects of the Web 2.0 tools engaged them to improve their learning. The teacher would discuss openly with the students about the process of blended learning activities to inform student understanding of learning and engagement.

Case studies of three of the champions interviewed, which provide examples of successful e-learning champions in action from three different KLA curriculum areas.

f) Ethical considerations

The purpose of the research is to inform and support the participants (teachers) in new ways to engage students through a supportive mentoring program utilising Web 2.0 tools in the classroom and support the teachers’ endeavours to create a learning community with other staff and within the classroom. The purpose is to have happy engaged students with happy engaged teachers to improve learning outcomes and overall learning success toward greater levels of higher order thinking.

The teachers alongside their mentors would be the ones who would conduct the observations, the interviews and conduct the video recordings. As a learning community the teacher would share and discuss confidentially with the mentor the success or failures of the imbedding of Web 2.0 tools into lessons to improve student engagement.

A collective set of mentoring protocols would be established to ensure participant confidentiality and privacy. The support and ongoing school structure would need to successfully underpin the support of the teacher. Video footage would be used as an instructional devise to create conversations and recommendations for improvement, footage to be analysed as a support tool, used to interpret individually with the mentor and mentee. This research is about the participants’ response to mentoring by a champion to engage students, not to scrutinise teaching practice.

Bibliography

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[i] Champion model for organisational change indicate (Jolly, Shaw, Bowman, McCulloch 2009);

• As a strategy for embedding elearning, champions have been widely used.
• To have credibility, champions require certain characteristics
• Champions employ a common set of activities and guidelines
• E-learning champions are having a significant impact on teacher/trainer capability and in the application of e learning in vocational education and training delivery.
• Champions alone cannot embed e-learning in their organisation, industry or community
• To sustain e-learning, managers and policy makers must assist by building organisational cultures and work processes that support innovation, the work of champions and their e-learning adopters.
• E-learning champions are often better known for their work outside their organisation than within it.

[ii] Mentoring Model RBSC

I am at UNSW listening to  a presentation (and endeavouring to record),  by Dr. Max Smith.   Max is the Senior Manager, NSW Department of Education.

Data is to inform professional practice and is continuous cycle of improvement.

One could believe we are going to take a “positivist” view of the data. We are now viewing the data and research of Hattie 2003. The heading ‘explained Variance in Achievement Outcomes’  and the data  50% teachers, and 30 % teachers with the other factors playing 5 – 10 % data difference. However, one needs to understand it is how we come to understand the data and how we interpret this data to  inform our actions.   This is  explained  as variance and how this impacts onto achieved outcomes.

Max references Michael Barber (2003) who examined the changing professional relationships of our teaching professional and how we now have moved from the 1970′s  Uniformed Professional judgement to 2000′s informed professional judgement. Therefore Data is definitely a tool to professional practice and a tool to analyse the issues & problems in a school  to make improvement.

Session one, part two: Using SMART data Gerry McCloughan- Regional Assistant Director

Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate (EMSAD). NSW Department of Education and Training.

(Discussed the idea of analysing, using and interpreting the data was highlighted).

Journey through the context of SMART today.

Firstly, we are viewing the State Policy, umm  is on the DET portal and the idea of a Tri Level approach. This is a way in which schools can create and move ‘School Planning’. Gerry has just said the key word. We must understand the school CONTEXT and this is critical.

Mandatory elements.

• school context
• Priority areas
• Intended outcomes
• Targets
• Indicators
• Strategies
• Responsibility
• Time Frame
• Resource allocation and funding source

School planning is a brief document that focuses on the priority areas. What is needed is a ROBUST evaluation as the priority areas, do not vary and consistent set of targets. Schools, need to continue the implementation of priority areas over a period of time. Change does not happen, within a year, it takes time. After a year, may not indicate change, but happens over a number of years with a focus on the priorities set in the School Plan.

A school plan has 6 priority areas: Which are tri-level.  State Plan>Regional Plan> School Plan

• Literacy
• Numeracy
• Student Engagement & retention
• Aboriginal Education and Training
• Teacher Quality
• Connected Learning

Realistic goals within a schools isolated context. The school set targets and priority areas. Local ownership and for schools to organise their priorities, and the ‘guess what’ of this means that the State sets the targets. The targets are set as projectury by the State Body. If we are to criticise this, it is a emprical view of “reality”. Supposedly, NAPLAN, is the measure, for our reality, in which we can guide our priority areas.

OK It is about Literacy and Numeracy for this part of the presentation.

Gerry is introducing the overview of Smart Targets:  Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic & Time-related. And has tabled a

‘target model’ (for learning performance).

The example :

Target 1. Improved student performance in XXX as measured by:

> a mean-related measure

> a skill band-related measure

> a growth-related measure; and

> some school-based assessment measure.

State of the art Assessment and reporting.

“Interesting; lets think about the data; the school most like yours, is your school last year”

Ultimately, most of what we do in school education – including our efforts to improve administrative structures and the quality of the teaching – learning environment – can be judged in terms of their implications for enhanced.

Professor Geoff Masters, ACER (1994).

Designing and Using Surveys. Well now we have everyones attention because attitudinal information, teachers relate!

Survey research.

Surveys use self-report measurement techniques to question people about themselves- their attitudes, behaviour, personal attributes and demographics (age, income, race, marital status, and so on.)

Types of Surveys:

Teacher Locus of Control (DET Portal on school Measurement).

Behavioural  checklist : attentive-Inattentive Items RBRI.    Rowe and Rowe (1997)

“Measure what you value and  come to value whatever is measurable”.

A change in purpose.

• A deliberately structures questionnaire can lead respondents (particularly students) through a sequence of ideas or propositions they may not have fully considered.
• It forces them at least to consider the new propositions.
• the aim of the questionaire is to change the respondent’s views or practice.

One survey tool is the Hermes Survey Kiosk with feed to other sites.For example Survey Monkey.

So we now have Moved to Analysing teaching and learning.

Now we are moving to a the area that makes the difference.

Ladwig, J, 2005 Monitoring the quality of Pedagogy. Leading and Managing, 2(11)

We need a reality check.

Does the pedagogy in your school match the model?

Need a pedagogy audit.

• Direct  observation of classroom practice
• Analysing student artifacts (written or constructed)
• reviewing curriculum outlines (lesson or unit plans).

The Quality Teaching Lens

• What do we want from teaching and assessment?

1. are student learning outcomes improving?
2. which student learning outcomes are central?

• What?
• Who?
• When?
• For how long?

Need for significant distinctions, translated into practical insights for improving pedagogy

…

QT model provides a defensible framework.

‘Data do not speak for themselves but through the medium of the analytical techniques applied to them’.

Pedhazur.E.J, Multiple Regression in Behavioural reserch: Explanation and prediction, 2nd Edition, New York CBS College Publishing.

Looking at the data.

Influences on student learning, reading reference  to John Hattie; 2003 & 2005.

Conjoint Analysis

Scatterplots; HSC scattergraph

Making judgements if you are above or below the average.

A research proposal which I am toying with is  ”student engagment” through the implementation of a teacher mentoring project. The ideas for this are underpinned by the champion model.

The report, The impact of e-learning champions on embedding e-learning, has been released by the national training system’s e-learning strategy, the Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework), and looks at the use of e-learning champions as a change management strategy.     http://deniselofts64.edublogs.org/champions/

Interestingly, this presents issues within a secondary school environment. The hierarchy of curriculum HTs and the implementation of curriculum requirements is imperatively grounded in the effective leadership demonstrated by HTs. And often the presence of an effective 2 IC who supports the Head Teacher. We all know the story of the ‘Leadership and the dancing man’, http://vodpod.com/watch/3036649-leadership-lessons-from-dancing-guy?c=lofts1964&u=lofts1964 it is not necessarily the leader that makes the movement happen, but the second and third who follow the leader to start the movement. This has never been so true in a secondary school context.

The uptake of ‘Edmodo’ is the story in action. It is not the first one who introduces the idea, it is how that then is taken up by the followers.

This for example.

The uptake of edmodo at RBSC has been like a rolling snowball. Initially, I introduced to our (then Year 9 in September last year) gifted selective students as a way for me to communicate to them on a project we were doing “beyond the swell”, they then went onto present to staff at a staff meeting (yes blew our staff away). However, but implementation was slow.
The HSIE faculty, took up the challenge, which was led initially by a leading learner as a easy to access tool for kids to use & easy for teachers. The HT then mandated in year 10 that all work was electronic, no more books and that teachers would communicate all work, marking, sheets etc through edmodo.
The pivot point is HTS as leaders of their faculty. With a supporter as the ‘I  will give that a go’.
The take up was slow, however just recently we have had a real rush on. I have once again re-introduced to HTs at exec. And endeavoured them to lead their faculties. We are now on a real growing snowball.
I realise why.
1.It is easy & fun!
2.It is unblocked by DET
3.In our school, there is support in each faculty who have been using Edmodo with great success.
4. Staff who were reluctant, almost have got no choice, but to get on board, as HTs have begun to use with curriculum delivery and almost as a mandatory tool for collaboration in their faculty.
And your tips are great. I shall add to our wiki!
http://litehouse4skools.wikispaces.com/12.Eating+edmodo

This story has made me realise the slow uptake of the PLN and even the use of READERS for RSS feeds, bookmarking, blogging and naturally twitter. We are minus, a real advocate, or the follower to stand up and start dancing about the benefits of having a PLN.

This is where I see schools needing to implement ‘Mentoring/Menteeing’ programs for both HTs and teachers. HTs are the pivot to change.

Therefore I am proposing to ‘research student engagement’ underpinned by supported mentoring programs. Some may say that, yeh yeh we know that is done and has been done. Informally, it happens in educational institutions all over the world. Naturally, we are microscopic  learning communities. However, should it be mandated as a way to support learning change for the Chasm we all need to jump to turn our classrooms to completely different paradigm.

How do we make the ‘paradigm shift’ toward ‘student engagement’ for whole school change. We need a deliberate, whole school, whole DET mentoring programs. At the moment Mentoring is lipservice to support professional learning for teachers.

http://litehouse4skools.wikispaces.com/

As schools we need to focus on our teachers and give them the support they need.

http://vodpod.com/watch/3578037-what-great-principals-do-differently-?u=lofts1964&c=lofts1964

We are very interested in ’student engagement’ through leading quality learning environments led by learners ( teachers ) using mentoring protocols.
Problematic; How successful has the ’skill up’ for teachers as learners to create quality learning environments using technology been effective or is the chasm or paradigm shift too immense. I will be frank, and will not guild the lilly, so to speak. The DET has been clever in the selection of Year 9, as these are often the years of ‘disengagment’ of students. However, the greatest aspect of any classroom is the facilitation of learning ( ie The teacher).
Context: Roll out of Netbook computers to all Year 9 ( now year 10 and Year 9) students in State schools to enhance learning. My school is a large co-ed partially selective state high school which provides an excellent cross sample of cultures, religious, learning abilities and socio-economic diversity. Our teaching staff also represents diversity, from newly appointed teachers, mid career and long serving staff. The leadership of implementation of the laptops has been my school leadership responsibility, including professional learning (including emerging technologies in social networking, innovative platforms etc), hardware, program implementation etc. We have been innovative in our professional learning, leading with champions, collaborative online spaces, we are measurably further ahead of most schools. The netbooks have been in the school for almost 3 months now, with our now present year 10 students, we expect 2010 Year 9 delivery week 2 term 2. Mid April, the data reveals some interesting insights.
1) Survey of teachers, indicates, if they ( the students) have a computer in front of them, then they are ‘engaged’. A concerning observation. Is it just the hardware? ummm.
2) Survey of students, indicates they are not (generally) doing anything different in their learning and generally has not changed, activities such as copying from the blackboard, individual work, watching videos etc. There are spikes in some classrooms where, the ‘mavericks’ are using collaborative tools web 2.0 & 3.0 such as Edmodo, wikis, blogs etc. DET have launched blogEd. So we have these tools at our disposal.
I am very interested in getting to the bottom of what is really happening, not lipservice, in our classrooms, and if engagement is happening, Why? and what do we do to get all our teachers through that Paradigm shift of ‘what our classrooms’ are really going to look like, and what mentoring/support structures do we need to provide for our teachers. I keep telling my staff, we teach from the back of the room, a hard concept for ‘control freak’ teachers who rely on ‘photocopied workbooks’ and ‘busywork’.
Your ideas are much appreciated.
Do I focus on the teachers (I am presently introducing a mentoring project focussing on elements of the Quality teaching framework), or do I focus on the students for the answers of what they want good learning to look like.
I am all ears!
As a added perspective.
Laptops have sat in Private schools for a long time and when you take into consideration socio-economics etc of ‘like schools’ the difference of achievement in statewide testing to their state counterparts is negiable. Therefore it is not about the hardware, as some are to believe. It is about the pedagogy. Many leaders in schools already understand that fact, so, what is it going to take to make that paradigm shift in classrooms. Thank goodness we have these tools in state schools to really push NSW students ahead. On a huge scale we are forced to stop and analyse, the impact and the projection forward for the learning and education of NSW students.
Students, Teachers and Parents.
SurveySummary_03072010.pdf

The research perspective:  Revealing the research paradigm. This blog is solely dedicated to researching, reading and recording my journey in my 5th subject of Masters of Education: Research perspectives.