The Ever Changing Role in Digital Leadership (Kotter Model unpacked)

26 March, 2018 By Rick Noack 2 Comments

The Ever Changing Role in Digital Leadership cont’d

This blog continues on from the Overview – https://www.iwb.net.au/the-ever-changing-role-in-digital-leadership/

Create – sense of urgency The Digital World surrounds us all and as our students enter our sites they have already been exposed to a vast array of digital tools. The students come to school with this background swell of digital access and in some instances are forced to leave the digital tools behind as they begin their educational learning journey. It is with this dilemma that I “Create the sense of Urgency” for staff at my site. I provide my staff with short current articles which support the movement of Digital Tools to enhance student learning and teacher pedagogy. This simple approach allows staff to see that the way in which we have taught in the past must change to support the students of now.
Build – a guiding coalition With the realisation that the digital world is within our reach and that our students are at risk of ‘missing out’ a select few staff began to seize the moment and begin to question the changes needed in teacher pedagogy to employ digital tools to enhance the learning outcomes for all, including themselves as educators. This is the group I turned my focus to. We began with small group meetings (2-3) staff to share early thoughts and potential possibilities using digital tools in their classrooms. The group was able to pose important questions in a non-judgemental environment where no one had the answers but instead posed more questions. This group was provided time to explore possible solutions, investigate possible site directions and implications, dabble in their classrooms and enlist the most resource at their disposal – their students! This group was my guiding coalition! This was the first group of teachers to attend the IWB Leading a Digital School with me and not just my leadership team!
Form – a strategic vision So we have the urgency created, a guiding coalition but that was not enough to lead the digital ‘revolution’ at my site. The energies were high and new found learning being trialled, but what for, where was this going to head, what were the intentions, and how will we know we were making a difference for our students? This was the defining moment for me as a leader in my site. Through the careful planning and ‘planting of seeds’ the digital leadership had begun to sprout. It was clear that a purpose and vision had to be defined and had to be embraced by those willing to guide the digital change required. Through the small group meetings, I was able to support the group to identify what a digital school would look like, sound like and feel like. At this point, it was time to dream big and set a vision for our site. We broke the vision down into 3 parts; our 10-year vision, 5-year vision, 1-year vision! From this point the group had defined the strategic vision for our site, no bars hold!
Enlist – a volunteer army This is the time, as the leader, to engage with the staff who are willing to ‘have a go’, be the risk takers. The guiding coalition formed the initial wave of change agents with a few extra staff who had now been enticed into the, as stated by them, “the digital secrecy group!!!” As the leader I sat alongside each staff member learning, exploring, creating and developing an understanding with them and their students but always providing the guiding questions of “How will this improve student learning outcomes?” and “What are the implications for improving teacher pedagogical practice with digital tools?” This was the exciting time within our digital ‘revolution’ as staff and students flourished, failed, tried, created, explored, designed, embraced, even discarded digital technologies. This was the wheel beginning to turn and many more passengers began to climb on board and explore the digital train!
Enable – action by removing barriers With the staff and students actively embracing the new digital change, as the leader, it was key to remove any barriers in order for staff to truly see that the change was possible. School budgets were scrutinised to open up funding for the exploration and creativity to increase digital tool access to staff and students. Control over app installation, filtering, software settings and installation all handed over to the teachers. No longer did my staff need to wait for the IT guy to install a program, unblock a website or online program. My leadership in this supported staff to understand that there was nothing to break and that all would be good because we had a backup copy!!!! Not only enabling the staff and students to be the thoughtful risk takers but providing time for staff to meet with one another and explore, share and dialogue the effect the digital tools were having on their teaching practice and student learning outcomes gave rise to the second wave of wannabes!
Generate – short term wins Any good digital leader knows that short term gains support the continued growth towards the big audacious goals. It is this momentum and recognition which unleashed the fire in many of the staff at my site. Sending my staff to the Leading a Digital School Conferences over many years has supported staff to come to the realisation that their dabbling, experimenting and implementing digital technologies within their pedagogy provide their students with a deeply enhanced curriculum. Staff were encouraged to celebrate their successes with their peers, share their achievements and presented their best pedagogical practises which had embedded digital ICTs.
Sustain – acceleration As the digital leader of my site and through the empowerment and ownership of staff, digital technologies & pedagogies became embedded within our site improvement plan, leading to whole staff engagement with digital tools specifically tailored to the individual needs of each staff member. Staff planned and ran their own professional learning sessions and included targeted pedagogical practice sharing where digital technologies had enhanced student learning. The focus questions now became how do you use digital technologies and how does it enhance the learning for all your students? This continued to create excitement and commitment from all staff to embrace digital technologies within their classroom programs in order to challenge and engage students in a rich and meaningful global curriculum.
Institute – change From the initial spark grew the ever burning flame increasing in intensity over time. The digital change had arrived and as the Digital Leader at my site, it was important for the focus of digital tools and technology to be embedded within all aspects of our school and community where it is seen as part of the culture of the site and an expectation that the students are globally connected learners. This remains the paramount focus in digital leadership to further enhance student learning outcomes in a global digital world at my site. This supports the drive to maintain the effective change cycle.

John Kotter Model, 8 Steps to Accelerate Change

Given that this is one of many change models, as a leader of a digital school, this model provides a useful holistic approach to moving forward with digital leadership and digital technologies at any point within your own site’s journey. For me, the digital school leadership story begins once again as I embark on a change journey in a new site where the dinosaurs still roam! So join me at the Leading a Digital School Conference on the Sunshine Coast where I will present my journeys both past and present in my workshop……OMG I’m Back in the Dark Ages. Again!!

Bringing it all together: Literacy, ICTs and the 21st Century Skills

22 March, 2018 By Stephen Pinel Leave a Comment

Literacy, 21st Century Skills, ICTs and a Common Pedagogical Framework. These four seem to be flavours of the month in many schools, including mine. What’s not so evident is how schools blend all of these disparate strategies together into one framework. Too often our lived experience is that the PD delivered for each of these strategies is delivered separately, in a piece-meal approach, and in ways that can contradict each other.

In this article, I’d like to share a framework that integrates these four important strategies, so that units of work can be prepared that take students from learning basic skills directly from teacher modelling, right through to the collaborative application of these skills against real-world, authentic problems.

I’m going to assume that people reading this article are across strategies for teaching literacies, and are onboard with the use of ICTs in education, so I’ll start by looking at the 21st Century Skills briefly, and a more detailed look at a pedagogical framework called The Gradual Release of Responsibility. Note that Literacy and ICT skills are already explicitly identified in the 21^st Century Skill Set that I have used for the purposes of this article.

ICTs and 21st Century Skills

The 21st Century Skills have been hashed over by quite a few different groups over the last 20 or so years. Fundamentally, the 21st Century Skills are those that employers and the community in general see as valuable for people to contribute economically and socially, as leaders or as active participants, and as entrepreneurs in our society. I’m going to be using the 21^st Century Skill Set as defined in the 21CLD Rubrics, written by the ITL Research Group, funded by Microsoft philanthropic organisation Partners in Learning Network. Their list of the six 21st Century Skills are Collaboration, Knowledge Construction, Self Regulation, Real World Problem Solving & Innovation, The Use of ICT for Learning and Skilled Communication. I like their definition of the Skill Set because they also provide specific examples, and describe what we will see students doing at different levels as they develop. As an example, Collaboration is defined as:

Collaboration: Students work together when the activity requires them to work in pairs or groups to:

discuss an issue
solve a problem
create a product

Table 1: Examples of collaboration

Bringing it all together

Pairs of students give each other feedback. Students do their work alone. A small group discuss issues together. A whole class discussion on an issue. A student uses Skype to interview a student in another school or town Students use OneNote to share their story drafts and give each other feedback. Each student creates his/her own story and sends it to the educator for feedback.

A rubric for measuring the level of Collaboration in an activity

IS THIS WORKING TOGETHER?

In this learning activity:

Students are NOT required to work together in pairs or groups.
Students DO work together
BUT they DO NOT have shared responsibility.
Students DO have shared responsibility
BUT they ARE NOT required to make substantive decisions together.
Students DO have shared responsibility
AND they DO make substantive decisions together about the content, process, or product of their work
BUT their work is not interdependent.
Students DO have shared responsibility
AND they DO make substantive decisions together about the content, process, or product of their work
AND their work is interdependent.

The Rubric also assists teachers in identifying how their unit can be improved in each particular dimension.

The Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) Pedagogical Framework

GRR is a structured pedagogical framework that, as the name suggests, gradually moves the responsibility for learning from the teacher to the student. There are four distinct phases in GRR.

Focused Lesson: the skill or process to be taught is explicitly modelled by the teacher, with students passively observing.
Guided Instruction: students attempt the skill or process modelled in the first stage, one step at a time, with teacher support or guidance, rather than modelling.

The first two phases are generally the easy part of GRR for teachers because they control the classroom activity entirely, and students do not need to be highly engaged for success. It is enough that students are motivated by the desire to avoid negative consequences (detention, parental contact etc) for them to succeed at learning activities at this stage, if the activity is within their capacity. Strategies such as Learning Intentions and Success Criteria will not generally be helpful for students as they are simply mimicking what their teacher is showing them. Philip Schlechty describes this level of engagement as Ritual Compliance (see A Spectrum of Engagement).

Collaborative Learning: students continue to improve their skills at their own pace, but work collaboratively with their peers rather than the teacher.

In this phase, teachers start to let go of control of classroom activity and set differentiated goals and tasks for their students. Working collaboratively is a key element of this phase. This is not something that students do well at naturally, and so teaching students how to work together, to achieve common goals becomes an important role for the teacher. Phase 3 requires students to be more engaged in their work, as they are under less direct teacher supervision. As students start to take ownership of their own learning, Learning Intentions and Success Criteria also start to become important elements of teaching at this phase. Flipping can be a useful technique in this phase, to allow more classroom time for collaboration and peer coaching. Philip Schlechty describes the level of engagement required for success in this phase as Strategic Compliance.

Independent Tasks: students apply their learning in new situations.

Phase four is the point in learning where we invite students to apply their knowledge and skills in new situations that are authentic and involve real-world problem-solving. It is in this phase that students have the first real opportunity to choose an application for their new skills that are of personal interest to themselves, with guidance or advice from their teacher.For success in this phase, students need to show the full characteristics of Engagement as described by Schlechty, that is, both high commitment and high attention to the task at hand. Students must be intrinsically motivated, and so it is important that the teacher does not arbitrarily assign a task, but involves the students in identifying a task to work towards that is seen to be authentic for the students. That is, Learning Intentions and Success Criteria must be co-constructed. PBL (problem based learning, or project based learning) can be a good a teaching technique that meets these requirements.

Integration of GRR with 21st Century Skills

In an initial attempt to integrate GRR with 21st Century Skills, Table 1 shows a mapping between specific activities related to each 21st Century Skill and the GRR phase in which that activity should be observed.

Bringing it all together

In the 21CLD document, innovation is defined as putting students’ ideas or solutions into practice in the real world.
The authenticity of a product/problem can only be decided by the audience or client, in this case, our students. This reinforces the idea that students must be involved in planning which problems to solve, as they student themselves must see the problem as authentic, not just the teacher.
Accessing Learning Intentions and Success Criteria is defined as these being both available to students, and actively being used by students. Simply having them available for students is not enough to say they are being accessed by students.

Table 1: Student activities evident at different phases of the GRR model of pedagogy, mapped against 21st Century Learning Design

A spectrum of Engagement – Phillip Schlechty

Bringing it all together

My name is Stephen Pinel, Head of Science at Unity College, Sunshine Coast and I will presenting a session and workshop around Whole School Engagement at the Leading a Digital School Conference, August 2018 – see the program for more details – www.iwb.net.au/digital/program

Using social media for assessments

20 March, 2018 By Matt Lambert Leave a Comment

I sat in a taxi in Sydney last year, on my way to indulge in another large helping of steamed dumplings in my quest to try all of the top 8 dumpling restaurants Sydney has to offer. (as voted by website Concrete Playground). The taxi driver was a middle aged gentleman of Greek origin. I asked him about his opinion of Uber. Did he hate them? Had business slowed since their inclusion into the market? etc. He told me to open his glove box. To my surprise, within the glovebox was his Uber identification tag. He had a foot in each camp! He had accepted that Uber was here to stay and slumping in his seat and complaining about it wasn’t going to get his bills paid. To cut a long story short the main learning I took away from this interaction is that we can choose to take one of two options. Embrace the trends or fight the trends.

This train of thought is something I have always sort of followed but never really embraced. The taxi driver had inspired me to not only embrace the trends but to accelerate them. Make them my own and use them to my advantage in an educational setting. Things like the bottle flip, dabbing, fidget spinners, memes etc. have been banned in some schools, whereas I see them as an opportunity to teach projectile motion, angles of a triangle, reflection or a relevant way to bring up and discuss social inequity, assumptions and bias.

An example of an educator who is not embracing trends. (used with permission from Mr. Jones online from Teachers pay teachers)

This is where social media comes in. Do we embrace it, or do we fight it?

For me it is a no brainer. After meeting this motivational taxi/ Uber driver I set myself the goal to use Social media as a means for assessment, both in a formative and summative manner.

These are some of the success stories.

Formative assessment:

This was an important one for allowing me to check the students understanding of the content. It was an excellent way to transition the move from the ‘individual’ to the ‘group’ space of the flipped classroom.

I instructed the students to use Snapchat for this. I asked them to summarise or take key points from a video, complete a two truths one lie, do a three level reading guide on a text or any sort of activity where they needed to think about and exhibit an understanding of the content. Once they had created a video using Snapchat they were to save it to their camera roll and then post it onto our class Facebook page. The buy in from students was excellent. Feedback from the class showed that they didn’t mind putting themselves out there for others to see when there was a fun element to it, when they could use a filter to disguise their faces and their voices, and when they could quickly check any notifications they had.

Some examples of students who have used Snapchat filters to record their responses. (used with permission from the students)

Facebook obviously allows you to post videos and other content to your classroom group. I will often put up a video or a link to an article and ask the students to leave a comment which shows their understanding. This allows the students to learn off each other, especially if you have the students in some sort of ability grouping. Students who are lower ability might only need to make a literal statement directly from the text or video whereas someone of a higher ability may be asked to write a comment from a much more critical lens. Going ‘live’ and the new ‘watch party’ feature on Facebook have opened up other avenues of viewing content as a class and could prove to be very useful in the future. Colleagues of mine have set up a Facebook chat for homework where students have had to meet online at a certain time and talk about a specific topic. Although this was optional, it had excellent buy in from the students and some valuable learning came from it.

Summative assessment:

Many sportsmen and sportswomen are setting up “athlete” Facebook pages. Even people who have only been going to the gym for a week or two are setting up fitness based Instagram and Facebook pages too.

This made me think about how I could use the same format for my students. Being a PE teacher who is teaching contextualised courses which are based around improving a students own ability in a sport, it was easy to follow the “athlete” page model. Students had to create a profile, using their school email address as their login. They could make it a page or group depending on whether or not they wanted to keep it private. They could also choose not to make it public or not to publish it at all. This worked particularly well for an assessment where the students had to reflect on their participation in an activity and discuss the factors involved. Typically they would have done this in a diary type format but Facebook allowed them to post their response immediately and also gave them the option of adding in video and photos as evidence. I have seen the same standards being assessed in a similar way on Instagram. Any sort of assessment that requires a portfolio of evidence could be used here.

An example of a post from a students “athlete” page. It is a reflection of their use of interpersonal skills throughout a lesson.

Some of my colleagues from the English department followed suit and allowed their students to set up a Facebook page on which they critiqued the books they were reading and completed reading responses.

I have also seen public pages created by students which contain information about a set topic. The page itself is the assessment and the student needs to have a certain number of resources, posts etc. Making a page designed to create change in a community is a possibility for a number of Health based topics.

These are just a couple of ways that you can use social media to enhance your classroom practice. At the end of the day student buy in is a very important part of being successful on a day to day basis. Using tools, techniques and technology that students are familiar and comfortable with can be a big positive. When a new trend comes along think about how you might be able to use it to your advantage, don’t be scared of it. Go with the trends and don’t concern yourself with what cannot be controlled. Embrace the trends and make them your own!

Creating powerful learning in mathematics

20 March, 2018 By Lora Bance Leave a Comment

T Rex Meets R2D2 – using research and digital technology to create change in mathematics and STEM

Lora Bance – Catholic Education Canberra Goulburn Archdiocese

Keith Roberts – Principal, Channel Christian School Tasmania

Mathematics is an essential building block of STEM literacy. To support student participation and develop positive mathematics identity the three aspects of learning in mathematics outlined below: exploring problems together, visualizing thinking and using spatial reasoning, can be enhanced by harnessing the affordances of technology in the classroom. The enduring outcome of STEM education is the students’ ability to discover, create and use foundational knowledge in STEM in real-life. Quality teaching and learning experiences in STEM education are founded in meaningful real-world challenges, informed by a global perspective, and integrated within community and culture.

Mathematics should be learnt through experiences in solving sufficiently challenging problems, use hands-on learning strategies for exploring, and opportunity to share thinking. When designing and delivering lessons in mathematics it is important to give students opportunity to explore problems to demonstrate multiplicity of ideas. Exploring involves discussion, but too often the social aspect of mathematics is lost in a myriad of worksheets and questions to be completed in a limited time. Instead, to develop STEM literacy students should participate in investigations that are discussed together, in order to strengthen ideas. For this to happen students need to experience mathematics in groups, and mathematics through problem-solving. STEM involves rigorous understanding along with collaboration to reach that understanding, being a problem solver is hard fun and involves working with a community of learners (Pound & Lee, 2015).

Students need flexible thinking if they are to be good problem solvers. To increase a student’s capability to explore challenging problems they should be able to provide visual proof of their thinking through ideas of ‘Make, Say, Do, Write’ including drawing, modelling, and explaining (Boaler, 2015). Participating in problem-solving and improving mathematical thinking is more than manipulating abstract symbols systems, it requires sensory-motor action using patterning, abstracting, modelling and play in multimodal settings to support deep understanding (Mishra, 2012). By exploring visual components of mathematics, explaining processes and reasoning, students develop understanding from another point of view, developing empathy for how people see mathematical problems and increase curiosity – a key STEM practice.

Spatial reasoning improves the ability to visualize solutions and is a key contributor to STEM literacy as it is concerned with understanding and working within the physical world (Lowrie, Downes, & Leonard, 2017, p. 27). Using mental transformations, decomposing a pattern into component parts, using scale, estimations, mental imagery, comparison and sequencing are a few examples of elements of spatial reasoning that support student learning. The more opportunities that students have to show their thinking, to work in sense-making activities and discussion, the stronger their mathematical thinking, which supports problem-solving in STEM education.

Digital technologies can play many roles in supporting student participation in STEM education including games for exploring problems and understand thinking, and digital tools for sharing and explaining thinking.

Harnessing the requirement for students to undertake challenging mathematics problems, it is important to select games that are not based on drill and speed, instead select activities that give opportunity to fail fast, for repeated effort, to reconsider problems and collaborative effort. Mathematics is not a lower order thinking task and memorization is less useful when problems become more difficult. Instead, innovative learning with technology uses higher-order thinking. Digital tools that allow for thinking give student’s opportunity to ponder without asking for help, without an expectation to finish a number of math problems in a short period time, where failure is not about failing to get stuff done, but not yet finding a way to understand the problem being presented, while applying the capability to persist using different possibilities. To develop persistence and reflection use tools that help students visualize their thinking, live drawing, video capable and utilizes feedback.

References

Boaler, J. (2015). Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students’ Potential Through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching. United States: John Wiley & Sons.

Lowrie, T., Downes, N., & Leonard, S. (2017). STEM education for all young Australians: A Bright Spots Learning Hub Foundation Paper, for SVA, in partnership with Samsung. University of Canberra STEM Education Research Centre.

Mishra, P. (2012). Rethinking Technology & Creativity in the 21st Century: Crayons are the Future. TechTrends, 13-16. doi:10.1007/s11528-012-0594-0

Pound, L., & Lee, T. (2015). Motivating Children – Problem finding and problem-solving. In L. Pound, & T. Lee, Teaching Maths Creatively (pp. 28-44). London: Taylor and Francis.

Perks of a Flipped Primary Classroom

16 March, 2018 By Matthew Burns Leave a Comment

“Perks of a Flipped Primary Classroom – You can do it too!”

Written by Matt Burns

There are some teachers who think that the flipped classroom is just for high school. I don’t agree. In a sense – it all depends how you define ‘The Flipped Classroom’.

If your definition of the Flipped Classroom is this: ‘a classroom in which all the instructional content is viewed at that home, and in which the homework is done in class’, then yes, I would agree with you. The Flipped Classroom is probably not for primary schools.

But I do not think that is an accurate definition of the Flipped Classroom. I prefer Aaron Sam’s definition (a leader in this movement) first posted on his blog in 2011.

When you read anything about The Flipped Classroom mentally substitute:

“a class that uses screencasts as an instructional tool” for “the Flipped Classroom” and all will be well.”

I hope that opens a few doors for you. All we are really talking about today is the concept of using screencasts, or ‘learning videos’ in order to help your students learn (in or out of the classroom).

I have been doing this for five years in my primary classroom. And I have seen the results. My classroom is transformed. It is transformed for the better. The students learning has improved, and they prefer it. I’ve got more time to work one-on-one with particular groups or individuals. Furthermore – I am able to differentiate the curriculum to a degree which I was not able to previously.

I suggest it’s all down to personal devices being more available to individuals, and the latent growth of Wi-Fi we have seen in classrooms, and a little creative-thinking. That’s it. In a nutshell, there are new technologies available that can dramatically (for the better) change how we as teachers teach. It’s not rocket science.

How can you do it? Make some screencasts or learning videos that you think you can use in your classroom (students tend to prefer your own). The videos do not need to be Hollywood productions. They just need to be. Here is a pretty basic example of a very low – tech video that I put together recently, that my students found very helpful.

You can incorporate screencasts into the students learning in any way that works for you – and the students. Perhaps you can have them watch the lessons at home? (This doesn’t really work for me. Though…it might for you.)

Perhaps you could put them into small groups and have different groups engaged in different lessons pertinent to their specific needs? (I tend to do this a bit.) A regular practice for me is to perform a pre-test with the students (before the final summative assessment). In this way I very quickly, in an ad hoc manner – gather some information with the students about what they are specifically struggling on. After this, students access topic specific screencast that the pre-test has revealed they need some help with. The screen casts contain brief lessons and activities within. I am then able to then wander around the classroom helping individual students as they need, whilst really, the entire class is receiving multiple different lessons pertaining to their specific needs.

Another classic example is the weekly spelling test. Are you still reading out one list for all the students to write down? Are you still waiting for the slowest speller to move at the pace of the class? You don’t need to do it this way. You could record the spelling list on You-Tube and students could access it, at their own speed on separate devices.

Yesterday I had six girls away at the soccer competition. It was four days before the highly important yearly standardized (NAPLAN) testing we complete across Australia in Year 5. They missed a very important writing lesson. The lesson itself was broken up into separate parts and took about one and a half hours. The lesson was not all lecture. There was plenty of ‘listen and do’ in the lesson. I made a very basic recording of the entire lesson in 15 minute segments, as I taught it. I just used my ordinary old iPhone to record and the ‘old-school’ whiteboard (not electronic).

All the girls came in the next day, put on their headphones, accessed their devices, turned on the lesson, and caught up to the rest of the class. Here’s one small part of the lesson. Please notice how basic it is! 🙂 It didn’t have to great. It just had to be available. (So pleased with the ‘still-image’ YouTube has captured.)

I asked the girls did they feel part of the lesson? They said yes. Subsequently, I saw the girls’ writing. It was more than adequate. They were prepared for the exam. Of course, students will need devices. They will also need headphones. This you will have to sort.Technology is changing. And so should teaching. Some people think that students can’t learn from devices. That’s simply not true. Of course they can. At this point, what student can’t do with devices is debate, collaborate and empathise with. Devices will not be able to facilitate the lesson. Students still need each other, and you.

But the days of standing out the front delivering one lecture to the class, in one place, at one time, at one pace?

I think, given the Wi-Fi access that we have today and the devices available to many students, those days are probably coming to a close.

Matt Burns is the Stage 3 Coordinator and Tech Integrator at William Carey Christian School, Sydney, Australia.

Previously he was the Flipped Classroom Coach K-12 at Inaburra School, Sydney, Australia.

Matt will be leading a Cohort workshop at the International Flipped Learning Conference, RESCON being held at Griffith University on 18 & 19 October 2019 called Flipping the K-6 Classroom. Take a look at the program @ https://www.resconanz.com/

Matt’s Blog – http://flippingmyprimaryclassroom.blogspot.com.au/