Download putting it all together: what successful educational leaders do

WHAT FORMS OF LEADERSHIP,
LEADERSHIP STRUCTURES AND
LEADERSHIP LEARNING ARE
REQUIRED FOR ENABLING
TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS?
National leadership Learning Network
Adelaide 27th August 2008
Professor Stephen Dinham
Research Director – Teaching, Learning and Leadership
ACER
Clarifying Our Challenge as Leaders
of School Leadership Learning
1. What influences student achievement?
2. How do people learn?
3. What role does leadership play in quality
teaching and student achievement?
4. Key Questions for Discussion
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Background
 Until the mid-1960s the prevailing view was
that schools make almost no difference to
student achievement, which was largely predetermined by socio-economic status, family
circumstances and innate ability.
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Background
 Today that view of social-biological educational
determinism has been totally refuted. Schools do
make a difference, with the classroom teacher
being confirmed as the major in-school influence
on student achievement.
 Student socio-economic background is however a
significant influence on achievement, but only as it
relates to matters such as opportunity and
advantage, foundation and support for learning,
role modelling and encouragement.
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Background
 As a result, there has been a major international
emphasis on improving the quality of teachers and
teaching since the 1980s. We now know how
teacher expertise develops and we know what
good teaching looks like. However we also know
that teacher quality varies within schools and
across the nation.
 A quality teacher in every classroom is the
ultimate aim, but how to achieve this is the big
question and challenge for educational
leaders.
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From the BCA Report (2008)
 Although Australia performs well on international
measures of student achievement such as PISA
(the OECD’s Programme for International Student
Assessment involving 400,000 15-year-olds in 57
countries), there are concerns over equity. Many
students in Australia continue to struggle, including
Indigenous students, where the performance gap
with non-Indigenous students remains wide.
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Background
 Students’ social backgrounds have a greater
influence on educational results in Australia than in
higher performing countries such as Finland and
Canada.
 PISA findings released in December 2007 indicate
that Australia’s performance has ‘slipped’ in
comparison with other OECD nations. Since the
previous survey in 2003, Australia has dropped
from third to sixth place in reading; from eighth to
ninth in mathematics; and remains in third place in
science. These changes in rankings are mainly
due to the improved performance of other nations.
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Reference
Dinham, S.; Ingvarson, L. & Kleinhenz, E.
(2008). ‘Investing in Teacher Quality: Doing
What Matters Most’, in Teaching Talent: The
Best Teachers for Australia’s Classrooms.
Melbourne: Business Council of Australia,
available at:
http://www.bca.com.au/Content/101446.aspx
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The Effects of Quality Teaching:
accounting for variance in student achievement
( Findings from meta-analytic research)
Percentage of Achievement Variance
> 30%
Teachers
Students
Home
Peers
~5-10%
Schools
Principal
~50%
~5-10%
John Hattie ( 2003, 2007)
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Effects on Learning
 Students – account for about 50% of the variance
of achievement: ‘It is what students bring to the
table that predicts achievement more than any
other variable’.
 Home- accounts for about 5-10% of the variance:
‘the major effects of the home are already
accounted for by the attributes of the student. The
home effects are more related to the levels of
expectation and encouragement, and certainly not
a function of the involvement of the parents or
caregivers in the management of schools’.
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Effects on Learning
 Schools – account for about 5-10% of the
variance: ‘the finances, the school size, the class
size, the buildings are important as they must be
there in some form for a school to exist, but that is
about it’.
 Principals – ‘are already accounted for in the
variance attributed to schools; their effect is mainly
indirect through their influence on school climate
and culture’. [As will be seen later, I think that the
influence of principals and leadership generally
may have been underestimated, at least in
successful schools].
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Effects on Learning
 Peer Effects – account for 5-10% of the variance:
‘It does not matter too much who you go to school
with, and when students are taken from one
school and put in another the influence of peers is
minimal (of course, there are exceptions, but they
do not make the norm)’.
 Teachers – account for about 30% of variance: ‘It
is what teachers know, do, and care about which
is very powerful in this learning equation’.
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References
 Hattie, J. (2003). ‘Teachers Make a Difference:
What is the Research Evidence?’, paper
presented to ACER Annual Conference, October.
http://www.leadspace.govt.nz/leadership/articles/te
achers-make-a-difference.php
 Hattie, J. (2007). ‘Developing Potentials for
Learning: Evidence, assessment, and progress’,
EARLI Biennial Conference, Budapest, Hungary,
available at:
http://www.education.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/educatio
n/staff/j.hattie/presentations.cfm
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KEY FINDINGS FROM HOW
PEOPLE LEARN*
1. Students come to the classroom with
preconceptions about how the world works.
If their initial understanding is not engaged,
they may fail to grasp the new concepts and
information that are taught, or they may
learn them for purposes of a test but revert
to the preconceptions outside the
classroom.
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KEY FINDINGS FROM HOW
PEOPLE LEARN
2. To develop competence in an area of
enquiry, students must:
a. have a deep foundation of factual
knowledge,
b. understand facts and ideas in the
context of a conceptual framework, and
c. organise knowledge in ways that
facilitate retrieval and application.
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KEY FINDINGS FROM HOW
PEOPLE LEARN
3. A ‘metacognitive’ approach to instruction
can help students learn to take control of
their own learning by defining learning goals
and monitoring their progress in achieving
them.
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Implications for Teaching
1. Teachers must draw out and work with the
pre-existing understandings that their
students bring with them.
2. Teachers must teach some subject matter in
depth, providing many examples in which the
same concept is at work and providing a firm
foundation of factual knowledge.
3. The teaching of metacognitive skills [learning
how to learn] should be integrated into the
curriculum in a variety of subject areas.
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Designing Classroom Environments
1. Schools and classrooms must be learner
centred.
2. To provide a knowledge-centred classroom
environment, attention must be given to
what is taught (information, subject
matter), why it is taught (understanding),
and what competence or mastery looks
like.
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Designing Classroom Environments
3. Formative assessments – ongoing assessments
designed to make students’ thinking visible to
both teachers and students – are central. They
permit the teacher to grasp the students’
preconceptions, understand where the students
are in the ‘developmental corridor’ from informal
to formal thinking and design instruction
accordingly. In the assessment-centred
classroom environment, formative assessments
help both teachers and students monitor
progress.
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Designing Classroom Environments
4. Learning is influenced in fundamental
ways by the context in which it takes
place. A community-centred approach
requires the development of norms for the
classroom and school, as well as
connections to the outside world, that
support core learning values.
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Applying the design framework to
adult learning
 Many approaches to teaching adults consistently
violate principles for optimising learning.
 Professional development programs for teachers,
for example, frequently:
 Are not learner-centred
 Are not knowledge-centred
 Are not assessment-centred
 Are not community-centred
•
Bransford, J.; Brown, A. & Cocking, R. (Eds) (2000). How People Learn: Brain,
Mind, Experience, and School. Washington, DC.: National Academy Press.
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THE CENTRAL MESSAGE
The teaching of highly successful teachers is
student-centred and teacher directed.
Such teachers possess and utilise three forms of
professional knowledge:
1. Subject Content Knowledge (what subject
content to teach)
2. Subject Pedagogic Content Knowledge (how to
teach certain subject content)
3. Subject Course Content Knowledge (why
certain subject content is taught: the curriculum;
exams)
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Leadership?
 We have confirmed the crucial importance of the teacher to
student learning. The challenge for any educational
leader… is to make things happen within individual
classrooms. … school leaders can play major roles in
creating the conditions in which teachers can teach
effectively and students can learn, although the influence
of leadership on student achievement has perhaps been
underestimated. …
 Today, leadership is seen as central and essential to
delivering the changes, improvement and performance
society increasingly expects of all organisations, including
schools.
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Four Fundamentals of Student Success
(Dinham, 2008)*
QUALITY
TEACHING
FOCUS ON THE
STUDENT
(Learner, Person)
PROFESSIONAL
LEARNING
LEADERSHIP
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Some Key Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
Given the diversity of schools, schooling systems and
sectors, what does it mean for principals to be
responsible, and held accountable for teacher
effectiveness?
Who does and should do the actual work of ensuring
teacher effectiveness in a school? Is leading professional
practice in a school a specialism in its own right?
Where is student voice in teacher effectiveness?
How do we support emergent leaders to be effective
enablers of teacher effectiveness?
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Mapping the Landscape for Enabling
Teacher Effectiveness
1. How educational leaders make things
happen in the classroom
2. Trends in Professional Learning
3. Key Discussion Questions
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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: WHAT
SUCCESSFUL EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO*
 They make students, as learners and people, the
central focus of the school.
 They make teaching and learning the central
purpose of the school.
 They ensure that student welfare policies and
programs are integrated with and underpin
academic achievement.
 They have a vision for where they want their
school to go and for what they want it to be.
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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: WHAT
SUCCESSFUL EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO*
 They are effective communicators at all levels.
 They are able to balance the big picture with finer
detail.
 They possess perspective and can prioritise.
 They place a high priority on and invest in the
professional learning of themselves and others.
 They are informed, critical users of educational
research.
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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: WHAT
SUCCESSFUL EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO*
 They continually seek to improve the quality of
teaching in their school.
 They seek ways for every student to achieve and
experience success.
 They act as talent spotters and coaches of
talented teachers and release individual and
organisational potential.
 They question and push against constraints.
 They seek benefits from imposed change.
 They are informed risk takers and encourage
others to do the same.
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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: WHAT
SUCCESSFUL EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO*
 They have a positive attitude and seek to drive
out negativity.
 They model the values they expect in others such
as integrity, altruism and self-growth.
 They build a climate of trust, mutual respect,
collegiality and group identity.
 They believe in education for the benefit of the
individual and society.
 They work for students, staff, the school and
community, rather than for themself.
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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: WHAT
SUCCESSFUL EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO*
 They can read and respond to people and build
relationships.
 They have high professional standards and expect high
levels of professionalism in return.
 They possess courage and demonstrate persistence and
resilience.
 They build productive external alliances with parents, the
community, government agencies, business and the
profession.
 They entrust, empower and encourage others through
distributed leadership and engage in productive team
building.
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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: WHAT
SUCCESSFUL EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO*
 They provide timely and constructive feedback,
good and bad.
 They are approachable and good listeners; they
can read and reach people.
 They create an environment where people strive
to do their best and where they are recognised
for their effort and achievement.
 They emphasise and use evidence, planning and
data.
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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: WHAT
SUCCESSFUL EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO*
 They are constantly concerned with lifting school
performance; nothing is permitted to get in the
way.
 They see themselves and their school as being
accountable for student achievement.
 Overall, they are authoritative, being highly
responsive and highly demanding of individuals,
teams and groups, and above all, themselves.
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Types of Professional Learning
Traditional
 Formal pre-service
 ad hoc, on the job
 Professional associations
 Informal self-directed
 Formal in-service
 Formal postgraduate study
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Types of Professional Learning
Alternative Approaches
 Action research
 Action learning
 Formal mentoring and coaching
 Professional standards/certification (mandatory,
voluntary)
 Professional learning modules
 Learning communities
 Institutes, centres and other bodies
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Professional Learning
since the mid-1970s
From ……………………… To
Centralised
System responsibility
Off the shelf
Generalised
Off site, apart
Input
Passive
External expert
Individual learning
Theory based
Transactional
Changing things
Learning by seeing, hearing
Using research
Broad focus
Decentralised
Individual, collective responsibility
Tailored
Contextualised
On site, embedded
Outcomes
Interactive
External partner
Community learning
Problem based
Relational
Changing people
Action learning
Doing research
Student/learning focus
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*(2008) ACER Press [November]
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Discussion Questions
1. How do we identify, attract, prepare and
support the next generation of educational
leaders?
2. How might leadership be different in the
schools of tomorrow?
3. What sort of learning for leadership are we
going to need?
4. Who and what should be involved with the
above processes?
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Contact Details
Professor Stephen Dinham
Research Director – Teaching, Learning and Leadership
ACER
Private Bag 55
Camberwell Vic 3124
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 03 9277 5463
Website: www.acer.edu.au/staffbio/dinham_stephen.html
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