My journey in developing our School Curriculum Part 2

In part 2 we explore how we developed a shared vision for the curriculum, how we went about building a shared mental model of what our vision meant to us.  To help build our school curriculum we used the principles of Daniel Kim’s levels of perspective: Vision, Mental Model, Systems and Structures, Patterns of Behaviour and Events.  

 

Looking at the model we can see we start with the vision and work our way down through the other stages. If we start with a sound foundation then building on top of that will give it greater relevance and meaning.  Often times things start with events, going and doing something that quite often has no relevance or meaning to what it is we are trying to achieve. How many times have we been to professional development conferences or workshops that were cool to go to but we never used once we got back to school.

As I have mentioned before change needs the support and involvement of all stakeholders.  Using Kim’s model to establish a Vision and Mental Model is all well and good, however, it is not simply having a vision and mental model, but having a shared vision and shared mental model that is is critical.   The stakeholders in this were the: parents, students, the school and the community.  It is sometimes (quite often in my experience) the case that one person will develop the charter and vision for the school. This is in most cases the principal and then this is shown to the rest of the stakeholders.  In these cases the vision is owned only by the person that has developed it.  It means nothing to anyone else apart from the fact that is the school vision.

What we needed to do was to make it  our vision, we all needed to develop it and own it.  For us to make any progress or for the change to have meaning and relevance we had to all develop and believe in our vision. The quote from the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland is appropriate here “ If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there” We had to all know what it looked like (Mental Model) and how to get there. Only then could we make it a reality. The vision had to be based on and reflect our values and beliefs about our students education and where we wanted them to be to receive the educational puck.

I felt that for the parents to make informed decisions about their childrens’ future and education they had to have knowledge and understanding in three critical areas:

1. The New Zealand Curriculum,
2. policy driving education in New Zealand,
3. priority students.

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I had some people saying that parents don't want to know that stuff, they are just interested if their kids can read, write, do maths and make friends. That it was up to us as the professionals to inform them of what we and they should be doing. As I mentioned in part one we had to change the mindset of a lot of people. We are all responsible for educating our children and to do this we must all be involved. To do this we must be well informed.  So the curriculum meetings that were now taking place with great parent support were about informing the parents about the big picture in  education in New Zealand, the New Zealand Curriculum, policy that drives education and the future focus of education and who our priority learners were. They were to give the parents knowledge and understanding of why we do what we do. They were to give the parents knowledge and understanding of how they can be a part of their children's education, how they can contribute in meaningful ways and make informed decisions and have their input into the development of the  school curriculum. Seeing the big picture and taking it from ‘my child to our children’.

This is a process that I went through with the students as well. The children when asked what we can do better or what should we do more of, generally I had found, would want more PE and Art! So to introduce the children to the New Zealand Curriculum and the policy documents etc let them into the world of why we do what we do and why they are here. Again people have said that doesn't interest the children or they wont understand that stuff. I have always said about parents and children: Underestimate them at your own risk, if people are informed and have been a part of the process you will have less resistance and dissent within the group. They will actively be involved in making it a reality as they have invested in the process and have ownership of the product and outcomes.

Priority learners was a big thing for parents to get there head around. Getting the thinking again  from ‘my child to our children’. Seeing the big picture, what do we need to do to include all of our students. Making a level playing field and looking for equity not equality. It is not about treating all the same, it is about getting all of us into position to receive the puck. Some of us need more support in some areas than others. This is the part that was the hardest to get people  to understand and I think was the most critical.

Now that the parents had had the chance to explore the documents and what they meant,  we then moved onto the development/understanding  of our vision and mental model. As with all schools we had a vision as part of our charter, but no one was really sure what it meant or what it looked like.  So thats where we started.

The vision that had been developed was: LIFE LONG LEARNING. This was  a catchphrase at the time and I think a lot of schools had a similar or the same vision. It sounded great, but what did it mean? What did that look like?  We worked on the mental model that was made into a statement and also in visual form that described what life long learning looked like.

It was divided into two areas. 1. Learning for life and 2. Life of learning.

 The students had also been given the chance to discuss what life long learning meant to them some of the suggestions made by them were:

• Believe in yourself • Respect other people • Everyone has a go and joins in all activities • Making the most of all opportunities • Look out for others • Always do your best schoolwork • Be determined in what you’re doing and never give up • Learn to question • Helping out new people • Take care of your work • Be responsible • Working together to do tasks • Having fun while learning • Always be a team • Be focused on what you’re doing • Learn to combine your ideas • Trying your best • Being helpful • Always trying your hardest • Play fair • Make good choices • Don’t interrupt • Use humour to cheer people up • Always have teams for sports to play in.

 Taking into account what the staff, parents and students had said based on their understandings,  the statement that was developed from the conversations was:

 ‘In our learning community we will provide inclusive education, using Modern learning technologies and a range of teaching strategies to develop life long learning.’

The time took to establish understanding about our priority learners came through with the first part being providing an inclusive education which showed me that this had been taken on board and was well developed.

 From this we also developed a set of local goals that would drive our curriculum to realise our vision.

 LOCAL GOALS

At our school we aim to :

1. Provide high quality teaching and learning programmes with emphasis on literacy, numeracy and physical activity. (NAG 1, 2,)
2. To develop the children’s skills in the use of Information and Communication Technology. (NAG 1, 2, 4)
3. To help children acquire life skills. (NAG 1, 2, 3 )
4. To create partnerships between the school, student, parents/caregivers and the community recognising our local characteristics. (NAG 2, 5 )
5. To value New Zealand’s cultural heritage and individual differences within the school. (NAG 1, 6)
6. To provide a safe, caring, healthy, attractive learning environment. (NAG 1,3,4,5 )

At ________ School we believe that children need to be PRESENT in the classroom, ENGAGED in meaningful activities, to be ACHIEVE to their full potential to be confident, connected, actively involved life long learners.

Now we had a vision and knew what it looked like we could then start to put together what this would look like at our school in all of its settings. Getting down to the nitty gritty of what will we see in the schools environments.  These are measurable statements that we can use to track, review or measure ourselves against to ensure we are delivering our vision. These are things that we can use as guides for our teaching and learning. We can ask ourselves: does this exercise/lesson/task achieve our vision? If we say no, then we have to ask some hard questions to why we are doing it! This gives us our direct, our justification to do what it is we are doing and to say that this is who we are. We then establish a matrix of what learning looks like:

What does learning look like at ___________ School?
To accomplish our vision, beliefs and values, What is it that we will see our students doing?	To accomplish our vision, beliefs and values,What is it that we will see our teaching staff doing?	To accomplish our vision, beliefs and values, What will we see in our  classrooms and school environment?	To accomplish our vision, beliefs and values, What is it that we will see our principal  doing?	To accomplish our vision, beliefs and values, What is it that we will see our BOT doing?	To accomplish our vision, beliefs and values, What will we see our parents and community doing?
Learners will..	Staff will...	Environment will ...	Principal will...	BOT will...	Community will...

We had a shared vision, we knew what it should look like, we had a direction, we had the blueprint for developing the systems and policies needed to achieve our goals in what we believed would be the best possible school curriculum for our children to be in line to receive the ol’ puck. Next month I will discuss developing the school curriculum and the systems and policies we needed to change and or develop to allow that to happen.

Kim, D. (2001). Organizing For Learning. USA, Pegasus Communications Inc

Cheshire Cat  Quote retrieved from:  http://quoteeveryday.com/alice-in-wonderland-quotes-tumblr/

My journey in developing our School Curriculum Part 1

Intro

Ko te manu e kai ana i te miro, nōna te ngahere.

Ko te manu e kai ana i te mātauranga, nōna te ao.

The bird that partakes of the miro berry reigns in the forest.

The bird that partakes of the power of knowledge has access to the world.

We are living in a knowledge and information society and our educational policies and strategies  are designed to enable us to work and live within the global community. This whakatauki suggests that we need to look further than our local economy  and gain knowledge that will allow us to live in the global society. The child is the bird and we need to grow their knowledge to enable them to live in the global community. To do this all stakeholders must be involved: parents, whanau, schools and communities looking beyond their own forest.  

I was at an elearning conference recently and the talk was about positioning ourselves for the future. Having a future focus but doing it today! We need to set in motion today what we need to be in position for tomorrow. Wayne Gretzky said  “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”

If we look at this in relation to New Zealand education and the future focus, or positioning the Educational Puck,  how do we develop our school curriculum to place the children starting school today where they need to be when they leave school in 2028? How do we take our school from a good school to a great school?

Prensky suggested that our students today are not the students that our education system was designed for. While Bolstad and Lin go further to say we need to develop a new kind of curriculum which requires a pedagogical change to respond to the 21st century world. Digital technologies can support this but are not the only way to go about it.  Students, schools and communities need to be collaborating to build new knowledge, all having a voice in when, where, how, what and who will make up the new school curriculum.

In 1968, King, in a symposium held at the New Zealand College of Education, suggested that computers were here to stay and   “ .. the computer is more than an extension of the arm of the teacher : it can serve as an extension of the teacher himself”  (p. 16). They were cost effective in simulating situations, able to stimulate a variety of cognitive styles, store and retrieve personal data, and provide rapid and continuous feedback for students.

Roughly forty years later, Maharey  in his foreword for the Enabling the 21st Century Learner suggested that  “...the answer lies in reorienting the system.. away from the organisation, to the learner. e-learning has the potential to transform the way we learn. it’s about exploiting technologies and using ICT effectively across the curriculum to connect schools and communities and to support evidence-based decision-making and practices in schools” (p. 3). In 2007 we had the opportunity with a new New Zealand curriculum to reorient  our whole school systems and structures, not only transforming the way we learned with digital technologies, but the way that we presented our whole school curriculum.  

The Journey

1. Working as a team

Seven years ago I started at a new school and we embarked on a journey. A journey that is still a work in progress but a journey that saw a whole school transformation in the way that we presented teaching and  learning to our children.   A journey that would place our students where the educational puck is when they leave school, whenever that may be.  

It started out as a two week review of our ICT. We were going through our regular two year review cycle of our policy and curriculum documents and ICT was the next thing on the list.  This time however we decided to do it a little differently than just looking at the tools we had, what we used them for and what else we needed to buy. This time we used an inquiry model and started by looking at: how we used ICT, the impact that ICT had on our students learning and how our teaching using ICT impacted on the students learning  (seems common sense now, but back then…). It became apparent very early on in the review that we could not just look at ICT in isolation to all the other subjects or in fact to the way we presented any teaching and learning to our students, and so the journey began.

As the principal in the school I needed to lead this change, but it was a change that needed the support and involvement of all stakeholders. So my first thoughts were ‘How do I get everyone on the same page?, What change is needed?, Is Change needed?, What will it look like?’ Many things going through my head and ideas forming and disappearing just as quickly. I had come from a sole charge principal position so all of these decisions had been easy before, I only had myself to please.  But too many times I had seen schools produce really well meant documents. Documents that would be really effective if everyone else knew what was in them. If anyone else knew what they were about or if they ever came off the shelf apart from when you show other schools or ERO. So all had to be involved in the process in a meaningful way to make these living, breathing documents that represented the way we presented teaching and learning in our school and to make the changes we need to make.  

I decided that my starting point for this would be the teachers. My first challenge was building a professional learning community. Getting them  thinking and talking about why our children are where they are academically in an open and constructive dialogue.  To identify what we have an influence on and what we don’t have an influence on in the students lives and learning. Then focusing on the things we can influence.  This was a huge step in making that transition to making a difference.  We have all at some stage  made excuses for our students results because of things we have no influence over.  So the first real change we made was our mindset!

We recognised that there are some things that we just have no influence over and we just had to get over it.  There were many things that we cant impact on and I won't mention any here, but i'm sure you can come up with several yourselves.  The discussion then turned to how can we make up for this at school. What can we do to help the student. So our mindset was now to focus on ‘what can we do’ not ‘what can’t we do’ and if we cant do something, what else could we do to make up for that.

A lot of work went into building the professional learning community and it did take time. Trust needed to be built within the team to be able to say what we thought without any anxiety or fear.  As a staff we needed to get to know each and accept each other as professionals. We needed to recognise that we all had something to share and all of our knowledge and experience was valuable and would make us a stronger team. We needed to accept that our view or way was not the only way and by working together and having shared solutions, we were all going to benefit.  

Once the staff were working as a team we were building a learning community that would be able to work together towards common shared goals. Everyone was keen to have their say, to have their voice heard, acknowledged and accepted, to be able to challenge colleagues thoughts and have their own ideas and thoughts challenged in a safe and professional environment.  The next stage was to get the parents involved and having their voice heard.

This took longer than expected as we would call curriculum meetings and we would have all of the BOT, all of the teachers and maybe three parents.  So we had to think about how can we get the parents down to school to be involved in this process.  We tried having food and drinks and prizes, but we still had all of the BOT, all of the teachers and now 5-6 parents. We knew that if there was a bus meeting we would get nearly 100% turn out of the parents. This was because it had a direct effect on the parents and their children. If the bus didn't go past their house or close to it, the parents would have to bring their children to school so they made the effort to get down to school.  

Our next challenge was how can we get the parents to school for a curriculum meeting. Then, how do we change their mindset that the school is responsible for educating their children. To one of, ‘we are all responsible for educating our children and to do this we must all be involved.’ Some suggestions were to call a bus meeting to get everyone down to school then spring a curriculum meeting.  But to create trust and openness you have to be honest, so that wasn’t really an option.

In school we had created, like in most schools, a house system for the children. The house system was not only for sports days but we used it in the classrooms for points etc. At the weekly assemblies the top house would be announced and that house would get the small trophy for the week much like many schools. The children were very much into this system and competition was high to be the best house. Not only in the children, but the teachers were very competitive in this as well.

We knew that to get the parents to school we had to find something that would directly affect them or their children. House points for the children were our catch.So we decided to award house points to parents that turned up to the curriculum meeting. The children were told that this was a very important meeting about their education and that if their parents turned up to the meeting then they would get house points.  At our first meeting we had all of the BOT, all of the teachers and about 95% of the parents with a few apologies being sent in. As the parents walked in the door they would say “Hi I’m ‘such and such’ and I’m in Blue house! Make sure I get the house my points.” The kids had done an excellent job of getting across to their parents the need to be at school for this meeting.  Great now I had them here my job was just beginning. Now for the hard part how do I keep them here and how do i get them to all come back.

The children also have an equal part to play in this team. Their voice is critical in developing the curriculum if we are to realise the vision of the New Zealand  Curriculum and have children who are confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners. No longer can we develop the school curriculum in isolation of the students. The students were probably the easiest to get to work as team. We already had school councillors that held meetings with children about the way that we did things in school. We just had to take this to the next level and get their involvement in the discussion. Have them thinking about their learning, taking responsibility for their learning and having a voice in why,what and how that can happen.

As I have mentioned earlier  students, school and communities need to be collaborating to build new knowledge, all having a voice in when, where, how , what and who will make up the new school curriculum. Work could now start on building our shared vision and mental model to be able to place our students to receive that educational puck. The hard part, I thought, had been accomplished. Little did I know…

Next month I will post the next instalment about some of the challenges, and some of the ways we worked through them.

Bibliography

Bolstad, R. & Lin, M. (2009). Students’ experiences of learning in virtual classrooms. Wellington, New Zealand: NZCER.

Kim, D. (2001). Organizing For Learning. USA, Pegasus Communications Inc.

King, R.J.R. (1968). Ways in which computers currently serve education. Symposium on measurement and computers in education: Otago College of Education

Ministry of Education. (2006). Enabling the 21st century learner: An e-learning action plan for schools 2006-2010. Wellington.

Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand Curriculum.  Wellington: Learning Media Limited.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the horizon, 9 (5).

Modern Learning Environments

Much has been said and written about the MLEs or Modern Learning Environments. Sometimes I think when we talk about MLEs we just consider the physical space of the classroom as the environment to learn in.  There is the beanbag brigade that just thinks about the furniture, I have been to a few schools to see their MLEs and that is all they have shown me. I could have got just as much out of reading the school supplies catalogue.  Some schools were good and talked about the teachers having to change their pedagogy as well as looking at the physical environment. Here is where I want to draw the attention of teachers when they are considering their MLEs. For me there are 5 different environments that teachers need to consider when they are planning for their learners.

At the center we have our learners and surrounding them are the environments that they are learning in.  As teachers we need to identify the factors that contribute to the learners learning within these environments and then use these to enhance the learning. Within these environments the schools is the only one that has a ‘time for learning’ all the others environments can be fairly well accessed anytime anywhere.

The School Environment.

I call it the school rather than the classroom because we need to see the whole school as a learning environment and not just our classroom. We need to identify all factors that can assist our learners within the school. That is the learning spaces, the teaching resources, the teachers and the students.

The Online Environment.

Google, WWW, YouTube, Virtual Reality etc.  What are the children already doing here that we can utilise in our teaching and learning? What is the most effective way we can use this environment to enhance learning?

The Virtual Environment.

Virtual classrooms where learners are being taught by teachers in other locations (off site) and learning is done both synchronously and asynchronously.

The Home Environment.  What are the students already doing at home? How can we have parental involvement?  etc

Community.

Using community , local, national and global connections.

The explanations for each of the above are very brief, but for me the discussion should be around how we utilise these environments to enhance learning! What do we need to do as teachers to have effective teaching practices that will use all or most of these environments?