Welcome to Week 10.
It was great to see you all last week. Everyone seems like they are in a good place with the course. You guys have all done well to survive the reports/Bastow LSDA cross over. That was pretty extreme!
But you have all managed to stay on track. Well done!
This week you will really start to get your ICT Change plans
up and running. There will be some
important time to reflect on you ARP progress.
This week...
- Complete Stage 4 of your ARP and begin thinking
about Stage 5.
- Read and reflect on the three professional
readings and professional viewing about 2nd Order Change.
- Continue your School ICT Change Plan with your
course partner. Complete Steps 1-7 and get feedback you’re your Mentor and
other critical friends.
- Participate in the Group Online Discussion.
Discuss the initial stages of your School ICT Change Plan.
- Write
your weekly E-journal entry.
The reading and viewing:
Professional Reading 11: Bright Town PS Case Study (this
will be emailed to you)
Professional Reading 12: The 21 Leadership Responsibilities
Defined (Marzano et al, 2005, p.71) (a hard copy of this will be distributed to
you during Workshop 2)
Professional Reading 13: The Difficulties of Second-Order
Change, Education Leadership Blog
Professional Viewing 7: Marzano Research Laboratory - Dr
Marzano on 2nd Order Change
All links have been tweeted by dk2 over the weekend.
School ICT change planning:
Refer to the ICT change/growth template and consider the questions that
are raised there. There are some
in-depth questions that will help you drill down on what change is necessary
for you school. This is really important
to consider with you course partner, (Cheryl, feel free to bounce you ideas off me and Nikki via email if you are having trouble as we know you are doing the work of two in your setting, you may want some support from our group so feel free to pose a question on the discussion board this week).
Weekly E-journal Entry - What have I learned?
Your reflections will also help to feed into your Stage 3 of
your ARP. In this week’s E-journal entry, reflect on:
- Your current thoughts, plans, feelings and reactions to what I am learning and what have been the most powerful learning experiences for me
- A significant event for you this week and how you felt and reacted
- Issues or questions and evidence.
Our mentor group discussion:
This week I would love to hear about your initial thoughts
for you ICT change plan.
- What are the needs of your school and what would you like to see happening in your school
- How have your discussions with your course partners gone?
- Do you see eye to eye with your course partner on these changes?
I would also like to have a think about first and second
order change as you see it.
- Does anyone have any examples of first order change they have lived through?
- What are the challenges with second order change?
- Have you heard any of the language the Dr Mazano mention in the view IE "Before _______ we used to have a say in how thing are done around here." Or anything like this. What does this mean for our resolve as leaders?
- Keep throwing your findings from twitter explorations up here. Let us know if you find anything worthwhile.
If first order change is a short lived reform – ‘not consistent with change represented by that innovation’ (Marzano 2005), then is it change at all? Any change that exceeds the needs of the achievement gap for students should be the aspirational goals of all teachers. We try to be creative about strategies – taking big risks to see what works… I am privileged to be working alongside a team of people who are trusting and prepared to have a go! We are driven by the belief that we can always do better, do more and shift students further has its consequences. In the past we have had our eye on literacy and numeracy as our key drivers…and we suspect that student welfare and engagement may have suffered. It’s getting all the drivers synchronised that is the challenge. At this point in time we can only operate intensive spurts…probably not good enough. But when a practice works – it is embedded! Keeping focus on the students is the key – and every time the cohort alters, question of practice must also be re-examined.
ReplyDeleteI like your point about the synchronised drivers Cheryl, what are the drivers in your school. You said literacy and numeracy being the drivers led to welfare and engagement suffering. I think new pedagogies is trying to address all of these issues but what is it going to look like, what does "new pedagogies" actually look like. Do you think it's possible to see welfare, engagement and high level achievement coexisting?
ReplyDeleteAt my school we have had quite a turnover of experienced staff which are being replaced by much less experienced staff who are more willing to have a go at new things. Our ICT change plan will be designed to support all staff with technology use and encourage them to take risks with their ICT use.
ReplyDeleteThe newer staff need to know that risk taking is encouraged and failure may be a consequence of this risk taking and that failure is accepted.
The current staff need to know that through risk-taking they will improve themselves as teachers and there will be benefits for their classroom. They need encouragement to step outside their comfort zone rather than do the same things they have done for years.
Change is such an awful word in education, teachers hate it!! But it doesn't have to be like this. Its the whole growth mindset, and being receptive and open to change. One of the hardest part is letting teachers take risks, and understand its OK for things not to work. I'm don't like hearing "before this.. we did this" or "at my old school..." Teachers need to live in the now and understand we are changing, and must keep up with everything. That is the biggest shift I have experienced lately, my mindset. I don't think anymore about how I would adapt to things, I think of the excuses/comments that other teachers may say, and try to work out those 2 solutions! It's quite easy to anticipate what they will say, it makes me feel confident if I can go in with rebuttals to their predicted responses!
ReplyDeleteI agree change can be viewed as such a scary and awful thing by staff as it means that they have to shift their thinking and practice. This is especially true if different ideas are introduced and not followed through or the school moves onto something else. I also shifted my thinking over the past years so that when new ideas come along i like to try these and usually they add value. I also think encouraging others is a huge help to get people on board.
ReplyDeleteI love change! If change is presented in the right way and it is from an approach that explains its obvious benefits then I'm all for it. I also love the 2 solutions rule Brianna. My school is focusing on high achievement in literacy and numeracy and we are finding that this is putting a strain on us as well. How many schools are trying 'New Pedagogies'?
ReplyDelete