Student empowerment vs engagement

Posted on January 18, 2010 by mwalker

I’ve been following a conversation started by Chris Lehmann and joined by Dave Sherman questioning whether student engagement is a worthwhile improvement goal for schools to set.

The conversation is worth some thought as Victorian schools like Elsternwick Primary are mandated to set student engagement improvement goals as part of the strategic planning process. A little context here – student engagement is measured through a standard annual survey to students across the state from years 5 – 9. The survey measures student engagement with their peers, the school and their teachers.

Survey results like this tend to be bunched with the majority of schools measuring somewhere between 3.5 to 4.5 on a 5 point scale. However even given this bunching EPS’s scores for student engagement, particularly engagement with teachers, have been lower than most other schools over a number of year.

What – I hear you say just change the teachers – well these low scores have continued despite changes in teachers over these years. So what is it that student are saying – teachers have low energy levels – don’t give feedback – don’t make learning fun and enjoyable?

What Chris points out is that too often engagement get translated to fun. He argues that its about empowerment because

that sets us up for a more student-centered classroom because it is about what the students get from the experience once the class is done, not what happens during the class. It also allows us to do away with the notion that the classroom is always fun. It’s not.

Chris goes on to say

It’s o.k. if there are days when the work that kids do feels like work. We have to be o.k. with that. And we have to understand that school is work… but that it can be meaningful, powerful, empowering (and even engaging) work.

This makes sense to me.

It also fits in with our focus on teachers improving their capacities to give accurate and explicit feedback to students as individuals [this does not necessarily mean individually]. After a teacher is clear about what mastery looks like [with examples] and has given explicit instruction [differentiated according to the needs of the students] then its about feedback so that students know [in a scaffolded way] what they need to do next to get towards mastery of the subject.

But this is still not necessarily fun.

This generation of students who have access to seemingly infinite resources, who seem to expected immediate gratification or answers and who seem to want constant entertainment [substitute fun] might have the same expectations of teachers.

I see lots of conversations here with students about the context and purpose of learning, the value of effort and persistence and the mutual responsibility of feedback [in the teachers case to give it – explicit and not dressed up comments like I’m proud of your ….. behaviour and for students to use the feedback and make the improvements].

Empowering students to improve through feedback on work that has a clear and connected purpose to their lives is perhaps a higher aim than making work or teachers more engaging or fun?

Interested in thoughts here?

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New School Facilities

Posted on January 18, 2010 by mwalker

This photo of the new school gym and performing arts centre was taken over the January 2010 school holidays. Part of the governments recession proofing strategy in 2009 was to build much needed school buildings.

Elsternwick Primary School was entitled within this package to a new school gym. The building is expected to be completed in August 2010. This much needed facility will really enhance our PE /Music programs as well provide an after hours space for the wider community. From time to time I will publish photos of the progress of the facility.

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Here’s one creative teacher using technology in classrooms

Posted on December 24, 2009 by mwalker

Sometimes I stumble upon really creative ways to use technology in classrooms with kids. Chris Betcher prepared this for an online conference and it goes for about 20 minutes. There’s so much in this presentation that it’s useful to come back to again and again. Chris explains RSS feeds, news searches, hash tags, uses Google forms for surveys [really neat much like I use www.surveymonkey.com] and skype to name a few.

There’s a wealth of sites he uses including:

  • http://maps.google.com
  • http://technorati.com
  • http://www.netvibes.com
  • http://runkeeper.com [use of iphone here]
  • http://voicethread.com
  • http://animoto.com
  • http://comiclife.com

This is well worth a look.

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Reflections on a year just finished – what changed and what’s ahead.

Posted on December 23, 2009 by mwalker

Photo courtesy of Bayside leader

At the end of a school year I generally get a little reflective – after a day or two on holidays that is and after I’ve spent some time catching up on the uncompleted tasks – which I just have.

Well my first reflection is that the general pace of change and community expectations have continued to increase. The “public accountability race” has been ramped up with more online school data for the community. The link to the Victorian Government’s site with increased data on school performance is their response to the accountability agenda. As principal I was asked to set some context around the Victorian data for Elsternwick Primary and now as a community we await the ‘raw data sets” from the Commonwealth Government’s online site next year. The real test on the usefulness of published data sets on school performance is who will use the either government’s sets and if there is a private or public agenda?

Elsternwick Primary has just completed a  major school review which took 12 months which included the setting of a new strategic plan priorities for the next 4 years. The improvement goals over the next 4 years include:

  • improving mathematics outcomes for students
  • strengthening teachers use of assessment for learning data to try and personalise learning for students
  • using technology to engage with learners and their parents [refer Ultranet link below]
  • supporting teachers to be more reflective about their instructional practice using a new E5 framework developed by DEECD.

Approximately 1/6 of our teachers are engaged in some study in 2010 connected with three different universities and a new Victorian leadership institute opened this year. These improvement targets are challenging and will require changes in the way we work together to achieve them.

A the end of year we were announced as a lead school in the implementation of the Ultranet – an online learning community for students, teachers and parents. This certainly fits with our goal of working to personalise learning for students. This will be an exciting innovation.

Of course we are still building. We completed stage one works worth estimated at $4 million. The facilities included new and modernised flexible learning areas which were officially opened this year. In addition we had a smaller infrastructure grant which paid for the painting of classrooms, new shade sails over playgrounds, a new roof over one of major buildings and badly needed maintenance on one end of our main buildings. Some work remains to be completed on this smaller project.

We expect to have the new gym and performing arts centre completed in August 2010 worth over $3 million. New buildings generally lead to improved learning and teaching conditions its just the dislocation that gets a little tiring for people and we have had some of that this year.

There were improvements in tightening inquiry based curriculum units, a new Mandarin language introduced, an expanded teacher and student leadership program and the usual activity of schools that we should celebrate including a wonderful end of year concert.

So in summary its been a year of evaluation and direction setting, of building and of new programs. We have some exciting projects and professional learning opportunities ahead.

And I wonder why I’m tired and in need of a rest. Feel free to comment.

To my colleagues and readers have a Merry Christmas and I look forward to continuing our work together in 2010.

Posted in construction, Instruction, Leadership, reflections, school, Teaching, Uncategorized, Video Clips | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

How far have we come as teachers in using technology to engage learners?

Posted on December 23, 2009 by mwalker

Have a quick flick through this presentation as we in Australia shut down for the summer school holiday period. I’m reminded of a now famous quote “Yes we can” when I see this. I remember as far back as the spirit duplicator – what about you?

The presentation comes from Alan Stange’s blog – thanks Alan

On the same storyline I came across this clip which has a great story about a children copying homework for the weekend from the chalkboard. It challenges us in the future to us the tools we have to personalise learning for students.

In 2010 my school has been selected as a lead school in the implementation of what we in Victoria will call the Ultranet – an online community that connects teachers, students and parents with lots of social networking tools [e.g. blogs and wikis], individual portfolios, parent portals and much much more. I’m sure I’ll post about this next year but its exciting to teaching at this time.  Perhaps this will replace the teacher writing homework tasks on the blackboard?

Posted in Assessment, Collaborative Communities, Instruction, Reading, school, Teaching, Technology, Uncategorized, Video Clips, Walkthroughs | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Does a school transition program make any difference to parent concerns about student class placements?

Posted on December 22, 2009 by mwalker

Certainly one of the by products of an effective school transition program we hoped was the easing of parent concerns about the student class placement for the following year. An earlier post on school transition described the program that we have implemented. In February at the start of the new school year the program moves into the 3rd phase of student induction which continues to build student relationships with each other and the teacher. I think this is one of the main expressed concerns of students and parents alike – will I have a friend in my class? The emphasis for teachers is a friend in the class, not meaning my best friend or friends which is often what students want and parent request.

What teachers comment on a lot in class placement is best friends often inadvertently restricting the friendship circle through lack of opportunity to make new friends or an over reliance on existing friendships that create a dependency. Sometimes these “old” friendships place stress on the learning boundaries as well as students look to affirm the same relationships even though the learning tasks require students to work with peers with different skills, interests, passions and experiences. So they mix students up each year. 

This year in a slightly amended policy on class placement we tightened the boundaries of parent input into class placement saying the teacher selection [the first request of parent] was not appropriate as well as requests for continuing student friendships. Most parents are not silly and a recognise a quality teacher is the main criteria for student success although they form opinions on a different criteria of quality instruction to me. 

Still some parent try and persuade me to change their child’s class as the quality of the teacher is lower in their eyes than the selected class teacher. I could write a whole post on different perceptions of quality instruction but at this stage lets just acknowledge there are differences of opinions.

Our policy on class placement is to create mixed gender classes with a normal distribution of skills and capabilities.  I trust teachers to follow the policy, make sensible or justifiable placement decisions and seek feedback from students. Sometimes some outside factors are over looked [cousins in same class as an example] and a decision needs to be overturned but this happens in about 0.5% cases.

So what happened?

Well the number of parent emails and letters asking for teachers or friendships reduced. It’s hard to use this single measure as an indicator of a successful transition program and I know a sub committee is working on an online survey to collect additional data.

The emotional response by about 2% of the parent population, sometimes expressed as an anger or frustration, at an injustice in class placement [no perceived friends], at a teacher they don’t like, or a multi aged class where their bright child in the upper class who won’t be extended are still the same and it takes time to research, talk to teachers and respond.  

I sometimes wonder are we creating a generation of young people with reduced social skills to cope with life’s little frustrations? Are we creating dependency instead of resilience? Or are we as a population more informed and want a greater say in the small things that affect our children’s lives.

I know when one of my children didn’t get selected in the top representative side for their sport or dance performance they were upset but my job as a parent was to help them overcome the emotions and work on a plan to get better skills, make new friends and enjoy the whole court or stage time experience. I accepted the selection committees decision and moved on. Am I just more resilient, older, less caring, have more perspective or more pragmatic?

I know I have had no say on these class placement issues from year 7 onwards as its high school and a different culture. But the questions I raise are still worth pondering?

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Face Book a dad’s dilemma

Posted on December 2, 2009 by mwalker

I’ve been following one dad’s dilemma about allowing his 12 yo daughter to use facebook. For those interested in this please click on the link below

Dave Sherman

Posted in Technology, Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

Facebook dilemmas

Posted on November 26, 2009 by mwalker

Recently we faced a dilemma as school leaders about students using Facebook and in posting this I’m seeking feedback from a wider audience.

To explain we were alerted to a situation about a young student who had a Facebook page. The police had been involved and explained to us about the age young people are allowed to have Facebook pages – shock – I didn’t know. I have a Facebook page and have entered my correct age and probably didn’t have to answer other questions. Anyway we checked the Facebook safety page and found the following: 

Facebook Safety

Children under 13 years old are not permitted access to Facebook. In addition, parents of children 13 years and older should consider whether their child should be supervised during the child’s use of the Facebook site.

A quick search found lots of our senior students 10 – 12 year olds with Facebook pages. Some students declaring they were older [22 years old – one said], others with photos that could be seen as suggestive in nature and others with seemingly innocent one liners declaring their affection for another student.

What to do?

Facebook is a blocked site on the school system so all of this is going on offsite. Where does our responsibility lie here? We have published in the school newsletter a column on cyber safety notifying parents about what we found. We have a parent information session booked with an “expert” in 2010.

We have briefed staff on the issue – quite a few of whom expressed bewilderment on the issue not knowing enough about this web 2.0 stuff like Facebook to structure informed conversations with students on this.

Another search showed more students using myspace. We counsel students on the issues surrounding cybersafety but I’m feeling we are underdone on this and need lots of support to get this right.

Posted in cyberbullying, school, Teaching, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

National Standards – do they improve teaching and learning?

Posted on November 22, 2009 by mwalker

Thanks to Greg Carroll I came across this video where John Hattie makes a case around issues like accommodation, retention [repeating classes] or dumbing down learning surrounding National Standards. National Standards are due to be introduced in Australia next year. He concludes by making a plea to teachers to be change agents not only in the classroom but across the system.

This video is on an edtalks site which features New Zealand educators speaking about a range of issues – well worth a look.

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School Transition Programs – Do they make a difference?

Posted on November 22, 2009 by mwalker

During our school review we identified student transition as an area to improve student engagement and connectedness to school. Our transition program aims to provide smooth pathways for students moving from one year level to the next or from location to another. Most of the research on this topic is about students transitioning to high school

At Elsternwick Primary there are three transition programs: the pre prep program for those entering our school, the in school program for those students continuing their education at Elsternwick Primary and the year 6 secondary school placement program.

Most parents are familiar with the successful pre prep program which now extends over 5 sessions in November and early December. This article focuses on the in school program, which is relatively new.

Similar to the pre prep program, the in school transition program has four phases: preparation, direct interaction, induction and consolidation.

Preparation Phase:
Each year teacher prepares notes on students learning, their social development and samples of student work to pass onto the follow years teacher. This year our assessment program, which includes a range of online tests, is being started in November / December so that the information is available at the start of the year instead of testing starting in February / March by the new teacher. This is expected to make a smoother start to the school year.

Direct Interaction Phase:
Students will have 3 sessions in mixed groupings. The focus of the sessions is around building social relationships with different students using strategies like circle time. The aim is to reduce possible anxieties about relationships or location and build personal confidence. Some routines are developed around different classroom locations. Students working in flexible spaces learn about levels of working noise, responsibilities around student lockers are explained and use of wireless technology in years 3-6 are explored. In the last week of school the third session of this phase will see students in their 2010 groupings and the start of the induction program where students see the similar types of learning structures used by teachers. This consistency between classrooms again reduces potential anxieties. Teachers also collect some personal information from students so that a sense of being known is fostered and a sense of belonging to the school developed.

Induction Phase:
Teachers begin this phase at the start of the school year before students arrive by reading student files and talking to past teachers to collect information about each student in their group. The induction phase was strengthened last year when the whole school engaged in a “Learning to Learn” inquiry unit which formed the basis of individual classes setting norms for working. Student understandings about school values are explored, behavioural expectations constructed and school rules reinforced through the student code of conduct which is sent home. For years 3-6 students the expanded use of digital resources means that sessions on cyber safety expectations and issues are held. Routines are established that include the use of diaries and memory sticks for years 3 -6 students and red satchels for home reading for prep – two students. Senior students have sessions on responsibilities on school leadership. Teachers continue to build social relationships through strategies like circle time. Students usually see the alignment in teacher practices between classrooms through consistent use of instructional strategies like guided reading, literature circles or the use of manipulative materials to understand Mathematical ideas.

Consolidation Phase:
This phase often involves further testing of students as additional information is required to plan the learning program for each student. Teachers continue to build relationships with students and reinforce the expectations set in the induction phase. During this phase there is a parent information session where teachers explain what’s happened in the induction phase and focus on some key area of school improvement, which in 2010 – 2013 is Mathematics.

School transition programs are a strategic plan improvement goal and parents in years prep, two, four and six and some senior students will complete an online survey to gather feedback about the program. The feedback will support any further changes to the program in future years.

I’d be interested to hear about other schools who conduct transition programs for students as they move from different year levels and whether there has been any recognisable difference in school connectedness.

Posted in school, school structures, Teaching, Uncategorized | Tagged | 4 Comments

Is assessment for learning one of the keys to personalising learning for students?

Posted on November 12, 2009 by mwalker

I want to repeat the question posed in the title on assessment for learning as its been raised by teachers and parents recently as we complete our strategic plan for the next 4 years. What is personalised learning and is it different from individualised learning? How does assessment for learning fit into this picture?

Lets reverse the question how can one personalise learning for students if one doesn’t assess students needs using a variety of tools? Is the goal that all students should reach the basic standard?

This is a cultural shift as often the goal was to teach, assess and grade [pass /fail] and move on – not go back to teach again till all students achieved the standard. Personalising learning is seen as way to achieve this goal, 

One of the better definitions on personalised learning comes from England. High expectations of progress, differentiation in teacher instruction and student learning tasks and assessment that supports students knowing the next improvement targets are essential keys in personalising learning.

The clip above often typifies what we as students experienced as assessment – summative assessment. While summative evaluation has a place in schools often the balance is wrong and assessment feedback is not used often enough to support the identification of the future learning goals. 

A recent BBC report on the politicking of assessment for learning helps us start to sort out the feeling and issues that surround this debate.

Rick Stiggins and Robert Marzano have lots to say on the issue.

We have 4 years to get this right particularly around student success in Mathematics, which is one our improvement targets. My point is showing the video is really to stimulate staff and parent discussion on assessment for learning and what might have to change in schools to achieve this.

When we started this discussion at leadership level we started to realise that we had to train team leaders to run professional learning teams or communities that focused each week on these issues and conducted some action research on problems of practice identified by teachers. Of course the discussion usually comes at some point on when this is going to occur – time poor – is the cry from most teachers and quite legitimately. Teacher planning time needs to be balanced between the individual needs of the teacher to complete work [e.g. display student work] and the need of the team to plan and challenge each other to assess, moderate and discuss results, personalise learning plans and get observational feedback and reflect upon our instructional practice.

This is a cultural change for most teachers and forms part of the challenge to personalise learning for students. Ideas or stories of progress from schools on the same journey are welcomed.

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Do we have inclusive schools?

Posted on November 2, 2009 by mwalker

Over the past month I have stopped blogging about leadership or learning as I completed a major piece of research work for my Masters. On campus last week I attended a lecture on inclusive education. I heard about how most Victorian public schools try and include or integrate people with disability into main stream schooling with about 12,000 people with a registered disability in Victoria attending a regular school [about 66%] and 6,000 attending special schools. Italy has the best inclusive ratio in schools – around 90% I’m told.

 
I could not help but think about Norman Kunc who I heard at Harvard University speak on inclusive education. Norman speaks about inclusive education being for all youth, not just those with a label, be it a disability or social label. He uses Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and makes a strong case that belonging is one of the central pillars in building and sustaining all young people’s self esteem.

At the end of the lecture they played this video clip about Norman, much to my surprise.

Often schools try and build self esteem through academic or sporting success. Some schools replicate, what is expressed in the larger community, that you earn your right to belong when you achieve some things in the classroom or on the sporting field. Some people either chose to accept this idea and work hard to achieve it and others simply drop out. Norman argues that there are dangerous consequences in having to earn this right to belong and feel worthy. Those that drop out, because they see this as too hard, often join gangs to get that belonging. Those that earn that feeling of belonging in schools by doing something extraordinary then feel they have to continue to do this to sustain the belonging. This “good enough to belong” pressure then builds and potentially leads to perfectionism or suicide.

We have just stated one of our core purposes at Elsternwick Primary is to promote this feeling of belonging with all students. Norman I remember, charged us all to answer how belonging is eroded in our schools and what can we do about it?

I’m asking myself this same question again – are our assemblies all about sport which excludes those with academic, musical, artistic or social strengths? Well lately I can safely answer – NO – we are inclusive on this front and perhaps in our newsletter as well. What about the rest – well that’s what I’m reflecting upon now.

Posted in disability, Masters in Education Course, school, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Amazing new smart pen for schools

Posted on October 14, 2009 by mwalker

 Whilst attending a session at University last week I was shown the Pulse Smart Pen which I thought was amazing. The pen records your writing or drawing on a special notebook using an infrared camera positioned just below the nib. It also records audio at the same time and can play it back. You can upload the files to the computer and share it with others.

I thought about getting one to record meeting notes or interview notes or teacher review notes amongst other uses. I think the thing that impressed me was the fact that we are just starting with the possible applications here. If you want another opinion new york times review .

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School Regeneration Projects

Posted on October 14, 2009 by mwalker

School regeneration projects engage schools and their local communities developing a sustainable educational provision plan that covers educating young people from birth to adulthood. The school communities usually agree to reduce the number of sites and organise the provision of education so that some campuses have sites for Years P-8, others P- 6, Years 10 – 12 and another year 9.

Such is the case with the Corio-Norlane Educational Precinct who recently had a team visit my school.  The project hit the local press in Geelong with headlines like: facilities for whole of community.

The team’s goal was to get a consistent pedagogy towards assessment for learning across the 9 schools so that when they reformed on “new or rebuilt campuses” there was a consistency of practice. This is a significant challenge. As a school leader I understand the complexities of change processes when trying to get consistency across 20 classes in the one school let alone classrooms across 9 schools.

The team that visited Elsternwick Primary included teaching and learning coaches who worked in these schools, principal class officers, leading teachers and classroom teachers. As we walked around my campus which included some open and flexible learning environments we discussed assessments we had made about students personal learning skills [goal setting, receptiveness to teacher feedback] as well as interpersonal learning skills and peer relationships that are critical to learning independence.

We affirmed the need for stable and reliable digital infrastructures if we are to take advantage of online assessments tools that enable us to analyse student achievement data and make instructional decisions. I demonstrate some new software that helped us determine whether we were adding sufficient value to our students learning over a 2 year period using the national testing or NAPLAN results.

We shared some research on effective assessments including the work of Rick Stiggins and our local contexts which impact upon our work. I was impressed with the teams committment to the challenges and am interested in hearing from other teachers and school leaders involved in regeneration type projects and what their starting points for change are.

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Children See ….. Children Do

Posted on October 8, 2009 by mwalker

I saw this short clip by NAPCAN for a “Child Friendly Australia” and thought it worth posting for its very clear and powerful message to us as teachers, parents, grand parents and any adult who is responsible for kids. It’s worth a look.  Thanks to Donald MacDonald for this clip.

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