Dear all,
It was good
to get back to school on Thursday. I had been away at two conferences, the
first was the World Educational Leadership Summit, where speakers were
discussing future schools, and the second was the Regional Cognita Annual Heads
conference. Now this might surprise you, but there was a great deal of synergy
between the two conferences and certainly how education at ISHCMC is viewed by
the regional management.
This will be
the first in a series of posts that will focus on the INTASE Leadership in
Singapore. Although its title was Lead and Redefine Future Schools, I felt it
would have been more appropriately entitled redefining education, leading
schools in to the future.
This post
will give you some feedback about two of the educators featured Dr Tony Wagner
and Dr Stephen Murgatroyd, so that you can reflect upon their ideas and follow them
or delve further into their research by going to their websites or reading
their books.
When you
read what these educational thinkers are encouraging, you will recognize many
of the things we are building at ISHCMC. There are so many interesting ideas that
we need to reflect upon. Probably the two most used words in the conference
also aligned perfectly with our mission, engaged and empowered.
Have a good evening,
Adrian
Dr. Tony Wagner. Designing Education To Create
Innovators That Will Change The World
Dr. Tony
Wagner, expert in residence at Harvard innovation lab, talked about designing
education to create innovators that will change the world. In his talks he
provided a powerful rationale for developing an innovation-driven economy. When
information is ubiquitous and free, and when basic education is available to
billions of people worldwide, only one set of skills can ensure this
generation’s economic future: the capacity for innovation. He asked the
question what must parents, teacher, mentors, and employers do to develop the
capacities of many more young people to be the innovators that they want to be?
– And that we need them to become. What do the best schools and colleges do to
teach the skills of innovation? His research has been recorded in his latest
books, ‘The Global Achievement Gap’ and ‘Creating Innovators: The Making of
Young People Who will Change the World.’
His key points were:
Fundamental
changes in society make it imperative the education changes. Between 1950 – 1970 we had a knowledge based economy,
today it is no longer knowledge based, the world no longer cares what children
know, it cares about what they can do with knowledge. INNOVATION is for today,
we need to be educating students away from questioners to correct answers to
questions that can only be answered by creating new knowledge. This will be
achieved by asking new questions that encourage creative problem solvers.
Teacher who
make a difference are still often outliers because they are teaching differently from their peers and come from
the perspective, ‘it’s not what you know, it’s what you can do with it that
matters.’
Dr. Wagner
described FIVE key issues for schools and education:
1.
Collaboration is essential for a culture of
innovation to thrive
2.
Compartmentalized knowledge and specialization
is from the past and needs to change innovation doesn’t happen within individual
disciplines. The future is interdisciplinary courses.
3.
A major challenge for education is the idea of compliance
versus engagement. We need to be empowering students through coaching and guidance to achieve
a higher standard of thinking
4.
Risk avoidance needs to be replaced with a
culture that encourages trial and error. Innovation demands trial and error.
Research is showing that there is no creative learning without trial and error.
It has been shown that students learn more from failures than successes if they
are taught to fail well.
5.
Extrinsic v intrinsic motivation. Students do
best when they feel the work is worth doing. This links with the importance of
play, passion, purpose. Interests that develop passion have been shown to also
develop grit and determination.
Suggestion:
·
Allow students greater freedom to identify and follow
their passions in our schools. Students should be given a chunk of free time each
week ( Google time), in which they identify a passion they want to explore. They
should set learning goals and objectives, keep records/ portfolio of their
learning and be able at the end of a year to present their learning to an
audience. Research shows that this allows students to mature to a deeper sense
of purpose and that they create a desire to make a difference. This was
illustrated by a new documentary, ‘ Most likely to Succeed.’
·
Students need to be given more opportunities to
apply their learning through problem solving. Dr Wagner believes that problem
solving shouldn’t be part of the curriculum it should be the curriculum. We
should start be asking the question what do we want students to remember not at
the end of a lesson or unit but for their life time. If we approach education
from this perspective it is felt that the motivation of students to learn will
be higher.
·
Schools should stop using the excuse of high
stakes testing and university admissions as an excuse for not changing. He
stressed that 25% of colleges in the US are moving away from test and Grade
orientated admission procedures towards portfolios that demonstrate what
students have been doing. Parents should not be scared about this affecting
their children’s future as more and more of the leading corporations are
changing their recruitment strategies to attract more creative individuals. 15%
of those recruited by Google last year did NOT have degrees. Deloittes stresses
the need for collaborative problem solvers above academic qualifications and
transcripts.
·
Schools need to set up research and development
budgets that can be spent on increasing teacher innovation in pedagogy and for
supporting student innovation in turning good ideas into real projects.
Dr
Murgatroyd looked at six specific challenges for educators that they will be
facing in the coming twenty years and the appropriate ways of responding to
them.
The
challenges are:
(a) Economic
challenge. Global economy – nature of the economy is changing – one has to change
with the pace of change. There is a changing meaning of work. There is a clear
move toward Portfolio workers. Employers are more and more looking for workers
with a range of skills and experiences. The day of big firm is disappearing.
affording
great schools for all
(b) Demographic
challenges – the new mobility of learners. Developing countries are dependent
on immigration to maintain their economic growth.
(c) The
technological challenge – finding the balance between use and non-use of
technology
(d) The
institutional challenge – what is an appropriate form for a school and school
system when all other organizations are changing quickly
(e) Leadership
challenge – what is the appropriate kind of leadership for a school and where
will we find these leaders?
(f) The equity
challenge – how do we ensure that schools are great places for all students,
not just some? Equity as policy:
-
Broad based curriculum…STEAM
-
Formative assessment leading to summative
-
Strengthening teacher’s collaborative autonomy
-
Appropriate tech at appropriate time
-
Differentiated instruction
-
Teach less, learn more, and keep play
Dr
Murgatroyd described 7 actions that he felt schools needed to take to have a
successful future.
1.
Work towards a shared vision
2.
See collaborative as the DNA of the school
3.
Share leadership. Ensure that there are
opportunities for teacher leadership, student leaders and community engagement
4.
Work to build a common language that describes
the educational values of the school
5.
Work in innovative and adaptive ways
6.
Make work of teaching and learning simple, transparent
and most of all make it fun – keep teachers empowered and engaged.
7.
Keep work rigorous, focused and mindful. Schools
should be looking at more and more project work because it is rigorous and
leads to innovation and creativity. We must always remember the 1st
rule of project work: always set a project that you don’t know the answer to!
It was clear that Dr Murgatroyd didn’t
think much of OFSTED as he described it as an old system that destroys schools
systematically. He followed his first presentation by looking at the five big
challenges for leading change and learning in future schools. The FIVE were; ensuring
readiness to learn, enhancing collaborative professional teachers’ skills,
developing and supporting mindful school leadership, optimizing the conditions
of learning for students and enable parents and the public to have assured quality.
1.
Practical personal mastery. A quest to know who I am. Need to have
followers and work isn’t about them, they are not the most important, connectic
between … + heart/ passion, balanced, look after themselves
People
who engage in teaching and learning are inner confidence
2.
Apply a global mindset
o
Things going on outside own school – understand
the world of education
o
Globally minded that can be applied locally
o
Adopting + then adapting accounts for 95% of
change
3.
Accelerate cross boundary learning
o
Shouldn’t reject great ideas from other sectors – learning from
different sectors of society is becoming increasingly important. Education is
no longer a standalone.
o
We should be actively seeking our learning from
other disciplines
o
Understand role of other adults in school
4.
Think back from the future
Don’t
guess where school is going
Can
communicate vision, strategy direction
Don’t
guess, make evidence based decisions
5.
Lead systematic change
o
Learn how to inspire
o
Connect to current activities
o
Engagement is better than demanding
o
Inspire confidence in change. Teachers should be
encouraged to own change. Teachers need to develop the courage to change.
6.
Drive performance with passion
o
Evidence of progress inspire and engage
o
Take risks
o
Can lead across and deliver within
The evidence
has shown that “Teachers have little impact on standardized test results but
have much more on lives of students”
School
should be the hub for learning in the community – hub for community bared
problem solving. This will help the school develop its adaptive capacity as a
school
Most
important take-a ways from Dr Murgatroyd discussion for school leaders were:
·
Listen and then engage, don’t tell and enable
·
Imagine a different and better future. A great
future
·
Deliver within and be passionate about learning
and teaching
·
Work is supposed to be fun. Never forget to laugh
at one’s self.
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