Leadership for learning and school improvement

Professor Louise Stoll London Centre for Leadership in Learning

UCL Institute of Education louise@louisestoll.com

Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training National School Improvement Conference

3-4 February 2015

Outline

o Learning, school improvement, capacity for learning and the role of professional learning communities (PLCs)

o Leading PLCs within and

between schools to enhance learning and school improvement

Views of learning

Learning = being taught Learning = individual sense-making Learning = building knowledge through doing things with others

Watkins (2005)

…the process through which experience causes permanent change in knowledge or behaviour. Woolfolk et al (2012)

School Improvement Mutually supportive processes and policies at all levels of the system which enhance all pupils’ learning experiences and outcomes, and build professionals’ individual and collective capacity to take charge of change and sustain learning

7 Survival Skills

Critical thinking and problem solving

Collaboration across networks leading by influence

Agility and adaptability

Initiative and entrepreneurship

Effective oral and written communication

Accessing and analysing information

Curiosity and imagination

Wagner (2008)

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

4 Cs

Creativity

Critical thinking

Communication

Collaboration

Fadal (2012)

7 research-informed principles of learning to guide development of learning environments for the 21st century

Based on OECD - Dumont, Istance and Benavides (2010)

Learners at the centre

Social nature of learning

Emotions are integral

Recognising individual

differences Stretching

all students

Assessment for learning

Building horizontal

connections

…the kind of education needed today requires teachers to be high-level knowledge workers who constantly advance their own professional knowledge as well as that of their profession.

Istance and Vincent-Lancrin with Van Damme, Schleicher and

Weatherby (OECD, 2012)

Capacity

. . . allows [people] routinely to learn from the world around them and apply their learning to new . . . situations so that they continue on a path toward their goals, even though the context is ever-changing.

Stoll and Earl (2003)

Great to excellent

Fostering learning communities among teachers

OECD Teaching in Focus 2013/14

Countries could use professional development to effectively and efficiently build professional learning communities in schools

Who are they?

inclusive, trusting, mutually supportive groups of people within and between schools, municipalities, regions, directorates etc

reflective, challenging and growth-oriented

Why do they do it?

to enhance all pupils’ learning PLC is not an end in itself – it is a means to the ultimate purpose

What do they do?

investigate, learn more about and deepen their practice

develop cultures of collaboration – deprivatise their practice

How do they make a difference?

by creating new knowledge and developing their capacity, including teacher effectiveness through their collective responsibility for pupils’ and colleagues’ learning

Professional learning communities

Leading professional learning communities within and between schools to enhance

learning and school improvement

The more the student becomes the teacher and the more the teacher becomes the learner, then the more successful are the outcomes.

Hattie (2009)

1. Promoting evidence-enriched collaborative enquiry that leads to powerful professional learning

FOCUSING What does our focus need to be?

DEVELOPING A HUNCH What is leading to this situation?

LEARNING How and where can we learn more about what to do? TAKING

ACTION What will we do differently?

CHECKING Have we made

enough of a difference?

SCANNING What’s going on for our

learners?

Spirals of Inquiry: for equity and quality

Halbert and Kaser (2013)

Common and interconnected elements of national R&D themes enquiry models

Stoll (2015 in press)

The report containing this will be available

later in February – see:

https://www.gov.uk/the-national-research-and-development-network

Great professional development challenges thinking as a fundamental part of changing practice

Stoll, Harris and Handscomb (2012)

The result of professional learning isn’t only visible in changes in practice but also “in one’s thinking about the how and why of that practice” Kelchtermans (2004)

Intentional interruption

Katz and Dack (2013)

To what extent does professional learning in your school(s) challenge teachers’ thinking? How do you know?

Deliberate practice is purposeful in that it seeks to improve performance by focusing on specific elements.

Stobart (2014)

What opportunities do

teachers have to practise their new learning together?

2. Stimulating learning conversations to animate, deepen, exchange, create and circulate knowledge

Depth of talk in social networks of maths teachers Talk related to one or more of:

Coburn and Russell (2008)

Low

Medium

High

How to coordinate text, standards, assessment, pacing guides; how to organise the classroom; sharing materials or activities; general discussion of how a lesson went or whether students were ‘getting it’

How lesson went, including why; detailed planning, including discussing why; specific = detailed discussion of whether students were learning (but not how they learn); discussing teaching strategies in the context of observations; doing maths problems with discussion

Talk related to one or more of the following pedagogical principles underlying teaching and learning approaches; how students learn, or the nature of students’ mathematical thinking; mathematical principles or concepts

What is the depth of talk between: teachers in your school(s)?

[Shallow]

[Deep]

Work settings are language communities . . . All leaders are leading language communities. Though every person, in every setting, has some opportunity to influence the nature of the language, leaders have exponentially greater access and opportunity to shape, alter or ratify the existing language rules.

Kegan and Lahey (2001) How the Way We Talk

Can Change the Way We Work

Reflection that challenges thinking

Knowledge creation

Intentional action/change

Learning conversations

External knowledge – research, data and

other great practice

Practitioner ‘tacit’

knowledge

Stoll and Brown (2015)

Learning conversations

Ealing Professional Learning Community reviewer feedback form

Area and focus of enquiry:

What do you see, hear, think is going on for students?

So what conditions for learning or adult behaviours facilitate what is going on?

Summary comment for end of day feedback – what key strengths could the school build on to further develop learning?

www.ealing.gov.uk

Animating external research knowledge

o helps practitioners encounter research in manageable units of meaning and in accessible, varied formats

o presents evidence in ways that:

capture interest stimulate exploration of topics

and issues deepen engagement aid reflection help people articulate tacit knowledge, beliefs aid social processing by feeding conversations stimulate collaborative learning and enquiry

Stoll and Brown (2015)

What are the most effective ways you have found to move around (circulate) great practice and knowledge about it?

3. Being creative and encouraging creativity

Leadership for 21st century learning

Demonstrating creativity and often courage

OECD (2013)

When do you feel you are at your most creative? What helps you?

Conditions for promoting and nurturing the creativity of colleagues

Comfort zone

Learning zone

Panic zone

Senninger (2000)

When did you last learn something that took you out of your comfort zone into the learning zone?

4. Developing change catalysts

o Influential middle/teacher leaders

o Supported by senior leaders

o R&D programme to explore and develop leadership, design, test out and refine impact tools working with colleagues within and across schools

http://www.lcll.org.uk/middle

-leaders-change-

catalysts.html

http://www.lcll.org.uk/research-learning-communities.html

Improved teacher practice

Pupil learning,

engagement and success

Professional learning

5. Having a theory of action – starting with the end in mind

Argyris and Schön (1978) Earl ad Katz (2006)