Category: Collaboration

When It Comes to Learning, What Does Success Mean?

1/10/2019

Welcome back to Flipping the Focus.

In the last post, I posed a number of questions for our consideration--some of them pertaining to student voice (below).

How do we come to know our students? What lessons do they bring?

Today, we continue to surface examples where change--real change--can be inspired and driven by student voice.

A) Introduction
In recent years, we’ve been hearing about and espousing the importance of having and enacting a growth mindset. A growth mindset, according to Dweck (2006) is based on the belief that intelligence is not fixed...that each person can move beyond their current level of skill through hard work and determination. Developing this mindset goes beyond belief: it manifests in how we respond to challenges and setbacks.

Generally, those with a growth mindset are curious to stretch themselves by learning something new: success is borne of their efforts to confronting challenges and making progress. Feelings of success are drawn just as much--if not more--from the process of learning than its results.

Getting ‘there’...towards success...requires that students have a clear understanding of the criteria for success; contribute to their construction; and have opportunities to putting them into action. Equally- important and coincident with their use is the opportunity to receive descriptive feedback from teachers and peers and to engage in self-assessment against these criteria. With ongoing, descriptive feedback, students are better able to monitor their progress towards learning goals--making adjustments, accordingly, and subsequently, are positioning themselves to setting new goals (Growing Success, 2010).

The very nature of “Getting ‘there’” is derived from Formative Assessment and ”...requires a culture in which student and teacher learn together in a collaborative relationship” (Growing Success, p30). The reciprocal relationship, as described through the example of co-constructing criteria (above) can also be grown, in part, by encouraging students to persevere through their own learning processes (some of these, experimental) and talking about challenges as they arise (Student Voice, 2013).

Paul Tough (2012) shares that teaching and mentorship can help students achieve a shift in their mindset through the use of skills like critical thinking and problem solving. For example, metacognition--the process of thinking about how one learns--can be empowering to students, helping them to increase their engagement for continuous learning.

The experimental nature of collaboratively setting, working towards and reflecting upon goals is a common means by which districts, schools and classrooms are making gains in achievement, increasing student engagement and supporting student well-being across Ontario. Modeling this process, on a smaller scale--i.e., at the student-level--can prove to have the same impact on a student’s learning; set an example for a student’s peers; and inform school-level improvement planning (Flipping the Focus 2018a, 2018b). Drawn from Ontario’s Well-Being Strategy (2016), engaging in collaborative inquiry can equitably and respectfully support the cognitive and emotional domains of all students--each student presenting different backgrounds, strengths, needs and interests.

B) A Collaborative Inquiry into Developing a Growth Mindset
In early December (2018), Chris Harrison (@MrCHarrison) and I engaged the #MTBoS (MathTwitterBlogosphere; image, below) in ideating strategies that would support one of his students. This student--very high-achieving in Mathematics--was struggling with responding to performance setbacks.

Beyond the #MTBoS, as colleagues both from the Upper Canada DSB, we began to generate ideas of how we could leverage collaborative problem solving to supporting the development of his student’s non-cognitive skills--in particular, resiliency. The anticipated result is to support the student in being better equipped to responding to performance setbacks. As mentioned in the introduction, this type of work is grounded in inquiry and is best framed using a monitoring process known as a Cycle of Inquiry (Ideas into Action, 2013). Cycles of Inquiry are broken down into four, key phases: Plan, Act, Assess, and Reflect.

Through these phases, documentation of student learning is used to guide conversations about how the inquiry is progressing and if adjustments need to be made moving forward. And through the involvement of a variety of collaborators, the learning from such an inquiry is not only a benefit to the student but can be far-reaching--i.e., supporting the learning of the student's peers, school-level teaching practices and both teaching and learning abroad.

C) Resources to Supporting Your Inquiry

In the next part of this post, you'll have access to some resources that you can adapt to empowering students to using their voice in school improvement practices. If you have questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to contact Flipping the Focus (see right).

CONTACT

BOOK CHRIS

Each conversation, along with the in-between work of such an inquiry, is framed in the context of student improvement. Coincident with recognizing a student’s learning needs is that our own: the process also helps you to determine how to best provide support while honoring student voice.

Resource: Appendix A-Student Success Inquiry

DOWNLOAD-APPENDIX A

Resource: Appendix B-Student Monitoring Template

DOWNLOAD-APPENDIX B

D) Final Thoughts

In closing, I hope that you find the shared resources helpful and, in advance, I would like to thank you for sharing your insights. I can't help but to think of the conversations that can be inspired when we take collective action to improving student learning.

As this blog is a means for readers to network and gradually change the context for how they teach and learn, we all benefit by drawing nearer to the perspectives shared here and shared beyond with our professional learning networks.

I am more than happy to collaborate with you and make our learning visible, here, in this blog and across Flipping the Focus' social media platforms, as well as your own.

Contact Flipping the Focus to see how we can work together towards achieving your goals.

CONTACT

BOOK CHRIS

Professionally Yours,

Chris Stewart, OCT
Education Lead, Flipping the Focus, (c) 2018

E) References

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books.

Tough, P. (2012). How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character. London: Arrow Books.

Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting in Ontario’s Schools: Grades 1 to 12. (2010). Toronto: Ministry of Education.

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2013). Ideas Into Action: For School and System Leaders (Bulletin #5 - Using Data: Transforming Potential into Practice). Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/leadership/ideasintoactionbulletin5.pdf

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2016, May). Ontario's Well-Being Strategy: Discussion Paper. Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/about/WBDiscussionDocument.pdf

Ontario Ministry of Education, Literacy & Numeracy Secretariat. (2013). Student Voice: Transforming Relationships (34th ed., Capacity Building Series, pp. 1-8).

Stewart, C. (2018a, February 13). Students as Researchers [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://flippingthefocus.weebly.com/blog/category/students-as-researchers

Stewart, C. (2018b, March 2). Creating Conditions for Occasioning Thinking & Supporting Student Well-Being in Mathematics Classrooms [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://flippingthefocus.weebly.com/blog/creating-conditions-for-occasioning-thinking-supporting-student-well-being-in-mathematics-classrooms

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A message of thanks & gratitude for collaborative, professional learning in education

5/18/2018

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Welcome back to Flipping the Focus.

As evidenced by the blogposts made this schoolyear by Flipping the Focus, there has been a tremendous amount of work, productive challenge, learning, and impact from professional learning for myself, colleagues, school teams, and our district--all of it made possible by the collaborative professionalism exhibited by each of the "lateral units" of the instructional core one finds in Ontario's School Effectiveness Framework (2013; image below, PDF embedded for webviewing). A list of links to these posts has been provided for your convenience in the final section of this post.

With a clear vision articulated by both the Ministry of Ontario and our district of Upper Canada, leadership committees, schools and their learning teams have leveraged autonomy, choice, time, and instructional leadership to crafting and following collaborative inquiries in service of meeting both provincial and district calls to action--working to improve student achievement and well-being.

Ontario's School Effectiveness Framework

The Instructional Core

School Effectiveness Framework

Video: Voices From the Field

Below, I encourage you to view the video, "Voices From the Field"--a great example of how the Upper Canada DSB (UCDSB) is responding to this call.

"Voices From the Field" summarizes deep reflections from UCDSB teachers & administrators regarding system-wide, continuous school improvement in the teaching and learning of mathematics. The video chronicles educators' experiences with school-level improvement practices through the lens of whole-school approaches to school improvement, supporting the vision of the mathematics learner, building math community, and growing success through assessment.

Following viewing, I invite you to ask questions and/or comment on highlights from your own district's improvement practices. Comment on this post and/or use the "Contact" form provided on this page.

A Note on Collaborative Professionalism

On the note of collaborative professionalism, and in the spirit of continuously providing authentic experiences for readers (thanks for your subscription to learning together through this platform), I thought that I would close out this year's formal learning with a personal note of thanks and gratitude. This note will be shared with the network of teachers, administrators, and teams that I have had the privilege of serving this 2017-18 schoolyear.

I encourage you to take some time to share your thanks and gratitude for the professional (and personal) relationships you have in your educational "circle."

All the best for a great year-end and a safe & relaxing Summer.

Sincerely & Professionally Yours,

Chris Stewart, OCT
Learning Partner, UCDSB
Student Achievement Officer (New-Sep 2018; granted leave by the UCDSB to the Ministry of Education, Ontario)

Letter: A Message of Gratitude & Thanks for Collaborative Professionalism in Learning

Hello Everyone.

I wanted to take a few moments to share with you a message of gratitude and thanks—a message regarding our collaborative professionalism in learning.

I believe that we are better together. Our best ideas come through consistent and ongoing collaboration.

In part, talking with you about the teaching and learning that goes on in your classrooms is at the heart and soul of what I've been able to do as a Learning Partner. And on the other hand, collaboration has also come from both planned and serendipitous moments in the classroom, as students shared their thinking with us, and in our shared experiences through learning teams and participation in system-wide professional learning days (e.g., Renewed Math Strategy (RMS) Days). In these moments, I found that there was nothing more satisfying and productive than deciding how we, including our students, would respond to moving learning forward.

In closing, it has been a pleasure learning with you and your students this year.

Although we are not yet there, please accept my best wishes to you, your colleagues and families for a great summer. All the best for next year, as you continue to dig deeper—digging in as a system and school teams to exploring the intersection of the physical, mental, social and emotional domains of learning and how, together, we can further improve student achievement, engagement and well-being.

Although I will be in a different role moving forward (new Student Achievement Officer in the Ottawa Region; on secondment to the Ministry of Education), please feel free to reach out with questions and sharing what you would like to learn/have been learning. I deeply value the relationships we have built thus far, and as I stated earlier: ...we are better together. Our best ideas come through consistent and ongoing collaboration.

Sincerely Yours,

Chris Stewart

Blogposts re: Professional Learning in Education - 2017/18

Feb 2017 - REFLECTION & ACCOUNTABLE TALK: POWERFUL DRIVERS TO ENHANCING STUDENT & TEACHER LEARNING (PART 2/2)

June 2017 - LEARNING TO LEAD, LEADING TO LEARN (PART 1/3)

Aug 2017 - LEARNING TO LEAD, LEADING TO LEARN (PART 2/3)

Jan 2018 - LEARNING TO LEAD, LEADING TO LEARN (PART 3 OF 3): EXPLORING THE ROLE OF STUDENT VOICE IN SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PRACTICES

Feb 2018 - GETTING TO & ENACTING OUR 'HOW': COLLABORATIVE SPACES FOR OCCASIONING THINKING ABOUT SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

Mar 2018 - CREATING CONDITIONS FOR OCCASIONING THINKING & SUPPORTING STUDENT WELL-BEING IN MATHEMATICS CLASSROOMS

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getting to & enacting our 'How': collaborative spaces for occasioning thinking about school improvement

2/13/2018

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A) Introduction

Welcome back to Flipping the Focus.

In the last post, you encountered a thinking framework or theory of action that not only identified a deep sense of purpose and passion, but also highlighted how to deliver on its values and sample tools to do so. Today's post builds upon the last, providing individual practitioners, schools and districts another framework that can be leveraged for continuous improvement to student achievement, well-being and equity.

To begin, let's review a concept from the world of business and marketing that can be re-purposed to implementation and monitoring for system-wide improvement: the "Golden Circle."

B) Knowing & Understanding Your 'Why'

The "Golden Circle" by Simon Sinek

Now that you've viewed the video, it's time to make some connections with others to practice. Using the Comments Section here at Flipping the Focus (below), share your perspectives and discuss what resonates with you.

Here are a couple of prompts to get the discussion going:

i-What are your takeaways (affirmations, learning)? What's important for you to carry forward?

ii-What are you wondering?

Seth Godin, author of Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, writes that it's important for leaders to have and convey their vision/passion for growing their organization (their 'Why') and that it's also important they are committed and authentic to connecting with the members of their team...their 'tribe.'

In education, school and district goals constitute a larger, grand sense of purpose for improving achievement, well-being and equity (our 'Why'), but the real opportunity for improvement comes through our work to addressing the 'How.'

For example, if a district goal is to have most classes engaging in making their thinking visible (i.e., strategy for getting to improvement), then there must be a plan and process developed and addressed in an ongoing manner for addressing 'How.'

C) Getting to & Enacting Your 'How'

As a leader, it's critical that we connect with our team members, by doing the work <=> learn by doing and that we help by connecting members of the team. In essence, we are culturing a learning community and a community of learners for school improvement.

Using frameworks for collaborative study and action-based/classroom-embedded activities is a means (i.e., 'What') by which we can occasion thinking about our plans and actions--i.e., assessing our moves and reflecting to inform next steps to meeting goals. Collaboratively planning, acting, assessing and reflecting, in a cyclical manner, are key components to the 'How' of school improvement (diagrammed, below).

D) Tools & Resources to Supporting Your 'What'

To help frame and lead conversations concerning the various aspects of your 'How' (i.e., getting to reflection of cyclical improvement process), we require 1) research-informed information that we can relate to practice ('Act' of cyclical improvement process), 2) collaborative learning activities for professional practice ('Act'), and 3) actions and tools to help monitor our progress (i.e., we need to have data to lead conversations about student learning and well-being; 'Assess' of cyclical improvement process).

For example, there is a plethora of research-informed resources that can be used to help facilitate group and individual, professional learning in Mathematics. Below, you'll see and have access to an interactive infographic that highlights current, key researchers and resources to pay attention to during your collaborative study. To access these sources, hover over the various areas of the graphic and click to access the embedded links.

1-Summary of "Achieving Excellence in Teaching & Learning Mathematics: A Synthesis of Approaches to Supporting Student Achievement, Equity & Well-Being Through Mathematics K to 12" (Interactive Graphic)

In short, I would recommend that you begin by examining the resources connected to the "Pedagogical System." From here, you have several choices dependent upon your team's chosen area of study (Caveat 1: Much like you'll uncover with the Pedagogical System, there is interdependency for these areas of study).

With "Visible Learning," you have the opportunity to review practices that have the most impact upon teaching & learning--classroom discourse, self-assessment, and teacher clarity are examples of strategies that have higher effect sizes. Professor John Hattie (below) speaks extensively about learning goals (i.e., intentions, targets) and success criteria. He explains that learning goals are not about 'the task' and that success is not what happens at the end of a learning period. In fact, students need to create success criteria, as supported by their teacher. Further to this need, Hattie also identifies that it is important for students to develop conceptual understanding in math, then to apply strategies for efficiency. As a means of developing understanding, teachers are more likely to name-and-notice strategies for/with their students--i.e., strategies that can be applied for efficiency. As far as pedagogical practice is concerned, pre-tasks are key to understanding students' prior knowledge so that you can start anticipating what success can look like for students. Student success can be made visible early on, and you'll find that you'll need to vary your strategies to determine if students authentically understand and can demonstrate their learning.

For "Classroom Discourse," take a close look at the work and resources of Lucy West (Metamorphosis Learning Communities). There is a significant interdependence of accountable talk, learning goals/success criteria, and the pedagogical system (mentioned, above).

In mathematical communities of practice (Caveat 2: You will find that much of the pedagogical knowledge and practical 'moves' in, and in extension to, this post apply to all communities of practice), "Thinking Classroom" frameworks are growing, not only in popularity, but in their effect/impact upon the teaching and learning of Mathematics. I would highly recommend that you explore the possibility of beginning with some of Dr. Peter Liljedahl's 1st Year/Stage elements of thinking classroom design in your school(s)/district.

To help facilitate meaning-making in your thinking classrooms, take a look at the "5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions." Within this resource, you'll not only find good reason(s) for facilitating problem-based learning, but you'll also have access to some examples from teacher practice (Caveat 3: Embed the "5 Practices," "Thinking Classrooms," and "Classroom Discourse" into your improvement practices such that you're better able to address the interdependent attributes of the Pedagogical System).

Lastly, as a 'glue' that binds all things pedagogical, and I would argue as also helping us to maintain 'flow' in our own learning, are our formative assessment practices. To inform your formative assessment practices, take a close look at pages 33 to 36 of Ontario's Growing Success document, as well as the visual graphic provided from the #ucdsbmath "Assessment Loop", as you study the document. And in your leadership practices related to keeping the various aspects of your engagement of the Pedagogical System 'in play,' the following SIM K to 12 graphic (below; pdf for download) lends itself well to inviting reflection to formative assessment practices.

the_pedagogical_system_leadership_tool.pdf
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2-Collaborative Learning Activities for Professional Practice

Up to now, your school/district is well under way having identified an improvement goal, reflected upon data (including perceptual data), and is beginning/continuing to enact a cyclical plan to studying together. With the information provided in the previous section, what methods/activities are available to you and your teams for facilitating collaborative forms of study?

The document, below (pdf; available for download), is a synthesis of a #ucdsbmath document used during system-wide RMS (Renewed Math Strategy) study and Collaborative Professionalism
(Ministry of Education-Ontario PPM-159; further expounded by Dr. Lyn Sharatt). Exemplifying collaborative professionalism through leadership means that we are knowledgeable/know how learning happens, are able to mobilize knowledge/learning, and work to sustain growth incurred by collective efforts. There are a variety of activities that we can use to engage one another in collaborative learning, but I would put forth that we need to lean more into working with those that can sustain growth in our schools/districts. By examining the document, you'll notice that I've labeled the last two options--Leadership for Monitoring Team Learning & Leadership for Learning Team Practices--as being Growing-Sustaining factors.

sample_collaborative_learning_activities.pdf
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3-Enacting Collaborative Learning Activities: Occasioning Thinking & Taking Action to Exploring Pedagogical Practice

As you embark on exploring pedagogical practice, it's important that we do so with others. As mentioned in the section, above, collective development and sustaining growth as a team/school/district occurs when we can collaboratively monitor our progress. At the classroom level, this would look like documenting student thinking and re-purposing that documentation to helping students move their learning forward. At the school level, this process might involve a group (or groups) of practitioners cultivating and re-purposing student thinking, as elicited by exploring an agreed-upon pedagogical strategy, to planning next steps in the team's approach to helping students improve learning outcomes and minimizing variation within the school. Further along--i.e., in consideration of scale--districts can also follow the same process by engaging their schools in exploring and documenting efforts to solving a challenge to practice, co-facilitating data-lead conversations of school-level processes, and encouraging reflection and mobilizing findings to their district for helping to inform next steps at the school-level.

Despite challenges of scale, there is a great deal of congruence in the patterns and processes to improving teaching & learning. As far as collaborative activities are concerned, what you'll notice as being a unifying construct for moving any and all groups forward can be those practices that I've highlighted as being Growing-Sustaining--i.e., Leadership for Monitoring & Leadership for Team Practices.

Engaging the Pedagogical System Through Occasioning Thinking: The Thinking Classroom

As your team(s) begin(s) to explore challenges to practice with one another, students, and other teams (networked learning), a framework that can engage the interdependent attributes of the Pedagogical System and guide year(+)-long collaborative inquiries into improving student learning is that of a Thinking Classroom.

The document (pdf, below; available for download) I am providing represents a synthesis of both Pedagogical System and Thinking Classroom (Dr. Peter Liljedahl, Simon Fraser University) attributes. The thinking classroom elements serve the Pedagogical System, and although this tool has been organized as a 'checklist,' this list needs to be occasioned as criteria for success. That is, there is ample room for practitioners, teams, and districts to incorporate a variety of strategies to meeting these criteria.

By enacting a cycle of inquiry, with strategies (the 'What') aimed at students' occasioning thinking, you'll be engaging the Pedagogical System. And by documenting your process and assessing in relation to these criteria for success, your data-lead reflections will point to next steps for moving improvement efforts forward.

school_improvement_through_a_thinking_classroom_–_professional_learning_template_for_learning_teams__mathematics_.pdf
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Key Element to Building a Thinking Classroom for School Improvement: Classroom Discourse

If you examine John Hattie's list of effect sizes, you'll see that classroom discourse is reported to have an effect size of 0.82. In short, any strategy with effect size 0.40 is expected to occur with respect to maturation (i.e., with one year of learning). Thus, culturing a safe, discursive environment (albeit not the only teaching strategy being used, as the interdependency of high-yield strategies better serves students) has the potential for closing gaps in learning (e.g., the equivalent of two years of learning).

You'll also notice that both the thinking classroom framework and pedagogical system have significant and important reliance upon student discourse. To further help your team in addressing the 'What' of their improvement practices, I would encourage you to consider exploring developing accountable discourse with your students. Below, I've provided a synthesis of resources (Lucy West, "5 Practices to...," NCTM) into the form of a tool that I've also tried (implemented and assessed with students) within my own teaching practice (pdf; available for download).

srg_math_talk_observation_checklist.pdf
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As with the thinking classroom elements, the elements for culturing a classroom of discourse have been organized into a 'rating' system. This system needs to be occasioned as criteria for success. That is, there is ample room for practitioners, teams, and districts to incorporate a variety of strategies to meeting these criteria.

E) Some Final Thoughts: Growing Your Leadership & Networking at Flipping the Focus

An Emergent Leader: Growing Your Leadership

Throughout this post, I've use the word leadership. Typically, in an educational context, our minds might tend to think about our school-level leaders (principals and vice-principals). Not all that long ago, my system-level principal explained that you can lead no matter your position in the 'line-up'. If you're reading this post, and find yourself not in a leadership role, think again: you are, by informal nature, an emergent leader (ASCD) and you have lots of room to engage the pedagogical system in your own/team's/school's improvement practices--collectively setting goals and disciplining ourselves to occasioning collaborative work on an ongoing basis.

According to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD),...
-If you are more concerned about the journey towards a goal, rather than the goal itself, you are emerging in leadership.
-If you carve out your own path, inquiring as you go, you are an emerging leader.
-If you desire to work with others with varied backgrounds...each of you passionate and driven to improving achievement, equity and well-being for students in your school/district/province, you are an emerging leader.
-And if desire to serve others for the public good, you are an emerging leader. I hope that you are finding the information in this post helpful and that you will return to it, as you are looking to carve out a place in your school/district to lead as a collaborative professional. Remember: We need you to lead us (Seth Godin, Tribes).

Building & Supporting Your Professional Network: Getting Connected

As emerging leaders, remember that there are practitioners in various locations and in various roles who have a strong desire to frame their work through school improvement processes. What they have uncovered is that learning on behalf of others (Steven Katz & Lisa Ain Dack, Intentional Interruption: Breaking Down Learning Barriers to Transform Professional Practice) is a powerful means to growing collective capacity--i.e., growing both the confidence and efficacy to enact their collaborative professionalism to, as Seth Godin might say, motivate, connect and leverage the team members of their 'tribe.'

In conjunction to what you're doing individually and/or at the school level, getting connected to others of this 'tribe' might be as simple as following a particular hashtag (#) on Twitter and/or participating in on-line discussions (e.g., Twitterchats, commenting through this blog). You might also consider creating a backchannel to discussions you’re having in your own district. And if you're looking to connect with a smaller group of practitioners within and beyond your current location and/or role, I would invite you to consider registering with the Professional Learning Network (PLN) Finder (link/button, below; Form Results link to connect with other registrants).

If you'd like to start out by considering a more personalized interaction with Flipping the Focus, you can also connect via email (see the contact form, end of page). NEW to Flipping the Focus is a booking tool (Flipped PL) for professional learning experiences. Click on the link/button, below ("Book Now") to be re-directed to registering for your next professional learning event/experience.

Networking Option:
Flipped PLN Finder

PLN Finder - Register

Finder - Form Results

Professional Learning Option:
Booking with Flipped PL

F) Looking Ahead

In closing, I hope that you have not only found this post informative but supportive towards how you can better address your face-to-face time with students, colleagues, and/or network partners, as you engage in exploring school improvement practices that can be potential 'game-changers' for student achievement, equity and well-being.

Be sure to check the blog and/or website, periodically, for an advisory regarding a depository of the several tools & resources mentioned here (AND for a series of new tools) to help you in your instructional leadership journey with and towards school improvement.

Professionally Yours,

Chris Stewart, OCT
Learning Partner, Upper Canada District School Board
Founder & Educational Consultant, Flipping the Focus (copyright, 2018)

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learning to lead, leading to learn (part 2/3)

8/20/2017

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Welcome back to Flipping the Focus.

In the second post of this 3-part series, I will be sharing the culmination of my professional learning community (PLC) work done over the course of the last two years of informal leadership: Creating Dynamic & Collaborative Learning Communities in Education.

An introduction to this work is presented below. The full report, following the introduction, is presented in a document reader and has been attached as a pdf.

The foci for the posts in this 3-part series are as follows:

Part 1: My current position and learning regarding effective leadership (read more)
Part 2 (this post): Reporting on cycles of inquiry, co-leading a professional learning community (PLC), 2015-17
Part 3: Contemplating the future of/for school-level leadership

(This future piece of writing--Part 3--will most likely be broken down into two parts--both parts posted before the end of 2017. As I will be entering into a new leadership role in September (Learning Partner-Upper Canada DSB; helping to lead and support professional and student learning), I will be reflecting upon connections between my experiences and the competencies of Ontario's Leadership Framework.)

In advance, thank you for your readership and engagement in Flipping the Focus. I invite and encourage you to comment and provide feedback on the report provided: your contributions will help me along my journey into learning about the role of the principal and school-level leadership. Also, if something resonates with you, feel free to share your thinking, as it will contribute to the learning of others.

Thank you.

Sincerely & Collegially Yours,

Chris Stewart, OCT
Learning Partner-Upper Canada DSB, 2017-18

Report: Introduction to Creating Dynamic & Collaborative Learning Communities in Education

1.1-Innovation for Continuous School Improvement
Innovation. This is a term that continues to be espoused as an ingredient, vital to the continuous improvement of student learning. In fact, Fullan (2013) writes that “…when students experience innovative teaching practices, they are more likely to develop and demonstrate the skills needed for life and work.” And like many school districts (e.g., Upper Canada DSB), their mission is to prepare all students for a successful life.

It follows that not only should innovative teaching practices be defined, but that it is questioned as to how such practices can permeate school-level leadership (and teaching) for the benefit of professional educators and their students—ultimately, teachers and students need to make innovation their agenda.

When we consider innovative teaching practices, Hattie identifies several factors that have impact on improving teaching and learning (in Fullan, 2013). For example, teacher-related factors that result in better student performance include the following: expert knowledge and understanding of content, facilitating student learning to deeper outcomes, effective use of assessment (including guiding students to becoming better assessors of their own learning), paying attention to affective factors of learning, and validating impacts of teaching strategies on student learning.

With regards to Hattie’s research, it has been shown that teacher-related factors have the most profound effect on student learning, and to arrive at re-culturing school environments to embracing innovation, Robinson (2011) points to leaders having a significant impact. In fact, of the several actions that can be taken, leading teacher, professional learning is most important (effect size: 0.84) next to establishing goals/expectations and ensuring quality teaching (effect size: 0.42; both). And when leaders effectively engage in co-constructing conditions for teacher professional learning, Hargreaves has found that this dimension of school-level leadership has just as much impact upon student learning as teacher-related factors (presentation by Coulombe & Corlyon, 2017).

With this view on innovation in teaching and learning, and with district mandates for schools and professionals to consistently and effectively engage in continuous improvement, school administrators and teacher leaders have the important responsibility of not only mobilizing knowledge of these practices, but to earnestly work to culturing innovation in their schools. The larger question then, to help innovation permeate school culture, is...How?

How can school-level leadership work with their teachers to create a team-based approach to supporting and growing student engagement and achievement?

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When It Comes to Learning, What Does Success Mean?

A message of thanks & gratitude for collaborative, professional learning in education

getting to & enacting our 'How': collaborative spaces for occasioning thinking about school improvement

learning to lead, leading to learn (part 2/3)

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