Connected Educators

October was "Connected Educators" month. I was invited to collaborate to on a project to develop an e-book with a group of highly motivated people, all who have a interest in education based here in New Zealand.

The chapter I wrote is about the amazing opportunities that I have enjoyed through connecting with others through Twitter.

Enjoy the book!

Teacherpreneurs, Twitter and Transformation

Teacherpreneurs are considered to be highly effective, connected and resourceful educators who actively seek opportunities to grow their skills, collaborate, share best practice, ideas and research. They have a passion and determination to improve education in their setting and beyond. What excites me is that teacherpreneurs  can develop leadership opportunities to influence positive change  to education systems  for the better. With the incredible rise in technology and more demand for student agency the teacherpreneur can enable change to determine a more relevant curriculum for learners. These leaders create opportunities for educators to connect, share, grow their knowledge and expertise and influence education systems to be relevant to our students future roles in their communities. Teacherpreneurs cross oceans and cultures to make connection with other educators and advocate to transform curriculum. Their focus is to co create new learning that is relevant, authentic, personalised and technology rich, building on the diversity and strengths of all learners

October is Connected Educators  month globally and in Aotearoa, New Zealand. 
Connected Educator Month supports educators to thrive in a connected world. Sharing and collaboration centred on personalising learning needs and strengths across our country and global networks.

Thinking about Connected Educators month has prompted me to update my reflective blog and share my own personal experience about the power of connecting on Twitter and how Twitter has facilitated amazing learning and  incredible experiences for me. Through Twitter I have connected with teacherpreneurs and innovative educational leaders from all over the world.

In 2013 I was a  new Twitter user. I only had a vague idea what it was about – but I set up an account for Freemans Bay School. I received a tweet from Lene Jensby Lange asking about our e-learning model at Freemans Bay School. Lene had checked out my principal’s blog and followed up with a couple of questions about our e-learning model

Lene is a founder of Autens Educational Design Consultancy in Denmark. This consultancy facilitates and leads innovation to support educational leaders to align their school vision with new and renovated school design.  I asked Lene if I could meet her in Denmark to discuss links between learning design and school design as part of my travel fellowship in 2014.  Not only did Lene agree, but she showed me around a whole lot of schools and organisations and I was able to stay with her and family in Copenhagen – where the conversations flowed into the night.

Since then we have been great twitter mates!  We often have tweet or Skype, problem solving and sharing perspectives and experiences. Networking with Lene led to being invited to become a member of the Global Schools Alliance.

GLOBAL SCHOOLS ALLIANCE (GSA)

The vision of GSA was developed by a group of global educators:

• David Price, OBE (member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire)
• Andrew Raymer (Founder and former Head of Matthew Moss UK)
• Dr. Steven Edwards (White House and World Bank advisor)

GSA aims to have innovative schools collaborate and be part of a learning community that will influence education systems across the world.

Lene Jensby Lange Co-ordinator Global Schools Alliance	Dr. Steven Edwards Co-founder Vega Schools Washington D.C., USA	Sandy Hooda Co-founder Vega Schools New Delhi, India

The GSA Founding members selected and evaluated progressive schools from for the Alliance. Member schools are considered highly effective and innovative in their respective countries. These schools agreed to bring their experience and knowledge to work together to improve the standards of education globally.

The vision of Global Schools' Alliance is to ensure children experience a better quality of education no matter where they live. Our mission is to collaboratively improve education that engages and empowers learners within the context of their culture and language.

The founding school leaders are from eight top-rated schools internationally.

• Muriel Summers, Principal, A.B. Combs Magnet Elementary School, Raleigh, USA
• Mark Moorhouse, Headteacher, Matthew Moss High School, Rochsdale, UK
• Natalie See, Principal, Hilltop Road Public School, Merrylands, AUS
• Allan Kjær Andersen, Principal, Ørestad Gymnasium, Copenhagen, DNK
• Sugandha Mathur Anand, Head of School, Vega Schools, Gurgaon, IND
• Sandra Jenkins, Principal, Freemans Bay School, Auckland, NZ
• Carl Jarvis, Executive Headteacher, EOS Teaching Alliance (Hartsholme & St. Giles Academies),    Nottinghamshire, UK

• Barbara Cavanagh, Principal, Albany Senior High School, Albany, NZ

The  GSA first symposium was held in October in New Delhi and was hosted by Vega School founder Sandy Hooda.

Although each school at the symposium was from a uniquely different part of the world we all shared a vision  of working together to promote rich, innovative and personalised education. You can see from the following table of participants the diversity represented. It was humbling as well as inspirational to be part of this GSA symposium.

Ni Putu Tirka Widanti (Ika) President Yayasan Kul Kul (Green School) Bali, Indonesia	Green School is located in Bali jungle. It focuses on fostering green/ enviro school thinking.
Jeffrey Holte Learning Coordinator Liger Learning Center Phnomh Penh, Cambodia	The Liger Learning Center, in the jungle in Cambodia, has one goal - to create change agents within their own country
Allan Kjær Andersen Principal Ørestad Gymnasium in Denmark	Ørestad Gymnasium (upper secondary school) has a framework for cross-disciplines and an extended use of IT-based learning by revolutionizing educational space in a structure without traditional classrooms
Melissa Daniels Founding Director High Tech Middle Chula Vista USA	High Tech High is a group of schools in San Diego, USA. These schools focus on effective use of technology and digital learning.
Andy Raymer former Head of School Matthew Moss High School Vega Schools Board Member Rochsdale, UK	Matthew Moss is the "most radical school in England" according to Professor David Hopkins and was featured in Innovation Unit's influential publication "10 Schools for the 21st Century". a highschool in UK Mathew Moass  has a focus on child centered education through project work.
Barbara Cavanagh Principal Albany Senior High School Auckland, New Zealand	Albany Senior High School has a focus on project based learning supported by coaching students to ensure the development of dispositions for learning and life
Sandra Jenkins Principal Freemans Bay Primary School Auckland New Zealand	Freemans Bay School has a curriculum design is focused on engaging, enriching and empowering learners.
Pawan Gupta Board Member Vega Schools Dehradun, India	http://www.ilpnet.org/PawanGupta Pawan Gupta is a historian, thought leader and expert on the spirit of India. Pawan has established village primary schools in the Himalayas utilising cultural and historical perspectives relevant to these school communities

During the conference we visited the Vega School construction site and will be watching the development of these schools with interest.

On the final night  of the symposium  we attended a large meeting where Vega Schools had invited parents, politicians and media from Delhi to hear about schools in Global Schools' Alliance. The meeting also included the state of Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma.

The sharing of each other’s school vision was inspirational and refuelled our shared commitment to lead education that ultimately builds on learners’ strengths and diversity to equip them to contribute positively to their communities.

My twitter journey has connected me with a range of committed  primary and secondary educators  from all over the world. Twitter has enabled me to be meet and be involved with inspirational educators and projects across the globe.

These global leaders of education are committed to  transformation of  education in their countries. Student agency is the common thread of these schools’ curriculum – all engage in projects in some form or other.  All are advocating  to break down the homogenous systems of education, based on ranking and one size fits all models and developing systems that will strengthen diversity and learners talents in an increasingly globalised world. All are from very different cultural, social and political contexts. They have a shared mission to influence education systems to give our learners the skills and dispositions needed for their future lives.The GSA leaders  have taken the concept of teacherpreneur to a new level.

Reference:

http://www.touchapp.co.uk/blog/2014/04/25/teacherpreneurs-the-leaders-of-future-education/

http://www.globalschoolsalliance.org/

Personalising learning spins our wheels

I love this  You Tube clip which is the work of  Sandy Hooda and the team of Vega School, Delhi. – It articulates their  personalised learning values and vision very well. I am sure that a lot of people will find it very useful to promote discussion and thinking about ways to enact their schools vision for personalising learning. It also gives a bit more detail on the Global Schools Alliance. Freemans Bay School is a recent member to this alliance and as you can see the GSA has some real visionary educationists in their  organisation. I am really looking forward to meeting and having some rich dialogue with them in October in Delhi at the new Vega School that is in this Your Tube clip.

Our New Zealand  Ministry of Education is promoting  their property policy now called Innovative Learning Environments.  Its a useful link, also thought provoking for anyone who is embarking on school design. I like the notion that values and vision around education is becoming part of the picture painted by our policy makers. However the development of the schools learning vision and  plan to transition towards the vision also needs strong leadership, resourcing and support. 

The educational and political context is a little different in NZ than the countries and schools that Sandy Hooda includes on the above Veda School video clip. We don’t have SATS like they do in UK. Schools in New Zealand are self-managing and develop their own curriculum. Freemans Bay School has no schemes or exams. Many schools in New Zealand have no schemes – but if they are into that and it spins their wheels – they have them. As a school leader I always get rid of them – I have been burning school schemes since the 1980s! We also have no text books  to damage learners spines as they are carried backwards and forwards to schools in backpacks.

Our secondary assessment system,  NCEA, is flexible and personalised for the learner. Our teaching and learning can be more project based and integrated as we don’t have the pressure of national exams from an early age. Its all about differentiation, visible learning and personalisation.  There are a lot of schools into a more project or inquiry  based curriculum  now in NZ. Schools such as Albany Senior and Hobsonville Point are leading the way in this area. There are now more secondary schools with a project based lens on their curriculum in New Zealand, than there were 10 years ago.

I think it is heartening  that our Government is giving stronger leadership around school design to the education sector. Note that the learning zones do not include subject based classrooms, instead they have learning zones or  hubs where personalised learning takes place with specialist areas provided for subjects that need these spaces.  Many school leaders are  trying to influence the Government to resource schools to articulate and develop their learning vision – and resource schools to develop strategic plans to achieve this.

I think the Ministry of Education property pages on their website is a great start to assist schools with their journeys towards a more personalised and innovative curriculum – they promote lead schools with  great practice to others in New Zealand and linking it to education values, culture, collaboration and making culture. 

Innovative Learning Environments is our Ministry of Educations policy. So if you are building a new school or remodelling – it has to be a ILE by design. The next steps would be  to resource the change management needed, otherwise bookshelves will be used to make walls and separated classroom spaces and teachers will do what they have always done and they will get what they have always got.

A Innovative Learning  review tool was posted on CORE Education site recently. This is a good place to start for school leaders to review where they are at and where they are heading. However we would get greater traction to a modern national curriculum if the Ministry resourced the education vision development as part of the project.

Finally as a foot note, we made the cover story of our Education Gazette. 

Our students wanted a safe place to ride their bikes in the city and here they are enjoying our new facility.

They helped to design the track and now are working out how it can be used during the day.

Involving students to make decisions about their learning environment really spins our wheels at Freeman Bay School.

Dream Big and Be Brave

We are feeling quite frustrated with the time that it is taking for the the design process of our new school, to become a reality. We have been at master design process now for two years.  As a learning community we need to keep moving and changing to develop our teaching and learning to support the transition to our new school buildings or as if we are already in our new school buildings.

We started with wondering how could the current buildings be reconfigured in a way that they would support collaboration, personalising learning and flexibility.How could we create spaces in the interim that could be rearranged to support collaboration, experimentation and innovation?  Could the current spaces be tweaked so that teachers and learners could move around, have choices on where they could learn? How could we move from regular classrooms with desks and a white board which designated the front of the room to spaces that lend themselves to interdependent, co-operative, presentation areas and a range of gathering spaces?

We were brave! We knocked out walls and created spaces for teams of teachers to collaborate.

The first space we did this with created a learning zone from two old classrooms - we just pushed back the sliding doors and two teachers of Year 3 and Year 4 students worked together. 
The biggest challenge in this space was the acoustics. We added soft furniture and lined the open trusses and this treatment has improved the sound issue. 

The next thing we did was to knock a hole in the wall of another two classrooms - this also created a second space where two teachers could collaborate. Continuing to utilise the premise of Fullan's idea of "Value what you Value" - those teachers who were prepared to work in these spaces were able to choose different furniture to experiment with. This was on the understanding that they would remove their teacher desks and several other pieces of furniture on the "less is more," philosophy. Note the fantastic igloo that these classes have built out of recycled milk containers - as their cave space!  All the furniture in these spaces can be easily shifted so you can have all 60 students together for presentations. Full wireless, AV and interactive white boards, with the addition of mobile TV maximize the impact for students learning and there is a lively learning buzz in these remodelled spaces.

Now look at what we have just done in this term break. This strategy  is even more radical and I think very bold. See the class doors and panels in these learning areas - well they have been removed. Actually 3 classroom entry sections have been removed out of 5 classroom sections in total.

We have created super learning spaces! There are 5 or 6 teachers working in these spaces with up to 180 students. We have essentially created a space that can work for teams of 3 or 2 or across 5 or 6 teachers. The wireless access has also been upgraded and the year 5 and year 6 students have moved to "Bring Your Own Device for Learning". However we already have a ratio of 1:2 computer devices across the school.

The teachers in these super spaces will now trial different ways in how to  utilise the spaces available will add value to the learners experience. They will be exploring the opportunities the new environment provides. Linking back to Fullan's ideas in the previous post - this is a serious physical restructuring that will enable the school vision around learning to be stretched  by teams of teachers and learners. 

The teachers will have opportunities to explore how other schools with super-sized - spaces have utilised their enviroment to support learning. They are also encouraged to reflect on the range of research that is available.

Initially they have been encouraged to discuss the following within their teams:

• What are their agreed ways of working as a team?
• Consider different ways of collaboration, which will they be utilising?
•   -  Co-teaching Models
• Will different areas be utilised for different purposes?  If so what furniture will be needed?
• Learning Studios
• Caves, Campfires and Watering Holes
• Learning Settings
•  Where are the GO TO spaces
• ·         For all?
• ·         For half?
• ·         For teacher groups?
• ·         For a quiet space?
• ·         For working in groups of twos or threes?
• How will students be grouped to support their learning?
• How will student learning be tracked and supported?

They have also been encouraged to look at this work Professor Stephen Heppell which I thought was quite practical and inspiring. Also this  of Melissa Heppells teaching space at IPACA. This will help to visualise different learning spaces and ideas to build on.

These teachers have agreed  to develop their use of spaces in different ways over time. They are all excited about the possibilities. It will be an interesting journey which I will be able to focus on writing about. This will be a real test of the idea that the environment is the third teacher. In our case we are testing the waters as we take our learning vision "Engage, Enrich, Empower" to a new level. We are certainly dreaming big and being very bold and brave in our latest transition strategies.

What are your thoughts about these strategies? Do you believe the environment is an enabler to driving learning vision? Have you any suggestions to share? I look forward to your comments.

Where to start? Extend What you Value!

I always remember reading in one of Fullan's leadership article "Visions That Blind" the statement,  "Extend what you value".

Fullan quotes Shein, (1985) observation "The process of developing collaborative work cultures is complex. It requires great sophistication for school leaders: to express their own values without being imposing; to draw out other peoples values and concerns; to manage conflict and problem solving; to give direction and to be open at the same time".

I often think we feel locked into organisational systems in terms of the way that we do things, and that these ways often go back to how schools were organised in the 1960s or back in even further. We need to rethink last years  organisational structures in our schools to align with what we want to happen today, to drive our vision around personalizing learning to a reality.

In the article above Fullan expresses the need  to have recruitment action to allow for the development of leading collaborative culture in schools. He contends that teacher professional development based on collaboratively developing the school vision is required in the short and long term. This will allow the development of a collective understanding of the learning vision of the school. The areas of focus he suggests are:

• collaborative inquiry
• reflective practice
• growing technical expertise
• restructuring 

A key organisational event that ticked the boxes above that we employed was to create a new leadership position where the school leader, with prestige of salary and release from classroom teaching would lead professional learning and e-learning (blended learning) throughout the school. Effectively this school leader would map the professional learning, curriculum and ICT use in the school. This was an unusual move for a school in New Zealand of under 400 students at the time. It was pivotal to the first restructure of our infrastructure to support strengthening collaboration and personalising learning and coherence around our vision development. 

We decided a good place to start was to define what we want in terms of teaching and learning. What would that look like if it was in place in every learning area of our school. 

This professional learning collaborative inquiry is ongoing.  The model involves collaborative inquiry, reflective practice, growing technical expertise and restructuring. This professional learning model has developed a strong sense of purposeful teaching and learning practice which has led to new ways of organising teaching and learning. This has supported the process of redesigning old spaces, structures and practices that support our vision of "Engage, Enrich and Empower".

This infrastructure change and inquiry based professional learning is a strong transition component for readiness to move into our new buildings in the future. It also led to other innovative organisational and physical changes that support  transition and coherence of our school vision. These I will explore in the next few posts. I look forward to your thoughts.

  

Organizational culture and leadership: A dynamic view, by Edgar H. Schein. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1985,

Transition to new learning spaces

In 2010 at Freemans Bay School we demolished a large subsiding classroom block and replaced it with a new two story block. Each of these new learning zones has five classrooms based on a studio style with the classrooms surrounding around a large shared space. 

The remaining school buildings have since been identified as past their use by date for various reasons and we are now at design stage to rebuild the rest of Freemans Bay School. The school will basically be a new school and the only buildings that will remain are the ones completed in 2010. This will include 5 learning zones for up to 90 students each, library, administration block, hall  and the outdoor spaces associated with the buildings.

Rebuilding the whole school and creating a new school, staging the demolition, keeping the school running while the building project is in process is a challenge in itself. However the biggest challenge is leading the change management process to align teaching and learning practices with the school vision.

Our school vision of "Engage, Enrich, Empower" underpins our plan to align teaching practice and school vision to innovative learning environments that ensure that students have the skills to be successful in the 21st century. This is a priority for the school and for our leadership team.

I am also interested in influencing our Ministry of Education's national policy and processes that would give traction to aligning teacher practice with design purpose. It makes sense to me to have an educational lens over every stage of the process, including the technical discussions. I believe that schools need to be supported to develop their teaching and learning vision so that their is a readiness to make it happen prior to the shift into the new buildings. The Ministry of Education needs to explore their infrastructure, policy and resourcing to enable this to happen.

I have decided to do a series of posts on my blog to describe and reflect on what we are doing at Freemans Bay School to support our learning communities  transition to their new innovative learning spaces - even though the time frame for them moving into the new learning spaces is probably two years away. 

I am hopeful that some of the followers may join in and make comments for some interactive dialogue. I look forward to utilising this blog to articulating my thinking and to having some sharing from others involved in similar processes.

Global Schools Alliance

I recently had an interesting email from the New Zealand High Commissioner's office in Delhi inviting me to accept and invitation for Freemans Bay School to become a member  of The Global Schools Alliance. 

This is an organisation that was established in 2014 with members from all over the world. These educationalists agree to share practice to support other progressive thinking schools in their journeys to provide education that is personalised, innovative, authentic and relevant to their learners.

The current schools involved are: 

AB Combs School, USA - rated No 1 Magnet School in the United States of America. Each child's journey is mapped for success in the real world based on the timeless principles of Steven Covey's "7 habits of highly successful people". 

Matthew Moss School, UK - ranked by Innovation Unit (UK Govt) amongst the top 10 schools (of the 21st century) in the world. Is known for its ability to align learning (through projects) with individual passions of children.

EOS Teaching Alliance, UK - Hartsholme Academy, member EOS, is rated as the most innovative primary school in the UK. Vega is a member of the EOS Teaching Alliance. 

Hilltop Road Public School, Australia - A 'learning frontiers' school that leads in embedding technology in Teaching & Learning, awarded NSW School Cohesive Awards for strong community links.

Ørestad Gymnasium, Denmark -  an award winning Scandinavian school that constantly tests new ways of organizing teaching and uses modern technology to support it. Also among the top 10 schools (of the 21st century) in the world. 

I have been spending a bit of time learning about these schools.This is an interesting clip that explains thinking from Mathew Moss School around "Slow Learning" at their school.

I can see connections with what we do at Freemans Bay School - particularly around our Passion project learning. Definitely links to personalising learning and student choice. 

It is amazing to have this opportunity to connect with The Alliance is an opportunity to connect with like-minded schools across the globe.  It will be a new journey to explore the thinking and  the journeys of these schools and their leaders.