EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP: ACEL CONFERENCE

“TEACHING IS A PROFESSION

OF HOPE”

I just got back from Darwin having attended the ACEL conference: Tipping Points-Courageous Actions Powerful Stories. ACEL organises annual conferences on educational leadership. This one was particularly good. The highlight of the conference was by far the keynote speakers, in particular Alma Harris, Viviane Robinson and Ben Levin, Patrick Duignan, Frank Crowther and the inimitable Andy Hargraves.

Some key points that stood out for me:

Alma Harris
Pro-Director (Leadership), Institute of Education,London; and Chair in Educational Leadership, London Centre for Leadership in Learning, England, UK

Leadership matters – but what type of leadership?
The quality of leadership is a key determinant of all highly effective and improving organisations (Townsend 2007)
Leadership is second only to classroom instruction as among all school-related factors that contribute to what students learn at school and their learning outcomes.

"the strategies that got you the improvement are different from the strategies that sustain the improvement"

Patrick Duignan

“No relationship no influence. No influence no relationship”

Most effective learning environments will have these characteristics:
· Customised learning
· Availability of diverse knowledge sources
· Collaborative group learning
· Assessment for deep understanding

“Do we value what we measure because we cannot really measure what we value?”

We can intellectualise it but we cannot do it. We can argue it and say we do it but often we can’t do it.

Viviane Robinson
Professor in the Faculty of Education, The University of Auckland, New Zealand
Ben Levin
Professor and Canada Research Chair at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto

Viviane and Ben participated in the conference debate. They challenged some of the current ideas that dominate policy and practice in educational leadership and discussed the issues that they see as critical to building leadership capacity.

Viviane Robinson

"instructional leadership is 3-4 times more powerful and effective than transformational leadership"

Distributed leadership must have links to improved student outcomes.
The more leaders focus their relationships, their work and their learning on the core business of teaching and learning, the greater their influence on student outcomes.
Key: High quality conversations about quality teaching and learning in a collaborative problem solving process

Professional Learning Communities (PLC)
· need to identify the qualities that make these effective
· alone they are of not much value
· must have student outcomes focus

Five dimensions of effective school leadership.
1. Establishing goals and expectations 0.42
2. Resourcing strategically 0.31
3. Planning, coordinating and evaluating teaching and the curriculum 0.42
4. Promoting and participating in teacher learning and development 0.84
5. Ensuring an orderly environment 0.27

The most important/impact – no.4

Three capabilities for engaging in these leadership dimensions:
1. Integrate pedagogical knowledge
Learning goal →pedagogical shift required→administrative shift required
2. Analyse and solve complex problems
Complex problem solving involves discerning relevant constraints and modifying and integrating them in ways that enable a solution to be reached.
Expert principals ...carefully plan a collaborative problem solving process....openly disclose

own views and encourage others to do the same....overtly manager meetings and summarise and synthesis ideas....do not express negative emotions
3. Build relational trust
interpersonally respectful....personal regard for others....competent in the role....have personal integrity....
Consequences of high relational trust for teachers and schools:
positive attitude to innovation and risk-taking....more outreach to parents....enhanced commitment....enhanced professional community
Consequences of high relational trust for students:
· Improved academic outcomes
· Higher likelihood of positive social outcomes


Ben Levin
Key: absolute endless persistent pursuit and focus on student outcomes – vision, direction, optimism
Doesn’t like the term ‘distributed leadership’ – thinks it should be banned

"Slow down the change in order to speed up the improvement"

VISION WITHOUT ACTION IS A DREAM
ACTION WITHOUT VISION IS A WASTE OF ENERGY
BUT A VISION WITH ACTION CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS
Lao-Tze

Andy Hargraves
Thomas More Brennan, Chair in Education, Lynch School of Education, Boston College, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Presented 4 cycles of directions in education from the 1960’s to present day and the future using his own biography as a metaphor. He was brilliant and very inspirational.

Standardised testing by census (e.g. NAPLAN) has been abandoned (or does not exist) by most other English-speaking developed countries in the world
. . . Canada, Finland, New Zealand . . .

However, that is not to say that we do not need accountability.
For accountability purposes, Australia could....
· Test by sample (not census)
This would eliminate the notion of teaching to tests, narrowing of the curriculum and bringing in intervention teams to ‘fix’ low performing students.
· Test by cycles (e.g. Israel)
Again, it avoids the notion of teaching to tests.

The US (on which Julia Guillard is basing her goals) is failing and is ranked low in the world particularly NYC (Klein). When Ben Levin was asked what is good or positive about the education system in the states he replied, “Nothing comes to mind.”
We are over-targetted. Schools need to have their own targets and better indicators – not imposed targets

Apryll Parata
Deputy Secretary Maori Education, Ministry of Education, New Zealand
Three key principles
· Maori potential
· Tribal cultural distinctiveness
· Individuals’ inherent capability
Identity – language – culture are essential ingredients for learner success

Every NZ school will endeavour to incorporate aspects of Maori culture and thinking into its pedagogical practices

Frank Crowther
Final keynote speaker.
He summed up the messages from all the keynote addresses.
Suggested letter to Julia Guillard:

Dear Julia,
We, the participants of the 2009 ACEL: Tipping Points Conference love what you are doing but..........
1. We think you have the balance between excellent pedagogy and standardised assessment a bit wrong
2. There are better ways of reporting to the public than prejudicing disadvantaged schools in simplistic league tables
3. We know how to make our schools better and here’s how . . . .
4. Our national indigenous challenge is every Australian’s challenge. Let’s find ways to all contribute
5. If excellent pedagogy is the goal of our work, then let’s recognise and reward it
6. We probably need an organisation like the Law Society or the Medical Colleges. ACEL can help with that, with specialist teacher agencies . . .