WHAT FORMS OF LEADERSHIP, LEADERSHIP STRUCTURES AND LEADERSHIP LEARNING ARE REQUIRED FOR ENABLING TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS?

1
WHAT FORMS OF LEADERSHIP, LEADERSHIP STRUCTURES
AND LEADERSHIP LEARNING ARE REQUIRED FOR ENABLING
TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS?

• National leadership Learning Network
• Adelaide 27th August 2008
• Professor Stephen Dinham
• Research Director Teaching, Learning and
  Leadership
• ACER

2
Clarifying Our Challenge as Leaders of School
Leadership Learning

1. What influences student achievement?
2. How do people learn?
3. What role does leadership play in quality
   teaching and student achievement?
4. Key Questions for Discussion

3
Background

• Until the mid-1960s the prevailing view was that
  schools make almost no difference to student
  achievement, which was largely pre-determined by
  socio-economic status, family circumstances and
  innate ability.

4
Background

• Today that view of social-biological educational
  determinism has been totally refuted. Schools do
  make a difference, with the classroom teacher
  being confirmed as the major in-school influence
  on student achievement.
• Student socio-economic background is however a
  significant influence on achievement, but only as
  it relates to matters such as opportunity and
  advantage, foundation and support for learning,
  role modelling and encouragement.

5
Background

• As a result, there has been a major international
  emphasis on improving the quality of teachers and
  teaching since the 1980s. We now know how teacher
  expertise develops and we know what good teaching
  looks like. However we also know that teacher
  quality varies within schools and across the
  nation.
• A quality teacher in every classroom is the
  ultimate aim, but how to achieve this is the big
  question and challenge for educational leaders.

6
From the BCA Report (2008)

• Although Australia performs well on international
  measures of student achievement such as PISA (the
  OECDs Programme for International Student
  Assessment involving 400,000 15-year-olds in 57
  countries), there are concerns over equity. Many
  students in Australia continue to struggle,
  including Indigenous students, where the
  performance gap with non-Indigenous students
  remains wide.

7
Background

• Students social backgrounds have a greater
  influence on educational results in Australia
  than in higher performing countries such as
  Finland and Canada.
• PISA findings released in December 2007 indicate
  that Australias performance has slipped in
  comparison with other OECD nations. Since the
  previous survey in 2003, Australia has dropped
  from third to sixth place in reading from eighth
  to ninth in mathematics and remains in third
  place in science. These changes in rankings are
  mainly due to the improved performance of other
  nations.

8
Reference

• Dinham, S. Ingvarson, L. Kleinhenz, E. (2008).
  Investing in Teacher Quality Doing What
  Matters Most, in Teaching Talent The Best
  Teachers for Australias Classrooms. Melbourne
  Business Council of Australia, available at
  http//www.bca.com.au/Content/101446.aspx

9
The Effects of Quality Teachingaccounting for
variance in student achievement
( Findings from meta-analytic research)
gt 30
50
5-10
5-10
John Hattie ( 2003, 2007)
10
Effects on Learning

• Students account for about 50 of the variance
  of achievement It is what students bring to the
  table that predicts achievement more than any
  other variable.
• Home- accounts for about 5-10 of the variance
  the major effects of the home are already
  accounted for by the attributes of the student.
  The home effects are more related to the levels
  of expectation and encouragement, and certainly
  not a function of the involvement of the parents
  or caregivers in the management of schools.

11
Effects on Learning

• Schools account for about 5-10 of the
  variance the finances, the school size, the
  class size, the buildings are important as they
  must be there in some form for a school to exist,
  but that is about it.
• Principals are already accounted for in the
  variance attributed to schools their effect is
  mainly indirect through their influence on school
  climate and culture. As will be seen later, I
  think that the influence of principals and
  leadership generally may have been
  underestimated, at least in successful schools.

12
Effects on Learning

• Peer Effects account for 5-10 of the variance
  It does not matter too much who you go to school
  with, and when students are taken from one school
  and put in another the influence of peers is
  minimal (of course, there are exceptions, but
  they do not make the norm).
• Teachers account for about 30 of variance It
  is what teachers know, do, and care about which
  is very powerful in this learning equation.

13
References

• Hattie, J. (2003). Teachers Make a Difference
  What is the Research Evidence?, paper presented
  to ACER Annual Conference, October.
  http//www.leadspace.govt.nz/leadership/articles/t
  eachers-make-a-difference.php
• Hattie, J. (2007). Developing Potentials for
  Learning Evidence, assessment, and progress,
  EARLI Biennial Conference, Budapest, Hungary,
  available at http//www.education.auckland.ac.nz/
  uoa/education/staff/j.hattie/presentations.cfm

14
KEY FINDINGS FROM HOW PEOPLE LEARN

1. Students come to the classroom with
   preconceptions about how the world works. If
   their initial understanding is not engaged, they
   may fail to grasp the new concepts and
   information that are taught, or they may learn
   them for purposes of a test but revert to the
   preconceptions outside the classroom.

15
KEY FINDINGS FROM HOW PEOPLE LEARN

• To develop competence in an area of enquiry,
  students must
• have a deep foundation of factual knowledge,
• understand facts and ideas in the context of a
  conceptual framework, and
• organise knowledge in ways that facilitate
  retrieval and application.

16
KEY FINDINGS FROM HOW PEOPLE LEARN

1. A metacognitive approach to instruction can
   help students learn to take control of their own
   learning by defining learning goals and
   monitoring their progress in achieving them.

17
Implications for Teaching

1. Teachers must draw out and work with the
   pre-existing understandings that their students
   bring with them.
2. Teachers must teach some subject matter in depth,
   providing many examples in which the same concept
   is at work and providing a firm foundation of
   factual knowledge.
3. The teaching of metacognitive skills learning
   how to learn should be integrated into the
   curriculum in a variety of subject areas.

18
Designing Classroom Environments

1. Schools and classrooms must be learner centred.
2. To provide a knowledge-centred classroom
   environment, attention must be given to what is
   taught (information, subject matter), why it is
   taught (understanding), and what competence or
   mastery looks like.

19
Designing Classroom Environments

1. Formative assessments ongoing assessments
   designed to make students thinking visible to
   both teachers and students are central. They
   permit the teacher to grasp the students
   preconceptions, understand where the students are
   in the developmental corridor from informal to
   formal thinking and design instruction
   accordingly. In the assessment-centred classroom
   environment, formative assessments help both
   teachers and students monitor progress.

20
Designing Classroom Environments

• Learning is influenced in fundamental ways by the
  context in which it takes place. A
  community-centred approach requires the
  development of norms for the classroom and
  school, as well as connections to the outside
  world, that support core learning values.

21
Applying the design framework to adult learning

• Many approaches to teaching adults consistently
  violate principles for optimising learning.
• Professional development programs for teachers,
  for example, frequently
• Are not learner-centred
• Are not knowledge-centred
• Are not assessment-centred
• Are not community-centred
• Bransford, J. Brown, A. Cocking, R. (Eds)
  (2000). How People Learn Brain, Mind,
  Experience, and School. Washington, DC. National
  Academy Press.

22
THE CENTRAL MESSAGE

• The teaching of highly successful teachers is
  student-centred and teacher directed.
• Such teachers possess and utilise three forms of
  professional knowledge
• Subject Content Knowledge (what subject content
  to teach)
• Subject Pedagogic Content Knowledge (how to teach
  certain subject content)
• Subject Course Content Knowledge (why certain
  subject content is taught the curriculum exams)

23
Leadership?

• We have confirmed the crucial importance of the
  teacher to student learning. The challenge for
  any educational leader is to make things happen
  within individual classrooms. school leaders
  can play major roles in creating the conditions
  in which teachers can teach effectively and
  students can learn, although the influence of
  leadership on student achievement has perhaps
  been underestimated.
• Today, leadership is seen as central and
  essential to delivering the changes, improvement
  and performance society increasingly expects of
  all organisations, including schools.

24
Four Fundamentals of Student Success (Dinham,
2008)
QUALITY TEACHING
FOCUS ON THE STUDENT (Learner, Person)
LEADERSHIP
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
25
Some Key Questions

• Given the diversity of schools, schooling systems
  and sectors, what does it mean for principals to
  be responsible, and held accountable for teacher
  effectiveness?
• Who does and should do the actual work of
  ensuring teacher effectiveness in a school? Is
  leading professional practice in a school a
  specialism in its own right?
• Where is student voice in teacher effectiveness?
• How do we support emergent leaders to be
  effective enablers of teacher effectiveness?

26
Mapping the Landscape for Enabling Teacher
Effectiveness

1. How educational leaders make things happen in the
   classroom
2. Trends in Professional Learning
3. Key Discussion Questions

27
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER WHAT SUCCESSFUL
EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO

• They make students, as learners and people, the
  central focus of the school.
• They make teaching and learning the central
  purpose of the school.
• They ensure that student welfare policies and
  programs are integrated with and underpin
  academic achievement.
• They have a vision for where they want their
  school to go and for what they want it to be.

28
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER WHAT SUCCESSFUL
EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO

• They are effective communicators at all levels.
• They are able to balance the big picture with
  finer detail.
• They possess perspective and can prioritise.
• They place a high priority on and invest in the
  professional learning of themselves and others.
• They are informed, critical users of educational
  research.

29
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER WHAT SUCCESSFUL
EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO

• They continually seek to improve the quality of
  teaching in their school.
• They seek ways for every student to achieve and
  experience success.
• They act as talent spotters and coaches of
  talented teachers and release individual and
  organisational potential.
• They question and push against constraints.
• They seek benefits from imposed change.
• They are informed risk takers and encourage
  others to do the same.

30
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER WHAT SUCCESSFUL
EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO

• They have a positive attitude and seek to drive
  out negativity.
• They model the values they expect in others such
  as integrity, altruism and self-growth.
• They build a climate of trust, mutual respect,
  collegiality and group identity.
• They believe in education for the benefit of the
  individual and society.
• They work for students, staff, the school and
  community, rather than for themself.

31
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER WHAT SUCCESSFUL
EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO

• They can read and respond to people and build
  relationships.
• They have high professional standards and expect
  high levels of professionalism in return.
• They possess courage and demonstrate persistence
  and resilience.
• They build productive external alliances with
  parents, the community, government agencies,
  business and the profession.
• They entrust, empower and encourage others
  through distributed leadership and engage in
  productive team building.

32
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER WHAT SUCCESSFUL
EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO

• They provide timely and constructive feedback,
  good and bad.
• They are approachable and good listeners they
  can read and reach people.
• They create an environment where people strive to
  do their best and where they are recognised for
  their effort and achievement.
• They emphasise and use evidence, planning and
  data.

33
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER WHAT SUCCESSFUL
EDUCATIONAL LEADERS DO

• They are constantly concerned with lifting school
  performance nothing is permitted to get in the
  way.
• They see themselves and their school as being
  accountable for student achievement.
• Overall, they are authoritative, being highly
  responsive and highly demanding of individuals,
  teams and groups, and above all, themselves.

34
Types of Professional Learning

• Traditional
• Formal pre-service
• ad hoc, on the job
• Professional associations
• Informal self-directed
• Formal in-service
• Formal postgraduate study

35
Types of Professional Learning

• Alternative Approaches
• Action research
• Action learning
• Formal mentoring and coaching
• Professional standards/certification (mandatory,
  voluntary)
• Professional learning modules
• Learning communities
• Institutes, centres and other bodies

36
Professional Learning since the mid-1970s

• From To
• Centralised Decentralised
• System responsibility Individual, collective
  responsibility
• Off the shelf Tailored
• Generalised Contextualised
• Off site, apart On site, embedded
• Input Outcomes
• Passive Interactive
• External expert External partner
• Individual learning Community learning
• Theory based Problem based
• Transactional Relational
• Changing things Changing people
• Learning by seeing, hearing Action learning
• Using research Doing research
• Broad focus Student/learning focus

37
(2008) ACER Press November
38
Discussion Questions

1. How do we identify, attract, prepare and support
   the next generation of educational leaders?
2. How might leadership be different in the schools
   of tomorrow?
3. What sort of learning for leadership are we going
   to need?
4. Who and what should be involved with the above
   processes?

39
Contact Details

• Professor Stephen Dinham
• Research Director Teaching, Learning and
  Leadership
• ACER
• Private Bag 55
• Camberwell Vic 3124
• Email dinham_at_acer.edu.au
• Phone [phone]
• Website www.acer.edu.au/staffbio/dinham_stephen.h
  tml