6 ‘P’ words for every meeting

 

blog-images.forbes.com

As averse as I usually am to ‘top x lists’ (‘top 10’, etc.) because they tend to be simplistic, and lead to superficial understanding or practice, I think this one has merit – not just because it’s mine. I’ve formulated it over many years of attending, and leading, meetings at different levels in schools, including different groups: pupils, parents, middle leaders, senior leaders, and hybrids of these. If i were to tell the story of the least effective meetings that I’ve attended, I could put the reasons for their lack of effectiveness into one of the following headings.

I would argue that considering the 6 ‘P’ words below would enhance the effectiveness of all meetings; if all attendees ascribe to them, then meetings are at their most productive:

1. Purpose

Nothing startling about this one: ensuring everyone understands the purpose of the meeting brings, generally, a focus to everything that follows. It allows members to consider how their expertise relates to that purpose, and allows the committee membership to be decided by that purpose rather than some other, often bureaucratic, criterion.

2. Preparation

An obvious one: if you’re required to attend a meeting, then you’re expected to come prepared. Usually, papers, or perhaps just an agenda, have been distributed beforehand. Each attendee should arrive having read any information provided, or at least considered the contribution they might make to an agenda item, given their role within the organisation or the expertise they have that has led to their attendance.

3. Protocols

Clarifying from the outset the formalities of the meeting helps avoid wasted time and frustration. What are the terms of reference that need to be adhered to? Is a quorum needed to conduct business? How is absence from the meeting dealt with? It’s also the chairperson’s responsibility to set out – either at the start of the meeting, or beforehand – whether the meeting requires all comments to be made through the chairperson, or whether more direct discussion amongst members is acceptable, for example. Usually, it’s the degree to which the chairperson anticipates having to control interpersonal difficulties that informs this decision, in my experience. Other protocols include responsibility for taking and disseminating minutes and, at the meeting, for approving previous minutes, and so on. Another important protocol involves the way decisions are made: by majority vote, for example? It’s important to establish the competence of the meeting, too, in so far as its authority to make decisions – as opposed, say, to offer advice – needs to be understood.

4. Presence

Portable technologies, as much as I love them for their potential to make administrative tasks more efficient, have also made it much easier for meeting attendees to be distracted – just as we are concerned when pupils are not focused on the task at hand, so meeting organisers need to emphasise – perhaps as part of setting out meeting protocol – that each member is expected to be ‘present’: to be attending to the business of the meeting, not to emails, or lesson preparation, or holiday booking (I’ve seen them all). While it can be helpful to make notes as one goes, distributing scratch pads to individuals, and having succinct, comprehensive minutes taken, minimise the potential for distraction.

5. Participation

I’ve been to meetings where one or two people dominate discussions. They may hold the greatest expertise, or interest, in an item, or have the greatest investment in terms of ‘wins’ or ‘losses’. However, I would argue that contributions from all attendees should be sought, for two main reasons: first, it broadens the discussion in ways  that might not have been anticipated; second, it means that those present can’t claim not to have had the chance to offer their views. It’s also helpful if there are attendees who may not be as confident, or experienced in meetings, as others: the chairperson is not only validating their attendance, but is giving them practice of participating in this kind of forum.

6. Progress

Finally – every meeting should end with action points: a sense of what progress is expected following the meeting (and, if part of a series, prior to the next). Even if subsequent meetings are required to continue unresolved discussions, the progress expected could include reflection on what has been said already or further research to tease out an issue, and so on.

For what it’s worth.

 

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Chartered College of Teaching Inaugural Conference, London 16 Feb 2017

With much enthusiasm and not a little anticipation, the inaugural conference of the new Chartered College of Teaching was held in London on Thursday 16 February at the QEII Convention Centre, Westminster. Coinciding with many schools’ half-term, the room was full (and then some) of teachers who had committed a day of their break to participate in these early steps of a most promising endeavour. What follows are some of my recollections of the sessions, with links to what was tweeted, in most cases, as a less selective poll of impressions.

In the light of some of the Twitter feed, table conversations and panel remarks, though, I remain troubled by what I perceived as the level of distrust, even antagonism, between senior leaders (the ‘ivory tower’ metaphor popped up not infrequently) and classroom teachers. Might a fundamental project of the CCT  be to promote greater cohesiveness across the profession, possibly by representing world class practice – derived through evidence-led activity – as the collective platform of the whole profession? There can then be different voices within the profession arguing for different positions related to how best that evidence-led activity occurs/ is nurtured within school organisations, but that ought to be possible, even healthy, within the College?

 Dame Alison Peacock, Chief Executive: Welcome and Introduction

Dame Alison Peacock opened the conference by expressing the hopes we all presumably held for a fruitful day, where the collective voice of the profession might continue to be defined, then amplified.

Rt Hon Justine Greening: keynote address

Dame Alison then introduced the Secretary of State, the Rt Hon Justine Greening. She likened her sense of lifelong belonging to the profession of Chartered Accountants, to the potential for teachers thus to identify with the fledgling CCT. She also confirmed that she anticipated a strong, developing, consultative role for the College in her department’s policy work. To much relief, she also confirmed that QCT was not going anywhere ‘on her watch’ – in fact, she intends to strengthen it. She spoke passionately about the importance of initial teacher training and supporting newly-qualified teachers. What wasn’t mentioned, as I recall, was the continuation of the ‘grammar schools’ policy, so the applause at the end, to my ear, was polite and gracious but somewhat reserved because of this looming issue – a view shared by others I spoke to later. On grammar schools, I imagine, the CCT will be expected to take a view and have its voice heard – supported by research, of course. The Twitter feed from the Conference for the Secretary’s speech maybe found here.

Marius Frank: Collaborative warm-up

Some delegates were not in the mood for a sing-a-long, but that’s what came next. In the spirit of #collectivevoice, husband and wife musicians Marius Frank and Cindy Stratton led the majority of the hall in a creaky, but good-spirited, rendition of “I’ll be there”…. A well-intentioned, lighthearted moment that fell slightly flat after the Secretary of State’s speech. Some reactions are to be found here – I understand it has been removed from Saturday’s programme in Sheffield!

John Tomsett: Working together, connecting the profession

John Tomsett, Head of Huntington School, led into the morning break and opened the main theme of the educational presentations of the day, namely that evidence-led practice in schools participating in the research community is the likely best way forward. Too much has been done expediently but not rigorously, with a particular mention of attempts to import the success (of one kind at least) of schools in Asian systems, such as Shanghai, directly into the UK: he mentioned that one Primary Head had decided to invest £25000 in a maths programme without due evaluation. As is generally accepted (and paraphrasing everyone from Dylan Wiliam to Alma Harris), everything works somewhere, sometime – but what works here, now, for us, should be our focus. His own experience of leading a Research  School informed his enjoining us to put evidence-based practice at the heart of our classroom work. Here’s a sample of the Twitter feed during his session.

Professor Rob Coe: A vision for enhanced professionalism

John was in some ways anticipating the presentation after the break, by Professor Rob Coe of CEM at Durham University, of his Vision for Enhanced Professionalism – presumably, one of the core concerns of the College. He very helpfully made his presentation available here – it draws on themes he’s been developing at least since his inaugural lecture in 2013. He expanded on three themes:

and provided a reading list for those at the start of their reading of research – having noted his astonishment at the ‘hands-up’ self-reported level of reading amongst the delegates assembled. Professor Coe recalled that evidence-based practice is relatively novel, even in medicine, where it is now firmly established. It takes time to develop a clear definition of evidence-based (or evidence-led) practice, and to develop shared understanding of it. Importantly, he highlighted that the definition in medicine – and, undoubtedly, what will emerge for teaching – refers to the ‘conscientious…judicious’ use of ‘current best evidence’, and that this is combined with ‘individual clinical expertise’. The teacher as professional does not simply slavishly follow the list of top 10 strategies, in other words.

His presentation seemed to appeal broadly to the delegates around me, despite the story in the UK of the failure to make much difference (i.e., wide-spread, consistent, transferable, replicable strategic improvement) in schools so far. Twitter feed available here.

Teacher panel 1: why we need evidence

The first of two very popular panel discussions came before lunch.  The Twitter feed captures much of the positivity about the all-female panels’ contributions on the topic, ‘Why we need evidence’. Search for #collectivevoice and one or more of:@ragazza_inglese @AnnMroz @CarolineCreaby @jjandliz @vicky_duckworth

Penny Mallory: Going beyond your comfort zone

Lunch was followed by Penny Mallory, who led us through her own realisation that she doesn’t know what she’s capable of until she tries it. This has led her to some dismal results, but also some spectacular successes, not least her World Rally Driving status. It reflects a mindset of positive self-affirmation and a continuous quest for something else/ more. While recognising that extreme risk-taking is not for everyone, she did note that some people are limited by negative ‘self-talk’, and so changing that may lead to greater success in what one does decide to try.

Penny reintroduced the term ‘world class’ into the conference, picked up subsequently by a number of the speakers and in the Twitter feed. Another one of those terms, like ‘evidence-based practice’, to be defined. There were several other ‘moments’ to prompt reflection, but I’ll list two of those that seemed to resonate most:

1. Big gains often come from a series of small adjustments – she used the pit crew’s continuous process of refining their practice over hours and days, to shave fractions of seconds off changing tyres during pit stops.
2. The following quotation from William James:

Teacher panel 2: why being brave is important

Another popular panel discussion followed, where the theme of ‘being brave’ was explored. For me, despite the frequent, useful anecdote or illustration from the participants’ practice, the discussion resorted too often to entreaties to ‘be brave’ that didn’t progress the conversation. Perhaps the journal/ publication promised by Dame Alison at the end of proceedings could feature the panellists individual recounts of their brave practice as a way to distil their stories.

Professor Tanya Byron: Improving wellbeing in the classroom

A popular final speaker, and one highly likely to return at future events (as she prompted delegates to request!). While her time was short, after providing some statistics reminding us of the prevalence, and growth, of mental illness in young people, she outlined a few strategies that she uses clinically to assist. While repeatedly saying that she does not think teachers should be responsible for providing yet another service to young people (otherwise the only thing left would be to ‘give birth’ to them, she says),  she intended that her illustrations might be of some assistance if we were confronted with a situation where they might apply. She also reminded delegates that they were unlikely to be able to help others if their own mental health was not good. Plenty of detail from her session in the graphic available here, drawn by Pen Mendonca…

The conference, graphically rendered…

The last contribution, but not the least by any means, goes to graphic artist Pen Mendonca, skilfully capturing some of the highlights of the day – her three illustrations may be found here.

The ‘Golden Circle’ and school leadership.

Simon Sinek has been in the news again recently, talking about why ‘Millennials’ are the way they are in the workplace, and the changes to corporate culture that are needed if employers are to retain their services – a need more pressing if one considers that 75% of the workforce in 20205 will be said ‘Millennials’, according to Sinek. Not surprisingly, his injunction to focus on what inspires them is a natural progression from his slightly older work on ‘Start with Why’, or the ‘Golden Circle’.

It’s that which has me thinking about school leadership for this post. Here’s the TEDx Puget Sound talk from 2009 as a reminder, or another take on the idea by poster/blogger ‘FightMediocrity’ in the form of an animated presentation. In particular, I’m thinking about how schools explain to their staff, to parents and to pupils what differentiates their school, or at least what best describes it.

source: blankcanvas.io

Let’s start with the school’s most public and accessible statement about itself – the website. On, or easily accessible from, the landing page of most is a page that states ‘Vision’, or perhaps ‘Values’; sometimes teamed with ‘Mission Statement’ as well. I’m not going to critique individual schools here, but suggest that a number of those you will find have a bias towards the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ without explicit statement of the ‘why’.

Does this matter? I suspect it does, to varying degrees, depending on whether the school community has a grasp developed otherwise about their purpose. That’s easily checked, of course, by listening to the answers of a sample of community members to the question, ‘Why is your school important to your community?’, or variations on that theme.

However, I am suggesting that a succinct statement of ‘why’ on a school’s website – written without educational jargon, and perhaps by pupils – is a powerful way to engage those you want to inspire to support it, one way or another.

In May 2016 I attended the INTASE World  Educational Leadership Summit in Singapore, which included a Leadership Masterclass led by Dr Douglas Reeves, founder of the Creative Leadership Solutions consultancy group. Part of the day involved considering our own Vision/ Mission Statements, reflecting on how clearly they spoke to our communities about our purpose. Dr Reeves presented the following as examples for further discussion:

• Learn with passion, act with courage, change the world
• Everyone learns every day
• Success for every student
• Empower students, strengthen community

Depending on individual interpretation, delegates agreed more or less that those parts in italics (added by me) represented clearly the ‘why’ of schooling, whereas the others were perhaps were more about ‘how’. That said, they could represent the ‘why’ of a school but less clearly so.

No-one argued that the ‘how’ and even the ‘what’ weren’t important (and these circles are on the diagram for a reason), but that the presence of a succinct ‘why’ grabbed at the gut, to paraphrase Sinek, in a way that a lot of our own statements did not.

This idea of ‘grabbing the gut’ is, Sinek argues, a biological response that is part of inspiring others to engage. the following diagram sums it up: when we talk about purpose we engage the limbic / most primitive part of the brain:

 

source: HTS Theological Studies

In essence, when we focus on ‘why’, we are building affiliation with our tribe: we are saying ‘we belong together’. Once that’s established – through a well-crafted, jargon-free, gut-grabbing statement – the ‘how’ and ‘what’ should follow as obvious consequences of the pursuit of that purpose.

As a leadership strategy, this seems a sound basis. It’s my belief, though, that while sound, it’s not sufficiently comprehensive enough as a school leadership strategy. Why not add ‘who’ and ‘when’ to the circles – either as discrete circles, or as part of the ‘what’ circle’ – to make our appeal to engage that bit stronger. Further, because the work of our profession is about personal development (in all forms – academic, pastoral, spiritual, etc.), I think we must be able to make clear who is responsible for what we do, and to explain the chronology of what we do.

As school leaders, I believe it is important that we can say to the members of our community not just ‘we share this purpose’ and ‘we do these things in these ways’, but that we add: ‘this is your role in pursuing our purpose, and this is when your contribution is most important’.

Thoughts on effective school leadership.

I’ve been lucky in recent months to have time to reflect on school leadership at some remove from its practice. While on sabbatical, which includes an MA in Leadership (Innovation and Change) at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, UK, I’ve had the chance to reflect on my own leadership, and leadership in general, helped by  time away from daily interactions with colleagues and informed by an extension of my readings in the area.

All of our discussions have been grounded in the moral purpose of leadership: as John West-Burnham explains, this moral leadership asks us to consider what the ‘right things’ are to pursue. His ‘3E’ model – Equity, Excellence, Effectiveness – no doubt deliberately places ‘Equity’ in prime position. It is not uncommon to find leadership in schools pursuing ‘excellence’ for some, or ‘effectiveness’ under tight budget constraints, where the issue of ‘equity’ remains tacitly ignored. His practical examples include the pursuit of excellent results for some pupils through streaming, which has been shown to disadvantage pupils in lower groups, or timetabling the most effective teachers with the high achievers instead of the most vulnerable. We’re exhorted to remember that every decision has a consequence – who wins, who loses? – even within a school, let alone when schools are in competition with each other, an issue explored by Hargeaves and Fink (2006) in a paper about the ‘ripple effect’ of making decisions in one school that affect others.

My own thinking about leadership turns next to questions about the personal dispositions of effective leaders. Advertisements for leadership roles usually carry a ‘person description’ as well as a ‘role description’, although sometimes these are more about skills than dispositions. What kind of a person makes an effective leader is the kind of context/ situationally-bound question that plagues those seeking to offer ‘top x number of the most effective leadership traits’ like this one and this one and this one, where admirable qualities divorced from their context can offer little in the way of meaningful analysis. But that difficulty in identifying the traits of the ubiquitously successful leader doesn’t excuse us from the task of considering, firstly, what makes an effective leader in our own context and, secondly, how that kind of leadership might be developed – if it’s possible to develop it. For this post I’ll be addressing the first of these.

Much is written about different leadership styles in schools, with the ‘heroic leader’ taking a particular battering these days, in contrast to the hunger for them not so many years ago, when they were thought to be the solution to everything wrong in education. In its place are various others labels for leadership performance, the gist of which is that the focus has turned from the leader to the led – that is, not so much about what the leader does for others to follow, but what s/he does to enable others to lead. Such a leader puts ‘others’ at the centre of the project of leadership, rather than ‘self’. It focuses on nurturing, supporting, coaching and affirming, while holding accountable, those ‘others’ who have roles to play in leading, collaboratively, increasingly more complex organisations. The list of traits that one might expect from this kind of leader include being humble, being able to let others lead while maintaining organisational accountability,  encouraging responsible risk and pushing for innovation based on reliable research, being open to criticism and being willing to admit – and learn from – mistakes. There are other traits, or other names for these same traits, that you may wish to add, but the central tenet remains. It seems to me that these traits stand up in most modern educational contexts.

Adopting such an approach, some argue, can’t be faked. It requires a leader who knows herself/himself, starting with an ethical core; who takes the time to know others and the context in which they operate together; and who promotes strong, resilient connections within a community. The authentic leader is not a new paradigm by any means, but continues to enjoy currency, perhaps because it doesn’t prescribe a particular way of ‘doing’ leadership, rather of ‘being’ a person others trust to lead an organisation. Importantly, to me, authentic leadership doesn’t preclude the need for robust organisational accountability as central to the project of leadership, rather puts it within the frame of ethical, collaborative leadership practice. It is having a keen sense of the role accountability plays in effective leadership that completes the picture, for me, of school leadership.

We are in a time when trust in traditional positions of authority – police, politicians, doctors, and teachers – is low, often because of genuine cases where those positions have, through act or omission, compromised the wellbeing and/or achievement of those they are meant to protect and, in the case of pupils, nurture. The lack of accountability in those cases has undermined trust, so it seems logical to ensure that accountability is an essential focus of contemporary school leadership. While there are questions to be addressed, again in context, about to whom those in education are accountable, and the criteria against which they need to be held to account for their work, as well as the consequences for less than perfect performance against accountability measures, no-one seriously believes these days that accountability beyond simply ‘producing the results’ is a complex matter for educational leaders to be able to address.

Kids who code from ‘The Weekend Australian’

http://media.theaustralian.com.au/kids-who-code/index.html

Supporting writing skills through computer programming?

How Can Coding Improve Your Child’s Writing Skills?

I’ve been struck by recent arguments (like the one in the article above) about the link between the activity of coding, and of writing in classrooms.

I think there’s a danger in pushing the links too vigorously: for sure, the more logical, analytical kind of writing shares many characteristics with sequencing and compiling lines (or other forms) of code, but the best writing often exploits and subverts convention. Perhaps it is unfortunate that, in the example above, the analogy is primarily with creative writing. The approach being promoted leads to formulaic writing that I would propose should be challenged, not entrenched, when writing creatively.

I accept that, in the early stages of teaching extended writing, a formula – or scaffold – is helpful, but overdependence on scaffolding, as I’ve observed in English/ Language Arts teaching even up to senior secondary classrooms, is too restrictive to produce authentic writing, in my opinion.

BYOD @ SRC – our experience this year

It’s certainly been an interesting year, rolling out a BYOD program in a school where an additional 200+ students will be joining us at the same time.

For an overview of the year, visit the College’s blog, which I started and then maintained as a way to collect information about developments as they occurred, and to which parents could be directed. This saved an enormous amount of repetitive email replies, and assisted parents – particularly those joining us in 2015 – in understanding the philosophy as well as the practical requirements of the program.

Our starting point was the lack of recurrent Federal Government funding for 1:1 devices, purchased in 2011 and 2012. As these devices approach end-of-(useful)-life, a replacement strategy was needed. We had three options, at the end of the day:

1. retire all of the devices and return to labs
2. purchase College-owned devices and continue to lend them to students
3. make the provision of a suitable device the responsibility of the family.

Clearly, we’ve opted for the third of these: the first would see learning suffer, and the second would still be funded by parents. Our rationale for the third, in terms of the reasons in its favour (as opposed to against the other two options), included:

1. recognising that students and families will already have devices they prefer to use and which are compatible with their home networks
2. breaking the expectation that school-appropriate technology is only that which the College provides – with a wider range of hardware and software in play, students’ perceptions will shift in this regard.

Our rollout is staggered, so that 3 of our 6 year levels will be BYOD in 2015, and the other 3 in 2016. For details, click here.

Some factors that have simplified matters:

• As we had already removed student network drives, we did not have to plan for their access via BYOD.
• Much of our teaching materials for students is on browser-based sites such as Sharepoint and Schoolbox, helping us to be more device-agnostic
• Our use of an e-commerce portal (optional) has streamlined major support issues for us by consolidating support through one log/ helpdesk
• We have been able to use retired College devices as swaps when BYOD devices require extended offsite support
• Our infrastructure – particularly wireless – has been tweaked and upgraded to cope fairly well with the number and variety of devices.

On the whole we would count the year a success. There were some teething problems with deliveries and collections, and a relative small number of devices have had chronic problems requiring multiple returns, but these have been managed. Mind you, those families affected by the repeated failure of their device have justifiably not considered the year a major success, but we have been able to issue replacement devices and monitor the fairly slow repairs process, providing feedback where helpful.

We are about to begin the second phase of the rollout, with the remaining 3 year levels requiring BYOD in 2016. We are updating the blog, hosting a device information session supported by most vendors (Apple and Microsoft will not accept our invitation to show off their wares, as opposed to HP, who are sending a representative), and opening up the e-commerce portal for orders in Term 4.

On the whole, our transition from College-owned devices to BYOD has been relatively painless.

Teaching and Assessment of 21st C skills – a University of Melbourne MOOC

Last year I signed up for my first MOOC, run by the University of Melbourne through Coursera. Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills* focused primarily on the process of learning collaboratively, arguing that this is an essential skill in our current world. Of particular interest in the course was the way that these skills might be assessed.

Four aspects of the MOOC have stuck with me:

1. The rubric for assessing collaboration

The team presenting the course, led my Patrick Griffin and Esther Care, developed several rubrics of increasing complexity to allow consideration (and assessment) of the skills and dispositions that, together, might be called collaborative learning. Broadly divided into 2 categories – the social and the cognitive – these rubrics prompt good discussion about the nature of collaboration (as opposed to mere cooperative or group work), the changes in classrooms that would allow it, and the ways in which it might be assessed.

2. The opportunity to engage with a very wide professional network

More than I expected, there were lots of colleagues from a much wider range of backgrounds who signed up for the MOOC. As a result, the exchange of perspectives was, on the whole, a bonus. For example, hearing about the way collaboration might feature in a language classroom in central Europe was quite different from how an arts class in Singapore might see it. Again, the rubric allow common ground for discussion, although it was noticeable that some colleagues were not distinguishing between working together and working collaboratively, and this was borne out in some of the assignments submitted for peer assessment.

3. The challenge to derive practical applications for classroom use.

The course was very much focused on the practical – essentially, how could we design activities for our students that were truly collaborative and allowed us to assess their collaboration. Ideally, technology plays a big part in tracking collaborative activity and allowing analysis of patterns, and some interesting work is being done in this area at Melbourne University.

 4. Peer assessment

Each of us was required to assess three others’ submissions and, in turn, to have our work assessed by three peers. The criteria and the way that Coursera was set up to allocate a mark from a small range of marks to a relatively discrete or technical element of the submission seemed not always to allow the kind of assessment one felt might be most useful, and the overall sense of what a submission was ‘worth’ was sometimes not reflected in the total mark assigned. Some of the criteria, in other words, biased the result in a way that seemed unfair to some.

I would recommend this particular MOOC as the standard of materials is high, the activities worthwhile and the focus, relevant to contemporary education. I find that the work we did continues to be relevant in discussions with colleagues (a couple of whom have also participated in the MOOC) and in assisting colleagues meet their professional development interests.

 

*I know lots of people object to this term, but that’s what the course is called!

11 Ways Finland’s Education System Shows Us that “Less is More”.

One could do worse for a framework to review what we all do as educators. Well worth the time to read and reflect.

Filling My Map

When I left my 7th grade math classroom for my Fulbright research assignment in Finland I thought I would come back from this experience with more inspiring, engaging, innovative lessons.  I expected to have great new ideas on how to teach my mathematics curriculum and I would revamp my lessons so that I could include more curriculum, more math and get students to think more, talk more and do more math.

This drive to do more and More and MORE is a state of existence for most teachers in the US….it is engrained in us from day one.  There is a constant pressure to push our students to the next level to have them do bigger and better things.  The lessons have to be more exciting, more engaging and cover more content.  This phenomena  is driven by data, or parents, or administrators or simply by our work-centric society where we…

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Digital Portfolios for professional practice

Read here a short article on how we are using WordPress to curate digital professional portfolios as part of our teacher growth and development program: