Facilitating for Sustainability is the focus of my Action Research Project. What is it that has made the ICTPD Clusters such a successful method of professional development? How critical is the role of facilitator and what is it that people do that makes a difference to school culture, student learning and teachers ongoing learning?
It starts with Te Haerenga Cluster, where I draw the links between research and practice. The Action Research describes the research journey and a model of sustainability is the culmination of thinking that I will revisit at the end of 2005 to see how effective it has been.
Recognising the work with tertiary rewards
Values are more than a guiding sense of principles. It is also about valuing people. Recognising that learning new things comes at a cost, the management team wanted to value the cost of time and effort given by the teachers through practicum with an academic qualification through Christchurch College of Education ICT Diploma. With careful planning, the facilitator ensured that the outcomes of practicum more than met the requirements of the IT701. The cluster met the majority of the course administration fees of College so that each and every participant would leave practicum with a formal qualification. One of the indirect consequences of this was that many teachers actively participated in the other Diploma Papers in their own time. In essence, they became committed to learning for themselves independent of cluster lead / planned sessions. The monetary cost to the cluster was considerably less than the gains for the teacher involved, their class, the parents and the whole learning cluster.
Whole Cluster Professional Development
One Journey, many paths. A cluster must be representative of the culture of the schools within it. The collaborative vision was expressed differently in each school as each school represents a different community, vision and structure. The guiding cluster vision allowed for schools to accept that “the increasing availabilities of technologies is changing the teaching and learning environment” (Disseldorp & Chambers, 2003) without dictating exactly what that outcome would look like for each school. Te Haerenga Cluster was about groups of learners taking ownership because “…organisations learn only through individuals who learn. Individual learning does not guarantee organisational learning. But without it, no organisational learning occurs.” (Senge, 1990)
Fundamentally, the critical role of the cluster was to foster the connectedness and collegial support that occurs when learners as principals, teachers, students and parents learn and share experiences together. “When you ask people about what it is like being part of a great team, what is most striking is the meaningfulness of the experience. People talk about being part of something larger than themselves, of being connected, of being generative.” (Senge, 1990)
Weaving of pedagogy, ICT skills and strategies
The model of practicum used was a weaving of three central components. It was the mix of these three areas that gave strength to the professional development of the participants.
The challenge of this professional development was to give teachers the opportunity to be exposed to new thinking and research about learning and the teaching of students. All teachers have a philosophy that shapes and defines their learning environment. “When embarking on the path of learning to use ICT in classroom practice, the teacher needs to be able to articulate and unpack their teaching practice in a way they may not have done since their teacher training days.” (Bowes, 2003). This is quite a demanding expectation on teachers, as it is often personal and “…real learning gets to the heart of what it is to be human. We become able to re-create ourselves.” (Senge, 1990).
There was a need to look at all three areas and to redefine in their own terms a new collaborative philosophy which mixed the best of the old with the new thinking required for learning in the Information Era. The practicum focus was to challenge individual values and beliefs about teaching and learning through dialogue, discussion, and research about how children learn, how children think and importantly the impact of ICT on traditional models of teaching and learning. More significantly however, it was intended to be one part of an ongoing journey for teachers in our cluster, Te Haerenga – learning journey. It had to equip the teachers to be life long learners so that after the intensive practicum was completed, they were motivated to continue actively participating in learning and teaching through ICT.
Developing the Online Learning Community
As the cluster progressed, it became increasingly more important to develop an online site. Interact became a seamless way of providing support and information across the cluster for groups that needed it most – the management team, the lead teacher group and the practicum groups. “Online activities … fulfilled the dual needs of reducing the isolation of practitioners and providing a mechanism for them to share and develop their knowledge.” (Bowes, 2003). The site was designed by the facilitator to reflect the needs of the cluster – and all information was shared in the environment. In essence, Interact has become a living history of the cluster.
Fostering teachers as colleagues through face-to-face meetings was easy when all the teachers were part of the same school – but not so easy when the teachers were separated by distance.
An online environment has the potential to build a sense of community with a group who are in different locations. It allows for flexibility and choice from the participants as to when they contribute and whether it be from home or school, week day or weekend. A consequence of this flexibility for the cluster is a lesser need for face-to-face meetings as a group for more individual tasks, which may be completed in the participants’ own time. The meetings that were to occur would focus more on discussion and dialogue as a group about learning issues – a critical step in successful professional development. “The discipline of mental models starts with turning the mirror inward; learning to unearth our internal pictures of the world, to bring them to the surface and hold them rigorously to scrutiny.
It also includes the ability to carry on ‘learningful’ conversations that balance inquiry with advocacy, where people expose their own thinking effectively and make that thinking open to the influence of others.” (Senge, 1990).
Interact became a dynamic environment, growing as the needs of the cluster changed and “…this again reminds us that by introducing web-mediated learning environments, we cannot directly affect learning but rather learning conditions, seeking to get closer to the ideal learning situation.” (Cecez-Kecmanovic & Webb, 2000)
Principals as leaders
The success of any ICT contract relies on the leadership of its principals and their ability to drive the vision of the cluster. “In general, for high calibre professional development programs to take root, experts emphasize the importance of strong and engaged instructional leadership on the part of the school principal.” (Rebora, 2004)
Peter Senge states “we learn best from our experience, but we never directly experience the consequences of many of our important decisions.” (Senge, 1990). All five our the cluster principals learned side by side with their staff through practicum, diploma papers and attendance to the workshops with guest speakers like Julia Atkin and Trevor Bond.
At the cluster leadership level, Julia Atkin guided the Principals and myself to continue working towards new goals and thinking for the contract. There is always a danger of becoming complacent once the first year is completed successfully. But through the development of a shared vision, comes responsibility. “The practice of shared vision involves the skills of unearthing shared pictures of the future that foster genuine commitment and enrolment rather than compliance.” (Senge, 1990).
Julia Atkin encouraged the leadership team to continually challenge their perceptions of the future and what it meant for the schools, their students and their communities.
· How did what was happening link up to the cluster beliefs?
· Was the alignment genuine?
· In what ways was the staff learning journey shaping the path each school was on?
Collaborative Management
Te Haerenga Cluster is a learning journey for five schools — each with their own uniqueness and circumstances. The value of collaboration was also carried over to the management team. There was a strong belief in making the funding available for all students, all teachers and all principals in the cluster – not just the lead school. Right from the start the principals established the parameters of a collaborative management system – one characterised by commitment from all members to the cluster vision.
In the eighteen months prior to the cluster being funded, the vision was established through consultation with other clusters, workshops with Dr Julia Atkin and an understanding of current literature on leadership style, whole school learning, and discussion on traditional and contemporary pedagogy. “When dialogue is joined with systems thinking, Senge argues there is the possibility of creating a language more suited for dealing with complexity, and of focusing on deep – seated structural issues and forces rather than being diverted by questions of personality and leadership style.” (Senge, 1990). The strength of the vision connected the group to the purpose of the contract and consequently resulted in a successful collaborative management system driving the cluster.
Impact on Student Learning
Practicum was designed to challenge the way that teachers taught the students in their class. It was designed to inform them about current pedagogy and research, so that the face-to-face in the classroom would reflect their new understanding about learning and teaching. It was about empowering the teachers to empower the students through innovative, authentic learning experiences that challenged and motivated all the students in their class. “Constructivism is the idea that knowledge is something you build in your head. Constructivism reminds us that the best way to do that is to build something tangible – outside of your head – that is personally meaningful (Papert 1990). Papert says that knowledge is best constructed in a social context where the participants make something shareable.” (Cannings & Stager, 2003).
The kit was a hard copy of fifteen weeks’ worth of discussion, dialogue, consensus and collaboration. It was the best of the trial and errors, and it was the ultimate reflection of a new teaching experience for each teacher and their class. It represents collaboration, consensus and commitment to providing students with a learning environment that promotes creativity, discussion and active learning. In most cases, the teaching was across syndicates – linking teachers with teachers and classes with classes. A cluster value moved beyond theory into practice not just for teachers, but students too. The purpose of practicum was to “…discover how to tap people’s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels.” (Senge, 1990). These kits are a paper-bound resource. There are three significant parts – the first is a collaborative philosophy; evidence of the discussion and dialogue the group have gone through to challenge their philosophy about learning and teaching with ICT. The second is a description of an integrated learning experience with links to the essential skills and curriculum. Often this planning was across many classes and levels within a school. The third section is resources the group have decided are useful to support the learning in the kit. It is by teachers, for teachers. A large number of these kits are available for download at Te Kete Ipurangi, New Zealand’s Online Learning Centre.
Teachers as Colleagues
The most important aspect of whole cluster professional development is the sense of connectedness between the teachers, the principals and the facilitator to the cluster vision. The greatest resource is the experience and wisdom of the group – their perceptions and understandings of what they know to be effective strategies for learning and teaching. The model of professional development was always designed to recognise their value through the commitment of providing a professional development programme that fostered collaboration and trust.
“As people talk, the vision grows clearer. As it gets clearer, enthusiasms for its benefits grow.”
(Senge, 1990)
Te Haerenga Cluster is a group of five schools linked by common values and beliefs about teaching, learning and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The term Te Haerenga is Maori for learning journey, and consequently it is the valuing of learning as a journey that underpins the strength of this group.
The cluster has an innovative group of like-minded principals and staff who have worked together since August 2000 on creating a shared vision on how ICT can stimulate a rich learning environment in the schools. This has been achieved through dialogue, debate and discussion between the Principals, myself as facilitator and more recently the ICT lead teachers in each school.
This group of five schools has worked hard to establish a cluster that is consultative, collegial and democratic. Peter Senge has undertaken considerable research which characterises the fundamental principles behind the cluster structure.
Te Haerenga has a collaborative management team of principals – it has been recognised that all have a critical role to play in the success of the cluster programme. This collaborative process enabled them to identify core values and beliefs that became the foundation for Te Haerenga’s professional development model.
The philosophy of our cluster was “To Shift the mind from seeing parts to seeing wholes; from seeing people as helpless reactors to seeing them as active participants in shaping their realities; from reacting to present to creating a future”. (Senge, 1990). It was a learning journey with many paths.
A cluster linked by vision, expressed by different paths on one journey.