Innovation, leadership and professional learning: choices and

consequences

Emeritus Professor Judyth Sachs

Macquarie University

Questions shaping the presentation

• What shapes our practice?• How can we think about leadership and professional learning in different ways?

• What choices can we make?• What are the consequences of these for teachers and students?

Policy focus

• Increased accountability • Improved reporting to stakeholders

• Collecting evidence and data• Using data effectively to make informed decisions

• Increased school level responsibility for making improvement happen

• More active involvement of leaders in professional learning (theirs and teachers)

John Hattie argues

• How we think has major impact on how we engage ourselves and others in our schools!

• It is a set of mind frames that underpin our every action and decision in a school;

• it is a belief that we are evaluators, change agents, adaptive learning experts, seekers of feedback about our impact, engaged in dialogue and challenge, and developers of trust with all, and that we see opportunity in error, and are keen to spread the message about the power, fun, and impact that we have on learning.

Mindframes that underpin learningMy fundamental task is to evaluate the effect of my

teaching on students’ learning and achievement.The success and failure of my students’ learning is about

what I do or don’t do. I am a change agent.I want to talk more about learning than teaching.Assessment is about my impact.I teach through dialogue not monologue.I enjoy the challenge and never retreat to “doing my best”.It’s my role to develop positive relationships in class and

staffrooms.I inform all about the language of learning.

But …• Teachers and leaders are objectified• Assumes all teachers are the same in their experience,

aspirations and behaviours• Sees a direct causal relationship between the quality of

teaching and learning• Only 30% of learning is down to the teacher and the rest is family

and social context

• Not just the feedback rather the teachers’ response to feedback

• Sees the teacher in isolation from their schools, the communicates in which they are located and the teachers’ personal and professional biography and experience

So the dilemma?

• Is the issue how people manage or how they lead?

• There are challenges with both.

Manager or leader?

Manager

• Technical• Plans • Focuses on systems• Has authority• Asks how and when• Knows how its done• Says ”I”• Does things right

Leader

• Visionary• Inspires• Focuses on people• Has influence• Asks why?• Shows how its done• Says “we”• Does the right thing

Types of leaders

Controlled leaders

Compliant leaders

Collaborative leaders

Innovation leaders

maintenance

Innovation

Controlled leaders

• Focus on accountability and government requirements

• Wary of change• Technical approach and risk averse • Good at developing systems• Use tried and tested approaches in their schools• Has authority – ‘the boss’

Compliant leaders

• Enact and interpret the government policy agenda in an unproblematised way

• Sometimes find change difficult• Existing practices are modified to comply with government agenda

• Asks how and when

Collaborative leaders

• Focus on people and builds teams• Creates an environment where asking ‘why’ is important

• Works with colleagues and build consensus and trust

• Models the type of behaviour that is expected in the school

What are the capabilities for 21century learning and teaching?• Ways of Thinking: creativity and innovation; critical

thinking, problem solving, and decision-making; and metacognition or learning to learn

• Ways of Working: communication and collaboration or teamwork

• Tools for Working: information literacy and information and communication technology (ICT) literacy

• Living in the World: citizenship, life and career skills, and personal and social responsibility

Binkley, M., Erstad, O., Herman, J., Raizen, S., Ripley, M., & Rumble, M. (2010). Defining 21st century skills. Assessment and teaching of 21st century skills draft white paper. The University of Melbourne

Innovation leaders

• Transformative practices – change agents• Visionaries – often far ahead of the teachers in their schools

• Charismatic – visible inside and outside of the school

• Thinks outside the box to solve problems

So where does this take us?

If we want new kinds of leaders in schools – teachers and principals – what do we need to do?

Innovation leadership

• Innovative approach to leadership• Leadership for innovation

Innovation leadershipAn innovative approach to leadership.

• brings new thinking and different actions to how you lead, manage, and go about your work. …think differently about your role and the challenges you and your organization face. What can you do to break open entrenched, intractable problems? How can you be agile and quick in the absence of information or predictability?

Leadership for innovation. Leaders must learn how to create an organizational climate where others apply innovative thinking to solve problems. It is about growing a culture of innovation, not just hiring a few creative outliers.

• How can you help others to think differently and work in new ways to face challenges? What can be done to innovate when all resources are stressed and constrained? How can you stay alive and stay ahead of the game?

David Horth & Dan Buchner (2014) Innovative Leadership: How to use innovation to lead effectively, work collaboratively and drive results. Centre for Creative Leadership

Innovation thinkingTraditional thinking

• Logical• Deductive/inductive

Requires “proof”• Looks for precedents• Quick to decide• a right or wrong way• Uncomfortable with

ambiguity• Wants results

Innovation

• Intuitive• Abductive thinking• Asks ‘what if?’• Unconstrained by past• Multiple possibilities• Always a better way• Relishes ambiguity

• Wants meaning

Innovation thinking skills• Paying attention• Personalizing• Imaging • Serious play• Collaborative inquiry

Innovation thinking skills• Paying attention

• Notice what has gone unnoticed• Look deeply into a situation, being a clear eyed observer-• See the world ‘anew’• Look for new patterns, details

• Personalizing• Seeking insight from your experience• Understanding ourselves and others in a deep and personal

way• Draws on our interests, values, beliefs and perspectives in

order to understand what we do and how we do it• How we relate this to understanding our colleagues, members

of the community pushes us to understand who they are and how they live

Innovation thinking skills• Imaging

• Processing information differently• Stories, pictures, impressions, metaphors• These are powerful tools for describing situations, constructing

ideas and communicating

• Serious play• Bending the rules, branching out, having a sense of fun• Experimentation and improvisation

• Collaborative inquiry• Thoughtful sharing of ideas• Process of sustained, effective dialogue with multiple

stakeholders• Asking searching questions and exercising critical thinking

without always expecting answers

It follows then that

The combined application of these skills• opens possibilities for new ideas and

understandings to emerge that fuel innovation.

• ensures that leaders have a sound basis for leading others in improving practice

What then are your choices as a leader?

• Remain comfortable?• Take some calculated risks• Go for broke

Professional learning for innovation leaders

• Create opportunities to practice innovation thinking skills

• Establish learning networks to pose and test new ideas

• Develop new skills around social media – ask students to teach you

• Improve technology literacy skills• Establish your identity as an innovation leader

Consequences of making these choices

• Teachers are likely to be:• More or less collaborative in their practices• More or less open to risk taking in the classroom• More or less confident to be creative in their thinking and behaviour• More of less disposed to sharing their practices and contesting

ideas• More or less open to change• More or less confident to take responsibility for the consequences

of their actions in the classroom• More or less persistent in the quest for continuous improvement• More or less able to manage ambiguity and uncertainty in a fluid

policy environment

And for students this means

• More or less participation • More or less dynamic relationships with teachers

• A more or less inclusive school culture

But what we want is

• Better engagement• Better learning• Better experience• Better outcomes

Thank you

Questions