Northcote High SchoolA Case Study
Good to Great… or Great to Excellent (Hopkins)The Cultural Effects of
Architectural and Social Change
Improvement is a developmental process
not an event…Richard Elmore
N.H.S. Temperature Check• A ‘good’ neighborhood school – 1,500 students• Community Support - enrolment demand• Gentrification - Rapid demographic change• SFO decreasing ~ 0.38• VCE results ‘good’ but static (2006 stellar year…)• NAPLAN – cohort matched – tracking north• Est. 1926 History - Golden Years… • Traditional; Faculty focused; Industrially sensitive,• Teachers – ‘Experts’ BUT changing profile
Committed, Loyal, ‘Institutionalised’ - ‘We ‘just’ want to teach…’
• Continuous Improvement focus
N.H.S. Temperature Check• Leadership Momentum - Past and Present – TEAM NHS• Ambitious change agenda• Compelling story – Why we must do ‘things’ differently• Our ‘GARAGE’ challenge Cadillac VW• Evidence / research• Aligning opportunities – DEECD + NMR• Community = Teachers, Students and Families• Personal and Collective Responsibility:
– Achievement (High expectations)– Relationships Community– Supporting Teachers– Systems and processes
Six Secrets of Change Fullan 2008
• Secret One: Love your Employees
• Secret Two: Connect Peers with Purpose
• Secret Three: Capacity Building Prevails
• Secret Four: Learning Is the Work
• Secret Five: Transparency Rules
• Secret Six: Systems Learn
Fullan, 2008a
NHS Improvement Case StudyWHAT HOW?
Diagnosis of current state Naval gazing – evidence – our data
Outward looking focus What’s working in other schools?Scanned Systems, Schools, F2F Research, Reading, Rigorous dialogue
Communicating and Consulting with or Community
Presented findings to communityConsultation process – Future casting
Acknowledging History whilstBuilding a Case for Change
Celebrating successes whilst articulating a compelling change story
Selective, Explicit Core Focus and Work
What will make the difference?e.g. Marzano – greatest effect sizeNote Taking +Similarities & Differences
Systematic Change ProcessA Series of Actions to Inform our Direction and Future Work
e.g. Instructional Rounds – findings:- Quality of Task- Time on task- Quality of questioning- Volunteerism – contract- Who is doing the work? Teachers
Our Challenge Constructing a New Learning
and Teaching Culture or
Evolving a Learning & Teaching Culture How? Consistent messages:
“Unique Year Level Experiences”, “Good to Great”, “Task Predicts Performance”, “Time on Task”, “Learning is not voluntary”, “What goes home in the schoolbag is our best publicity”, “We want to guarantee the learning experience…” ‘No – we are not taking the personality out of the practice…*!@!’ NHS mantras ….
• Explicit objectives each year - reflection• Refined annually - expectations are raised and/accountability increases• “Turning the Screw….” on change - no surprises
– Clear and transparent messages about and around the change agenda
– Built around a shared understanding and language
– Clearly articulated What’s negotiable and What’s not negotiable…
Social “Engineering”Architecture of Change
Social Network Theory
The informal conversations and interconnections between people are as important as the formal and structural
• Structures (architecture) initially determine the social and cultural environment
BELIEFS&
BEHAVIOR
EXPERIENCE&
INTERACTION
NHS “Suite” of Initiatives
Instruction and Delivery Focus on Teacher practiceInstructional Coaching
Support and Extend Every child makes at least one year’s progress each year
Knowing Students Rich, available, useful evidence
The Unique Year Level Experience In the classroom and beyond
Toolbox Generic skills and attributes for all students and teachers
Compacts – what is a successful teacher, student, family doing @ NHS….
Clear and consistent expectationsTeachers, students and families
The NHS Good Lesson What are we learning today?
Academic Vocabulary Specific instruction in academic vocabulary
P and D = Performance Appraisal and Professional DevelopmentGoals – School, Faculty, Personal
Ultranete5NHS Compact PL Toolbox
Micro-Change Example:Literacy Across the Curriculum:
NHS Academic Vocabulary• The Evidence
The same student placing at the 50th percentile in reading comprehension, with no direct vocabulary instruction, placed at the 83rd percentile when provided specific instruction in academic vocabulary (Marzano and Pickering, 2005).
• NHS Facts– Student Outcomes - VCE results – Exams– ‘Value add’ - NAPLAN / VCE – Critiquing established practice: Sustained Silent Reading Program– Our Problem – ALL Teachers
Our Challenge
Constructing a new Learning and Teaching Culture
or
Evolving our Learning and Teaching Culture
• A Systematic Instructional Approach
• Clear expectations of what should be happening in every classroom – together
• A mechanism for improving literacy - when perceived limited literacy issues at NHS
• What’s Not-negotiable and Negotiable…
Literacy Across the Curriculum: Academic Vocabulary
• Cultural Fit:
For NHS teachers to buy into a vision and action it must be related to what teachers value, their content, the ‘art’ of teaching… Hence, ‘Academic Vocabulary’ rather than ‘Literacy’.
• Operationally supported and owned: – Leadership Team Workshop and Agreement– Whole School Presentation Leaders and Teachers– Feedback / Reflection / Refinement / Action Plan– Toolbox - whole school - PL sessions– Faculty Teams have responsibility and time (34 hrs 2010)
– Support - Instructional Coaching
Academic Vocabulary
• The Intended Curriculum – The key vocabulary (200 words) that will
improve performance (Marzano)
• The Implemented Curriculum – Common approaches to vocabulary learning
specialised to the Faculty
• The Attained Curriculum – Knowledge and understandings actually
learned by the students
What Next?Systematic Continuous Improvement
The Collective Actions of ALL Generate Momentum
Our Actions as Professionals and as a School:Evidence based and proactive – implementing an
agendaCollaborative Community - Working, Growing and
Learning together– Intentional and Explicit - Goals and Focus Teaching Practice
Moving Beyond ‘Solo Practitioners’Finding new ways to Share our ‘Best’ PracticeDeveloping compelling reasons and great structures
easy - making people accountable & responsible...Clouds on the horizon – it’s complex
work
Continuing to feel the Fly Wheel of progress...
Keeping what’s most important most important… – Relationships
– Student Learning and Teaching Excellence
– Creating a Supportive Environment“Schools where all staff work collaboratively to build strong
alignment between school-level planning and individual performance and development are better able to improve student learning outcomes.” Richard Elmore
Creating and meeting our targets…
Working to be more focused…
• Marzano's vision of vocabulary instruction recommends teaching subject-specific terms to enhance academic success.
• He stresses that ‘subject-specific terms are the best target for direct vocabulary instruction’ and provides a list of 7,923 subject-specific terms in the appendix of his book.
Marzano, R. 2004. Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
Northcote High School -AIP-2011
Secret Six: Systems Learn
• Continuous learning depends on developing many leaders in the school in order to enhance continuity. It also depends on schools being confident in the face of complexity, and open to new ideas.
CHANGE INSIGHTS The implementation dip is normal
Behaviors change before beliefs
The size and prettiness of the planning document is inversely related to the quantity of action and student learning (Reeves, 2002)
Shared vision or ownership is more of an outcome of a quality process than it is a precondition
Feelings are more influential than thoughts (Kotter, 2008)
CHANGE SAVVY leadership Careful entry into the new setting
Listening to and learning from those who have been there longer
Engage in fact finding and joint problem solving
Carefully (rather than rashly) diagnosing the situation
Forthrightly addressing people’s concerns
Being enthusiastic, genuine and sincere about the change circumstances
Obtaining buy-in for what needs fixing
Developing a credible plan for making that fix — Herold & Fedor, 2008
What is Collaboration? • A systematic process in which we work
together, interdependently, to analyze and impact professional practice in order to improve our individual and collective results. — Dufour, Dufour, & Eaker, 2002
School Capacity • The collective power of the full staff to improve
student achievement. • School capacity includes and requires:
1.Every teachers knowledge, skills and dispositions
2. Professional community
3. Program coherence
4. Technical resources
5. Shared leadership
— Newmann, King, & Youngs, 2000
Secret Two: Connect Peers with Purpose
• Purposeful peer interaction within the school is crucial. Student learning and achievement increase substantially when teachers work in learning communities supported by school leaders who focus on improvement.
Secret Three: Capacity Building Prevails
• The most effective strategies involve helping teachers and principals develop the instructional and management of change skills necessary for school improvement. The role of assessment for learning is essential in order to link data on learning to instructional practices that achieve student results.
Secret Four: Learning Is the Work
• Professional development (PD) in workshops and courses is only an input to continuous learning and precision in teaching. Successful growth itself is accomplished when the culture of the school supports day-to-day learning of teachers engaged in improving what they do in the classroom and school.
Secret Five: Transparency Rules
• Ongoing data and access to seeing effective practices is necessary for success. It takes up the dilemmas of ‘de-privatizing practice’ in which it becomes normal and desirable for teachers to observe and be observed in teaching facilitated by coaches and mentors.
Secret One: Love your Employees
• Explore the importance of building the school by focusing on both the teachers and staff, and students and the community. The key is enabling staff to learn continuously. Evidence will be provided from successful business companies as well as from education.
• Motivational Work
• Meaningful, accomplishable work
• Enabling development
• Sense of camaraderie
• Being well led
ARCHITECTURE OF CHANGEKey Focus: Enhancing the school experience for ALL students
The ARCHITETURE of Change
STRUCTURAL / OPERATIONAL – • Layered Foci and Purpose
– Interconnected, Coherent, Purposeful, Explicit, Transparent
• Less is more ‘Refined Teacher Focus = Maximising Time on Task
Example
Faculty Team work layered over Ultranet, school, faculty and personal tasks layered over Professional Learning Tool Box work layered over P&D process school faculty and personal goals….. story
• Toolboxes: Regular in-house professional learning – a toolbox of knowledge, skills, understanding and dispositions all teachers need.
• Staff opinion
ARCHITECTURE OF CHANGESOCIAL ARCHITECTURE• Collaborative, collegial opportunities including ‘triads’• Support from and for the system, working together and with other
schools.• Listening – creating opportunities for collaboration, reflection and
feedback but perhaps ‘over-controlling it’.• Transparency – nothing is a surprise…
PREMISE: If we want to change teacher beliefs and behaviors we do this by changing the operational and social architecture
CLASSES I TEACH CLASSES I TEACH
FACULTY TEAM
FACULTY TEAM
P&D TRIAD
(DRAWN FROM FACULTY TEAM)
P&D TRIAD
(DRAWN FROM FACULTY TEAM)
FACULTY OBJECTIVES AND
P&D GOAL
FACULTY OBJECTIVES AND
P&D GOAL
e5 CLASSROOM RESEARCH (PERSONAL
PROFESSIONAL GOAL)
e5 CLASSROOM RESEARCH (PERSONAL
PROFESSIONAL GOAL)
TOOLBOX - SUPPORT AND EXTEND
TOOLBOX - INSTRUCTION AND DELIVERY
TO
OLB
OX
- CO
NN
EC
T A
ND
CO
MM
UN
ICA
TE
SCHOOL GOAL CHECKLIST
SCHOOL GOAL CHECKLIST
P&D FACILITATOR
OPERATIONAL AND STRUCTURAL ARCHITECTURE:Simplified – Layered – Interconnected
What is Change? New materials
New behaviors/practices
New beliefs/understanding
• Learning to Lead Change
The Pathways Problem
• Change factors
• Vs
• Change Process
Secret One: Love your Employees
Theory X Assumptions Theory Y Assumptions
The average human being has an inherent dislike of work and will avoid it if he or she can.
Because of their dislike for work, most people must be controlled and threatened before they will work hard enough.
The average human prefers to be directed, dislikes responsibility, is unambiguous, and desires security above everything else. — McGregor, 1960
If a job is satisfying, then the result will be commitment to the organization.
The average person learns under proper conditions not only to accept but to seek responsibility.
Imagination, creativity, and ingenuity can be used to solve work problems by a large number of employees. — McGregor, 1960
Social “Engineering”
• Social network theory• In our context we seek to change the beliefs and expectations
that are manifested in the daily interactions between teachers and students and between teachers and other teachers.
• Why?
• Because all the operational and structural changes have been resisted (generally passively) by engrained cultures. (Thinking curriculum, etc etc.)
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