Comparing Challenges and Issues of Educational Leadership Past and Present

My name is Emily MacLean and I am an Education Technology Coach at an international school in Singapore. Working at a private school gives me a very different perspective on schooling and leadership compared to growing up in a public school board. I am doing this course as part of my Masters of Education (Information Technologies) as my role provides me with a unique leadership position where I am not responsible for any teachers but yet responsible for supporting all teachers in their use of technology in the classroom.

• What do you think may have been the demands, key issues and dilemmas facing educational leaders/managers when you were attending school?
• Finances for resources
• Equality
• Parent expectations of their children
• Political pressures for curriculum, class sizes etc.
• Delivering content
• Teacher -centred approach
• Limited support for students with learning needs and special education students
• Accountability
• Reflect upon the current professional setting in which you are working and note down the demands, key issues and dilemmas facing yourself as a leader/administrator. Alternatively, if you are aspiring to leadership/management, list the demands, key issues and dilemmas facing leaders/administrators in your workplace
• Parents as stakeholders (private school setting) - expectations and demands
• Time (in general)
• Professional Development for teachers - Staying current with teaching practice
• Teacher shortage ( in public domains, international schools not facing this issue); Finding highly qualified staff
• Continually upgraded technology resources (finances)
• Technology integration
• Diversity
• Developing learning environments - flexible learning, finances
• Developing skills not content
• Student-centered approach - diverse needs, individualised
• Strategic planning - forward thinking, backwards by design
• Accountability - use of data driving instruction
• School vision
• Changing teaching roles to more of facilitators
• Inquiry learning
• Competing with other private schools for enrollment
• Are there areas that you have listed that are the same on the two lists? What areas/issues/dilemmas have you listed that are different?
• Budgeting and finances - resources, staffing, operational needs
• Teacher professional development
• Student behavior
• Parent expectations- change in parent expectations from student to expectations of the school
• Accountability - although changes to who school is accountable to
• Staying current trends
• Time

• Reflect: What key events have occurred in the world and in our lives which may have led to these differences?
• Some of the biggest changes have been due to the advances in technology. Technology has become more readily available and more affordable. Students have technology at home and now it’s been brought into the educational setting. This changes the learning environment by extending it beyond the classroom and also impacts how teachers must teach. Teachers are now facilitators in the learning environment supporting and co-creating with their students. No longer must teachers be the sole expert but one of many in the classroom. Teachers require more professional development as the educational setting continues to evolve in order to stay current.
• Research is becoming more prominent and more available to educators. Many teachers are becoming researchers themselves as they document their action research. Because of the increase in educational research, educators must continue to stay current by reading up on best practice and again, ensure they are receiving professional development to help them put this learning into their classroom.
• For many countries (like my home country of Canada), there have been changes in the government since I was in school. With the changes of political parties, there is changes to funding, teacher expectation, policies and even curriculum. This continues to be an area that educators have to be aware of to ensure they are aware of the changes as they occur.

Week 9 - Problem solving from a leadership perspective

One key issue is ensuring ongoing professional development meets the needs of turnover with staff and ongoing changes to technology to create implement effective pedagogy with technology integration. Every staff member is going to be at slightly different places on their learning journey with technology and it is crucial that, just like with our students, we try to meet all their needs. In international schools, there is a high turnover rate in comparison to public government-funded schools. This means that every year is a challenge to bring teachers up to a base level of knowledge when joining a school. It is important that the professional development is timely and ongoing according to Flanagan & Jacobsen (2003). While our school has a lot of professional development run by the education technology department, it also needs to be prioritized by the senior leadership team of both primary and secondary so that teachers feel the need to continue to upskill. Technology is constantly changing. Therefore, the professional development needs to continue to evolve with the technology with a focus on pedagogy and transferable skills to ensure teachers feel that professional development is a good use of their time. Some strategies to approach this problem would be for looking for edtech leaders within the organisation or each year group to mentor their teammates and find times to allow staff members to work together on personal goals in a collaborative environment.

References

Flanagan,L. & Jacobsen, M. (2003).Technology leadership for the twenty-first century principal, Journal of Educational Administration, 41( 2), 124 - 142.

Module 6: Educational Leadership and Models of ICT Decision Making

As an education technology coach, I can definitely relate to the article by Devolder, Vanderlinde, van Braak & Tondeur (2010). On any given day, I am switching the hats that I wear in my role many, many times. I’m constantly moving from a coaching role to a consulting role to a coordinator role to an advocate and back again.

I would say the majoring of my time is split between leading professional development by supporting students and teacher and planning for implementation. Planning allows me to collaborate on curriculum development and changes with our teachers (Devolder, A., Vanderlinde, van Braak & Tondeur, 2010, p. 1652). I meet with year groups each week to support them in the planning process. I also spend a lot of time developing new school initiatives or developing policies related to my role. In terms of implementation, this includes me getting into classes to co-teach and support teachers and students. This role also always me to work toward implementation through formalized professional development sessions or one-on-one coaching.

As per Lai & Pratt (2004, as cited in Devolder, A., Vanderlinde, van Braak & Tondeur, 2010), my role does have a budgetary and resource allocation component but it is also shared with the director of education technology. Therefore I am not the one making the budget but suggesting ideas and reviewing others’ proposed purchases. In addition, I have to ensure that the resources we have are working for what we need them for and advocate for more resources when necessary.

In terms of the ‘nuts and bolts’ that Marcovitz (1998, 2000 as cited in Devolder, A., Vanderlinde, van Braak & Tondeur, 2010), I try to minimize my role in the technical and repair component of it. This is the role of our IT manager who is phenomenal at the technical side of our operations. That being said, teachers still come to me regularly to fix their problem. It is important for me to acknowledge when I am capable of supporting them and when I need to refer them to the experts. When possible, I do try my best to problem solve with teachers as it can be frustrating when things aren’t working and it is also part of my emphasis on building relationships whenever possible.

References

Devolder, A., Vanderlinde, R., van Braak, J. & Tondeur, J. (2010). Identifying multiple roles of ICT coordinators, Computers & Education, Vol.55(4), pp.1651-1655.

Professional Development Part 2

The model I've come to focus on is one that many businesses use as there will always be resistance.  Geoffrey Moore (2001) outlines this idea of ‘Crossing the Chasm’. I focus my time on 3 groups: 1. the technology enthusiasts when I want to trial things and always have great feedback and engagement 2. the visionaries when we want to look at big ideas we want to implement 3.pragmatists for developing skills. The first 2 groups don't need much convincing to attend professional development and often seek it out on their own. Teach the willing, and others will follow when they see growth and results. The conservatives are more willing to learn things once they have seen the pragmatists be successful. Staggered PD with repeated sessions later in the year can be helpful for meeting their needs and skeptics may never take the jump or resist until they have to. It is also a reality that unfortunately I will never be able to meet everyones needs to I work to impact the most people in the most effective and efficient model. In addition, I find that people from across this spectrum will come to me one-on-one for just in time PD and these short sessions (as little as 5 minutes) can be more powerful than sessions for some people.

Module 5: Professional Development

Armfield (2011, p.109) suggest that in many situations technology integration in the classroom is simply used for traditional activities. Yet, we need to be looking at how technology transforms the teaching and learning experience for our students and ourselves as teachers. 

Armfield (2011, p.111) also brings to light the idea of a community of practice in which all stakeholders are working towards the same goal. I think this is an important point with regards to technology integration. If the administration does not value the transformative aspects of technology in education, there won’t be budgeting for devices. If teachers don’t value technology in education, they won’t bring it into their classroom. If students don’t value it, they won’t engage with it. It really needs to be a part of the school’s mission and vision about creating a learning environment to meet individual needs using 21st-century tools and strategies to enhance learning. 

Armfield (2011, p.114) suggests further challenges such as teachers having little experience with technology and fearful of attempting to use it. Many teachers lack knowledge in how technology can support pedagogy and content to benefit their students. This is something that is very common in schools. It takes a lot to build ownership in learning as well as the confidence and courage to take risks in the classroom in front of students. 

Matzen & Edmunds (2007) suggests that just teaching technology tools in professional development is not good enough and teachers will not likely integrate into the classroom in a transformative way. However, if there is a student-centred approach to instructional strategies, then teachers are more likely to have a shift in their own instructional methods.

My role is to lead all of the professional development sessions for education technology. This includes creating surveys to understand staff needs and develop a professional development plan each term to meet these needs, deliver the sessions and reflect back on the success of them and where to go from there. Depending on the time of year and session topics, attendance can vary but I measure success in how teachers then take their learning and apply it in their classrooms or share their learning with others. I love when teachers come back and say they’ve tried something they learnt during a session in their classroom and can share their reflections on it. This also helps them consolidate their own learning and they can then support others who would like to try similar integration strategies in the future. Just like I would facilitate sessions with our students, our professional development sessions are all linked to at least one of the ICT in PYP skills that the International Baccalaureate outlines (2011). This allows teachers to also think about what transferable skills they are developing, similar to how we teach our students. 

During sessions, I believe it is important that it is hands-on for teachers and that they try things out. I always allow for time to explore so that teachers are constructing their own learning with technology (Matzen & Edmunds,2007). In addition, I model teaching the sessions in a way that I would teach my students to ensure that the learning is student centred (Matzen & Edmunds,2007). This also helps teachers integrate into their own classrooms as they often model what they have been shown during professional development sessions in their own class (Matzen & Edmunds,2007, p. 427).

I think that it needs to be a combination of ICT skills and learning new ways of teaching. This cannot just fall on the technology coach though - it needs to be supported by the administration and the curriculum coordinator to guide the way of teaching and learning. In order for teachers to incorporate technology into their lessons, they need to understand how to use the technology. Therefore, whenever we do EdTech PD at our school we always have a dual approach where we look at the technology tool and also look at applications of this in the classroom. From there, hopefully, we’ve sparked some ideas with teachers to help them use the tool to deliver or assess content in the future. We can also then have coaching sessions to support teachers in their planning and draw on some of the tools that would help them best deliver content without spending time ‘teaching’ them during these times. 

Professional development is ongoing as suggested in Armfield (2011, p. 115). Therefore, we cannot teach teachers everything there is to know about technology integration at once. There needs to be an ongoing commitment to professional development of best practice and technology integration at the school level to build this idea of a community of practice. This will help teachers become more confident using technology in their classes and move beyond just teaching skills towards transformative learning.

In addition, as teachers become more confident using technology they should also spend more time reflecting on how they’ve used it and adapt to enhance their teaching. Similarly, as more professional development sessions are run, there needs to be reflection by the technology team to ensure the sessions meet the needs of the staff in a challenging and effective manner. 

Our school is really good about providing time and resources for teachers to actually learn through technology. Our department has offered close to 30 sessions this year for teachers and are looking to expand that to an online course for new teachers to bring them up to basics as well as use 2 days if  staff professional development days and 2 Primary/ Secondary meetings to develop our new digital citizenship curriculum next year. Schools need to keep this commitment of giving teachers time if they want their teachers to use technology effectively (Armfield, 2011, p. 119). 

Lawless & Pellegrino (2007) suggest that most professional development is voluntary. This is very true in our school this year in terms of technology integration professional development. All 30 sessions are voluntary meaning that only those who are motivated and want to engage with these sessions, rather than those who really could benefit from sessions like this. This is another reason we are moving 4 mandatory staff professional development sessions next year. Effective technology integration is something that all staff need to work towards, hence the whole school approach by administration next year. 

References

Armfield, S. (2011). Technology leadership for school improvement Planning, designing, implementing and evaluating technology, pp. 109-128, 2011. in Technology and Leadership for School Improvement. Papa, R. (Ed) California :Sage 

International Baccalaureate. (2011).The role of ICT in PYP. UK: IB. 

Matzen, N. J., & Edmunds, J. A. (2007). Technology as a Catalyst for Change: The Role of Professional Development. Journal Of Research On Technology In Education, 39(4), 417-430.

Distance Education: Does it have a place in schools?

Ae there elements of distance education approaches that could be incorporated into your assignment? Which students and in what context would the lesson be suitable for? What about a blended model?
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Distance education is often approached with mixed feelings with it being a good solution for some students to access learning from anywhere at anytime or an excuse for procrastination. As someone who is taking a distance education Masters degree, I see the value in distance education and am making it work for me living in Singapore and working full time.

There are also instances where distance education is useful for our students. Some students travel for competitive sports and take online classes or are homeschooled. But is there a place for distance education in a typical school with classes every day? 

I believe the answer is yes - if students have access to resources at home and if planned out appropriately. Flipped classroom learning or blended learning environments allows students to learn content at home while using class time to explore problems and answer questions, taking the learning deeper. It uses a combination of online learning and in-person experiences (Roblyer & Doering, 2014, p. 207). 

Image from: http://www.greeleyschools.org/cms/lib2/CO01001723/Centricity/Domain/47/blended%20learning%20header-01-01-01.png

This type of learning is something we are currently trialling for professional development with teachers. We have created a 10 week course where teachers are exposed to different technologies each week with tasks to complete. The weekly tasks are posted on a blog and class discussions take place through Edmodo. Teachers also have a blog of their own to share their learning and reflect on their practice. The course can be done completely online but there are 2 drop in sessions where participants can work through the course or use the time to ask questions of the two technology coaches leading the sessions and plan for how to integrate these tools into their classroom.

References

Roblyer, M. D., & Doering, A. H. (2014). Integrating educational technology into teaching [Sixth Edition].

Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

As a teacher who received my qualifications in Canada and now working in an international school setting, my knowledge and experience with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers is limited. That being said, as I read through them, I can easily see where ICT weaves into these standards. In fact, I can feel it is possible to justify how almost all of the standards are linked through ICT in some way or form. Technology should be integrated throughout the curriculum, planning and assessment seamlessly, while not be seen as an extra burden.

For example, standard 1.5 suggests teachers "Differentiate teaching to meet specific needs of students across the full range of abilities." If I was having my students work on a piece of writing, I may have students use an online dictionary or thesaurus to enhance their vocabulary. I may also have students use Google documents to type their rough draft so that it is more convenient to have their peers and myself as the teacher comment/make suggestions for future development. I may allow my ESL students to use google translate to help them discover the words they are trying to say in English. For some other students with dyslexia, I may have them use a read-to-text programme so that they don't feel overwhelmed by the spelling and can focus on creating the story.

When it comes to publishing their writing, I may have my students transform their writing into an animation, use blurb or flipsnack. Perhaps they would like to record their story as an audiobook and enhance it with images.

In terms of assessment their writing, I may use Video notes if they have created a digital story as a video, or a rubric through Google Sheets. I may use  Fluberoo or an online rubric.

This is just one example of how technology can be integrated into a learning experience that meets a standard. I could do the same for almost every other one as well when thinking of Assignment 1.

The ones that seemed to jump out at me as I read through them as the 'easiest' to connect to when focusing on Assignment 1 would be as follows with the ones the explicitly mention ICT as bold.

Standard 1: Know students and how they learn
1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities
1.6 Strategies to support full participation of students with disability

Standard 2: Know the content and how to teach it
2.1 Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area
2.2 Content selection and organisation
2.3 Curriculum, assessment and reporting
2.6 Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
- Implement teaching strategies for using ICT to expand curriculum learning opportunities for students

Standard 3: Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning
3.3 Use teaching strategies
3.4 Select and use resources
3.5 Use effective classroom communication
3.7 Engage parents/ carers in the educative process

Standard 4: Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments 
4.1 Support student participation
4.2 Manage classroom activities
4.3 Manage challenging behaviour
4.5 Use ICT safely, responsibly and ethically
- Demonstrate an understanding of the relevant issues and the strategies available to support the safe, responsible and ethical use of ICT in learning and teaching.
Standard 5 - Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning
5.1 Assess student learning
5.2 Provide feedback to students on their learning

Standard 6 - Engage in professional learning
6.2 Engage in professional learning and improve practice
6.3 Engage with colleagues and improve practice
6.4 Apply professional learning and improve student learning

Standard 7-Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community
7.4 Engage with professional teaching networks and broader communities

References 

Australian professional standards for teachers (2014). Australian institute for Teaching and Leadership. Retrieved from http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-teachers/standards/list

Technology: One of Many Tools

Blog Prompt: One of the interviewees, Greg Whitby, claims that the focus on technology is a "waste of time". He says: "If you focus on the technology, you ignore the central problem and the central issue." What do you think he means by this, and to what extent do you agree? Why do you think we focus on the technology?

__________

As part of a podcast with Future Tense (Funnell, 2012), Greg Whitby suggests that you can't just focus on the technology when it comes to education. There is an abundance of technology within our reach with new advances and releases, such as the iPad Pro, becoming available to consumers each day. Our students have more access to technology than ever before and they can choose to interact with it even outside of school. Therefore, focusing on getting technology into the hands of the students isn't enough any more - the novelty of 'using technology in classrooms' has worn off. Beyond that, just teaching students how to use a particular technology tool doesn't promote the type of learning environments our students deserve to have. Rather, as educators, we need to be more cognizant of creating meaningful uses of technology integration to enhance the learning process. 

image from: http://www.alp100.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/bill-gates-tech-quote.png

As an educator, one aspect of my role is to focus on the providing the best teaching and learning to my students. As Bill Gates once said, "Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important." If they don't have a teacher who is able to use best practice in integrating that tool effectively into the curriculum and teaching then, the tool is not meaningful. Teachers continue to upskill their own technology abilities with the purpose of utilizing it within the curriculum when approach. Teachers need to not only be able to use and integrate technology but decipher when it is best to actually use technology and when another strategy or tool is more effective to achieve a specific learning outcome or experience. Teachers continue to write curriculum, teach content and assess their students choosing the right tools for each learning experience to provide students with a quality education. 

Image from: http://blog.williamferriter.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/9223386478_20cf5bb693_b.jpg

I would argue, that while technology is a tool, it is a powerful tool. It is a tool that can connect classes from across the globe to contrast and compare lifestyle, schooling and interests. It is a tool that can help students access information from various sources in a click of a button. It is a tool that can enhance the learning experience by allowing for experiences that were not possible in reality such as travelling to the bottom of the ocean to explore wildlife. It is a tool that can help students organize their lives through notes and calendars. It is a tool to communicate in a multitude of ways. It can be a tool to document learning and reflect on their educational experiences. Utilizing technology can help engage students while also developing social, self-management, thinking, and communicating skills. Students can create, collaborate, and curate as they develop transdisciplinary skills that can be drawn upon at any time to use. 

In a 21st century classroom, the technology still does not replace the teacher, hands-on learning, visual thinking and planning on paper or face-to-face interactions. But what it does achieve is creating an endless supply of learning opportunities for students to engage and experience if integrated in an appropriate manner.  

References

Funnell, A. (2012, Aug 19). 21st century education. Future Tense [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from: www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/21st-century-education/4197700#transcript