Changes in Practice

As Judy Halbert states “Inquiry is a stance. It’s a way of professional being, it’s not a thing. We don’t ‘do’ inquiry. We’re just always asking ourselves and seeking for the evidence that we are making enough of a difference.” (Whole Education, Youtube).

Changes in practice in any industry is critical for success, this is especially true for teachers as the digital revolution growth exponentially.

It is teachers who make the difference and it is often assumed that it is educational management's job is to help teachers to change their practice. But this approach creates the ‘everyone but me’ reliance where everyone thinks someone else needs to change.

This mindset needs to become ‘everyone including me, the collective efforts of everyone are essential to making a real difference to outcomes for students.
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This brings me back to one of the very first Mindlab sessions on Spiral of Inquiry, a framework for evaluation and collaboration.

Inquiry is a collaborative process involving more than just one or two people. To learn deeply you have to learn from one another. The inquiry spiral is a team sport, not an individual endeavour.

Such a method should be used by every school and institute not only for educational policy compliance (ERO for schools, EER for tertiary institutes) but to truly develop a culture of value for the student and professionalism within staff, whether this be at primary, secondary or tertiary level. In assessing the value of our teaching critically we can make required adjustments without feeling singled-out, rather it shows strength of self-engagement and a focus on quality over ego or narrow sighted self-belief.

By continually challenging ourselves, our leadership and our schools to add more value, compliance tasks such as ERO/EER become trivial ticking the box type activities as staff are truly committed to continual improvement, with the value of such clearly seen within every student engagement.

We should remember that although school performance is based on metrics of Qualification Completion, Course Completion, Retention and Progression, it is always the qualitative data seen through the ERO/EER model which really tells the story of performance.

Leadership can try to “drive the numbers” as can teachers, by manipulating statistics or holding disengaged students from withdrawing. However it is much harder to“create” a culture of change, in practice and leadership and even harder to manipulate the results of such a process.

Change of practice is indeed good and something we should all try to embrace within ourselves and our teams.

Timperley, H., Kaser, L., and Halbert, J. (2014, April). A framework for transforming learning in schools: Innovation and the spiral of inquiry. Centre for Strategic Education, Seminar Series Paper No. 234.

Dumont, H. et al (2010). The Nature of Learning: Using research to inspire practice. OECD Publishing.

Interdisciplinary Learning

Education, along with the rest of the world is currently in a state of exponential development. With new technologies driving this growth, educators must adapt to ensure they are on the cutting edge of technological understanding to give maximum benefit to current students.

It is easy to think about Interdisciplinary learning as something that is developed with the sole intent to benefit our students, however as shown in the Mindlabs own programmes it is current teachers who can benefit the most through their own Interdisciplinary Learning.

Today’s students are proficient at multi-tasking, whether this be in using digital technologies or interactivity online. Their entire existence has been digitally driven, with devices in hands, in bags, at home, in the classroom, as a leisure activity and a learning resource.

In comparison many teachers own existence have been vastly different, often filled with memories of playing outside after school, where watching TV was reserved for Sunday night movies and their experience of technology has been in many cases resistive and difficult.

With NZ Governments Communities of Online Learning (COOLs) receiving backlash from the NZ Education Council for not stating teaching must be ‘registered’, I often come back to postulating whether todays ‘registered’ teachers are in fact the best for today’s students.

We believe that teacher registration will improve the learning of students, but does this hold in today's digital environment, where even new teachers often lack the required digital  Interdisciplinary skills, resulting in ‘reactive’ programmes such as the Mindlabs Digital and Collaborative Learning.

Is this a case of the Gap-Generation (J. Bus, 2012), where technology has developed at such a rate that those graduating teacher training colleges, lack the fundamental digitally integrated, cross disciplinary skills needed for new students.

This raises the question of whether the MindLab itself will be disrupted.

When will the required interdisciplinary learning for teaching, such as digital, social, programming, robotics etc be integrated into the actual teacher training programmes and become a requirement of registration, rather than continuing to be the reactionary “patch-job” currently taken.

Interdisciplinary Learning has much to offer and it’s immediate adoption within teacher training will ensure our teachers are at least on-par with students they are responsible to teach in today’s digital playing field.

J. Bus et al. (2012), The Evolution of the Digital Divide, Digital Enlightenment Yearbook 2012, IOS Press, doi:10.3233/978-1-61499-057-4-57

Social Online Learning - Is the NZ Government finally moving in the right direction?

The Government’s announcement on Communities of Online Learning (COOLs) (NZ Government, 1989, 2017) activates a more robust legal framework to support what is already happening and opens the door to new players.

With the announcement however, has come a strong backlash from the NZ Education Council citing the need for all primary and secondary education to be delivered by “registered” teachers.

Of course this goes directly against the ethos of community learning especially in the online context such as that within the government's COOLs framework.

I believe there are some risks and benefits which must also be taken into account.

If existing trends in social online learning continue without primary and especially secondary schools suitably modifying their practices there is a real risk that their relevance will slowly disappear, as learners use alternative, unstructured methods of learning more aligned to their online use.
Students are already substantially supplementing traditional teacher-led learning with unstructured, online learning, delivered by the online community - whom typically are not registered, qualified teachers.
This comes through community life-experience and one could say is a return to the way learning was delivered prior the the schooling system we know of today.

Online social media/learning communities not only allow an exponential amount of learning resources, of varying quality from scientifically incorrect to the hands-on expert rivaling the best registered lecturer, but also now allow the cream to rise naturally, so to speak, through social community tools such as upvotes, number of shares, likes, and ratings.

The power of social communities has significantly changed the quality of community made learning resources and will continue to shape this space as online social tools became common across platforms.

Having spent the last 15 years in tertiary education as a teacher and a college manager, my experience has shown that “qualified” teachers are not always the best “teachers”. Often they come from a traditional education background and continue to use these same traditional techniques within today’s classrooms, which does little to engage today’s students but actively alienates them. I can however see the Primary and Secondary School sectors working hard to fix this disconnect through a range of digital upskilling/ professional development courses, however the tertiary space is still years behind.

I do however believe frameworks are required, as bullet pointed within your post.
Whether it is a “teacher” in the traditional sense, implementing the learning frameworks or the community will be the question as what we call a “teacher” has already technically changed with the advent of online social learning.

A good example of this on scale is Khan Academy.

The “teacher” so to speak, is the platform's founder Salman Amin "Sal" Khan, who is not a registered or qualified teacher rather an community member who has expertise in a number of fields (Science, Engineering and Computer Science).

Despite his lack of teacher registration or qualification he has delivered over 1 billion lessons worldwide. The platform is used by 40 million students and 2 million teachers every month.

Teachers using a social learning platforms to be taught by a non-teachers (the irony).

However this is exactly the case in most Tertiary Education Institute around the world.
Tertiary level teacher registration is not compulsory rather highly recommended.
Colleges and Universities find subject matter experts who then deliver learning to students, most of whom are not registered or qualified as teachers through Education Councils.
This is essentially the same as COOLs through an online distributed medium.

It maybe the real benefit is to ensure those that do teach, whether registered and teacher qualified or not , do so through from a place of knowledge, with suitable experience in the fields taught and with an understanding of a learning framework such as those bullet-pointed.

However does that require a full teaching qualification and subsequent registration, especially in today’s online social learning context?

It is a question which must be asked.


NZ Government, Education Act 1989 (Update) Amendment Act 2017 https://education.govt.nz/ministry-of-education/legislation/the-education-update-amendment-act/

Laws and Ethics with NZ Tertiary Education

Laws and Ethics exist to protect and uphold the integrity of our social systems. Within education such is prescribed through government policy and agendas.

While aimed at improving social standings of the citizen within its oversight government often fail to see how a “one size fits all” policy system simply fails within modern educational practice.

In New Zealand, Private Tertiary Education exists as a specialist or second-chance educational system for those that either cannot enter into university or choose not too due to the archaic educational frameworks and subject matter embedded in the core traditions of the university system.

New Zealand Educational Policy, enforced by the Tertiary Education Commission and New Zealand Qualifications Authority, is however made by university subject-experts with little understanding of Private Education and the diversity of students with they cater for.

Key Metrics such as the Educational Performance Indicators (EPI’s)  which measure Qualification Completion, Course Completion, Progression and Retention have all been setup to be measured and reported on within a 12 month period of January to December each year.
Of course, this negatively affects any provider not teaching within this calendar-year framework, with data being skewed to fit with existing policy metrics rather than modifying the policy.

This of course, matches exactly the university trimester dates, however what is the private sector which may have multiple intakes, rolling intakes or start-anytime distance learning?

At what point will New Zealand Education Policy be overhauled so that it meets the wide range of offerings now available to students instead of the traditional focus on university-only.

With the emergence of online distance learning traditional qualification approval and monitoring policy is need of drastic change to ensure it is future proofed with pain points already evident within the monitoring of self-directed study hours.

The New Zealand Qualifications Authority recently announced a proposed change to “qualification hours” traditionally split between a number of “Direct Hours (face to face)” and “ Self Directed Hours”.

When gaining approval most institutes would supply content for face to face / directed hours, leaving self-directed blank, so student could study any course material they needed as required per individual.

However the recent proposal suggests providers must account for all hours, irrespective of directed or self directed, as such ensuring providers essentially outline what students must study while out of class.

Such policy has huge implications on the freedom of institutes and students to tailor education to individual needs and devolves student self responsibility and self-learning to a strict managed process, another “one size fits all” system of learning irrespective of student need.

Let’s hope such a proposal is voted quickly by the sector, for the good of the students and the quality of the education provided.

Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice

 I must admit, having worked within Private Tertiary Education (PTE) Institutes for the last 15 years has not helped my cultural understanding of indigenous knowledge or cultural responsiveness.

I have worked within 4 large PTE’s over this time, one which was a large pacific provider of Youth Guarantee, SAC Level 1 & 2 as well Certificate and Diplomas from NZQA level  3-6.

However, I have never been involved in any cultural professional development or seen any cultural strategies implemented nor any cultural responsiveness at any level (I have worked with all levels from teaching to management).

I realise now that I am the essence of Culturally Inept.

My first real exposure to any cultural understanding coming in the form of the MindLabs Karakea at the start of this programme.....(or at least, I think its called that)..

Unfortunately in my current role as a manager, stepping into a very “traditionally mono-cultured” PTE, I cannot see any practice within our college that is specifically informed by indigenous knowledge and an example of culturally responsive pedagogy.

Despite  targets of increasing Maori and Pacific Achievement Rates as a key educational performance indicator, I struggle to how any PTE I have worked within has had a clear cultural understanding and response.

Conversely, I am amazed with the good work going on within the public sector. One of the first conversations I had within this programme was with a primary teacher around her school’s experience. Immediately there was a rush of Maori terminology and words I had not expected and which were very foreign to me.  It was amazing to see the depth of her cultural understanding and the responsiveness driven from the core of public schools.

As I cannot reflect on current practice in a cultural context, other than as extremely mono-culture in every regard, I will attempt to postulate how a differing inclusive framework maybe introduced.

Such a change would need to be driven, like public schools from the top, down through every layer and as  such as our vision, mission, and core values would need to be respectfully modified to include cultural values.

The tools outlined for evaluating our current Cultural understanding and responsiveness would be useful in gaining staff buy-in through self-evaluation.

Changes in internal culture would then be driven from the mission through professional development of teaching practice, environment and curriculum.

And finally student support and interventions would be addressed to ensure cultural understanding was used especially when student need to overcome barriers in learning.

The private sector remains a challenge in terms of cultural adoption through policy however.

On one hand Institutes such as mine, only have 2-3 Maori/Pacific students, enrolments which will remain consistently low due to the specific content (traditional European medicine).

While it would be great to have an influx of Pacific and Maori students into our programmes, it is not the culture of the college stopping this, rather our content vs Maori and Pacific traditional health models, which are already fulfilling their needs and are integrated into their histories, philosophies and experiences.

As such, does a private entity, of which 98-99% of students are mono-culture due to the field of study, take the risk of alienating its largest stakeholder by integrating the indigenous culture at a foundation level, throughout vision, teaching, assessment design and all services?  

It’s a good question - one which I feel swayed both ways for and against.
While one would hope that an institute does everything possible for every student to feel included, while helping to address any minority issues that exist, at what point does one say to implement such change given the existing and future demographic is not a financially viable return on investment?

Hopefully this is not regarded as ignorance to the seriousness of the problem, rather the variability of impact such changes would produce within the each individual context.

Trend influencing education in New Zealand or internationally

Distance Education

Distance Learning captures my attention not only because our College was one of the first institutes in New Zealand to conduct distance learning, by recording lectures to VCR Cassette tape and mailing them to students since 1989, but also due of the disruption emerging technology has introduced to distance education.

While our College led the way with pre-recorded Lectures via VCR Tapes, then later DVD disk, the adoption of technology for distance education has largely lagged behind due the the digital literacy of the founding members of the College.

Despite this, a few years ago the College moved onto Moodle an online learning system, reducing postage/courier costs, dvd disk copying costs, allowing instant access for students to lectures and lecturers to completed assignments.

Global and Local Trends

However Global and Local Trends have impacted this change-over in ways the College was not prepared for.

Internet Connectivity, within New Zealand is still not at 100%. Many students living in rural communities of the far north and lower south islands, still rely on slow, intermittent internet connectivity, making eLearning a challenge for the worst affected.
By moving to an online platform for eLearning the College has both restricted those students without internet or with poor connectivity, at the same time increasing the potential pool of students to anyone with Internet Connectivity within the wider world.

This is mentioned as a concern in Global trends where the rate of technological change may eventually impact developing countries, such would be the case for online learning systems not being much use in countries where internet connectivity is not widespread. In such cases the benefits of such as system would not be realised and may hinder the developing countries rates of educational adoption.

Local Issues

However in NZ and Internationally the rate of eLeanring uptake is increasing to such an extent that government policies and frameworks fail in currency.
Recently NZQA released a paper for discussion detailing changes to the Learning Hours of Qualifications. Currently this is defined as  Directed Learning and Self-Directed Learning, however the current proposal defines a full qualification as Directed Hours only, where an institute must justify reasons why hours are delivered differently and track exact engagement hours if that is the case.
This obviously is a response to the increase of online learning where defining exactly what is classed as directed vs self-directed is a grey area.
This raises questions such as, is a student watching a recording of a full 3 hour in-class lecture, directed learning? Is there any difference between that student watching via distance/asynchronously than actually being in the classroom? Would the learning not be the same?  

Conclusion

As we move down the road of increasing reliance on digital tools and technologies for education, governments and their agencies must also move along, if not ahead of the technology - ensuring the full benefits are not eroded by policies, frameworks and funding models made for a traditional environment.

Current issues in my professional context

The Issues

Our Private Training Establishment (PTE) was founded in 1989, with a strong culture of inclusive well being driven from the founders, however over time as the college has matured we have seen the slow increase of stagnation and a trend of decline through a resistant to adapt culture to our current environment.
This has had deep impacts on the College, staff and students where the culture has evolved to resist any attempt to challenge the long-held, unchanged norm’s, especially in terms of culture change for improvement.
Over time the College’s environment has changed drastically with the introduction of eLearning technology, distance learning, external educational policy shifts and stricter funding mechanisms which currently compound dysfunction and barriers to improvement adoption.

Current Context
However over the last year the college has been working to address such culture issues through the integration of Continuous Improvement processes to address NZQA External Evaluation & Review (EER) ratings.
This has been an exercise of systematic Re-Culturing (Stoll, 1998) “the process of developing new values, beliefs and norms….. building new conceptions about instruction... and new forms of professionalism for teachers...”.

It began with a wake-up call, a poor result within our NZQA EER ratings with old assumptions of “this is how we’ve always done it” simply failing to make the mark. It was through this catalyst that cracks within the culture were made and assumptions started to sway.

With emphasis on the need to raise our EER category ratings, a discussions around improvements was conducted, with resistance for some key members of staff - still opposing the required shift in culture, the adoption of continuous improvement and change.
As Stoll (1998) suggests a culture metaphor was created within the team one that was inclusive to our history and journey.

The Waka
Such was born the “Waka” a metaphor for the College as a whole, with the team “paddling” and the “Chief scanning the horizon and directing the boat.”
The power of this one simple metaphor was amazing, it could be used in a variety of context, situations and used impartially.
This brought about catch-phases used within meetings which quickly spread to every day staff language, as such, “paddling in the wrong direction” - a resistive assumption often produced by fear of change, “bailing out the water” - Getting rid of assumptions and resistance,   and “navigation by starlight” - using factual evidence to steer the Waka.

Conclusion
The process of Re-Culturing has assisted with breaking down barriers and overcoming resistances, no longer are changes seen as College-Changing they are now being viewed as Assumption-Changing.
More importantly staff are now focussed on problem-solving , improving and evidencing within the College, where all members are interconnected and interrelated through the metaphor driving the culture change.

References

Stoll. (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture

Reflecting on Reflection of Practice

"Our College is a continually reflecting, changing, improving beast! ...Albeit out of necessity." (Steven Castle, 2017)

Introduction

It used to be that “reflection of practice” for a Tertiary Provider meant running through a mundane NZQA policy list, ticking a few checkboxes...it was reflection of practice at its worst.

However this Audit system of the 1990’s and 2000’s was radically changed in 2014 with the introduction of the NZQA External Evaluation and Review (EER) for Tertiary Providers.

While previously we ticked checkboxes to say “Yes- We use a Quality Management System, Yes - Minutes are taken of our regular monthly management meetings etc..” this new NZQA EER audit system required actual evidence of improvements within teaching, learning practices and all other areas of a Provider. Improvements needed to be made through the review and understanding of real tangible data” with the final stage being the requirement to use the ‘story’ shown in data to implement change and then (at some stage in the future) self-assess the validity of changes made - did they reach the extent and depth of the original plan for improvement?”.

To summarise the introduction to Reflection of Practice through NZQA EER for myself, our team and many other Tertiary Providers was short, sharp, and definitely required a Growth Mindset.

There was little guidance of what data to collect, what trends we should be looking for, how fast improvements needed to be evidenced, or what self-assessment, reflection and review looked like.

With only several NZQA EER audit questions in hand, such as “How well do Learners achieve?” and “What is the value of the teaching and learning?”, we were sent on our way, back into our Colleges, Institutes and Universities to start …reflecting on our practices.

The Process

Through this experience I’ve come to understand that Reflection of Practice requires a Growth Mindset, where one learns through trial and error, where the actual learning is more important than the achievements. It requires persistence where one does not quit from failure rather assesses the areas of failures, modifies practices which led to failure to ensure they do not happen again and continues.

The process of Reflecting on Practice is such a valuable process - more valuable than anything I can actually think within the context of a College or School, at any level.

As McKay (2008, forthcoming) states, it enforces that reflective practice is a bedrock of professionalism within education which should be the professional imperative of every staff member.

Results

While the change maybe hard, the results speak for themselves.

Not only can it personally improve teaching (or in my case managing) practices, the continual nature of reviewing what is happening, deciding if it can be better and implementing the changes can have profound effects on students within their learning.

It can impact whole classrooms and even schools where a management driven collective reflective practice can identify the broader cultural and social issues facing both school, students and communities.

Conclusion

While EER maybe the new “tick box” requirement for Tertiary Providers to ensure they remain NZQA registered and TEC Funded, personally I would without doubt, continue to implement Reflection of Practice throughout all areas of our College despite the requirement to do so, and for that matter any future business - educational or not.

Such is the power of Reflection of Practice in influencing positive, evidence driven continual change.

References

McKay, E.A. (2008, Forthcoming) Reflective practice: doing, being and becoming a reflective practitioner.Skills for Practice in Occupational Therapy. Oxford: Elsevier Ltd.