Conference Agenda

Objectives

- Discuss how an intentional and systematic commitment and approach to supporting the deep learning and reflexivity of staff can prepare them to effectively build cultures of belonging among a diverse student population

- Describe a powerful critical inquiry approach to professional learning with regards to diversity, equity, and inclusion

- Share concrete and practical steps taken as part of the staff-wide critical inquiry as well as emergent outcomes

- Describe key learnings that can serve to guide schools and school systems to increase the likelihood of significant positive impact of efforts to promote more equitable environments

Educational Importance for Practice

The teaching staff at the Calgary Girls Charter School endeavour to make belonging central to our practice. We believe that the psychological need to belong in a school community is antecedent to successful learning. The research widely agrees on the importance of the construct of belonging in schools yet offers few frameworks or models to guide its operationalization in school-based settings (Allen and Kern, 2017). To enact a pedagogy of belonging in our school (Beck and Malley, 1998), we realized that staff members needed to focus on our own inner work before we would be able to be of best support to students and the broader community. We knew that to enhance understanding and truly live these beliefs and values, time needed to be spent analyzing our own stories, assumptions, beliefs, biases (Sealey-Ruiz, 2021) and developing our equity-mindedness. We co-constructed a cascade of critical inquiry questions and challenges that we committed to working through together.

The emergent outcomes have been extremely promising. Staff were able to speak to how this learning made an imprint on them personally and on our learning community as a whole. The ways we interact with one another and the ways that we program for students has shifted because each of us continues to grow and change. To symbolize our learning, staff took their shared vision of a forest, where the ecosystem has individuality, yet is intricate and connected, to a few students who have turned it into a beautiful art piece to live in the school as a reminder of the commitments we have made to ourselves and one another.

Format and Approaches

In this interactive and practical session, participants will engage with the cascade critical inquiry questions developed by CGCS staff and consider the key elements of the professional learning approach that might be adaptable and transferable to their contexts.

Connection to the Conference Theme

We connect to the conference theme: “Leading schools and education systems that promote equity, inclusion, belonging, diversity, social justice, global citizenship and/ or environmental sustainability”. As schools and educational systems around the world grapple with how to promote more equitable outcomes, more inclusive environments and cultures of true belonging, the crucial importance of the inner work that educators must engage in cannot be taken lightly. We are eager to share our learnings about how a critical inquiry approach to professional learning can truly make a difference.

Purpose of the Session

The purpose of this innovate presentation is to provide a discussion and examination of the utilization of auxiliary school leaders. By auxiliary school leaders, we refer to those members of the school team that are not administrators, teachers, or support staff, but rather support students in other ways. In the United States, examples of these leaders include school psychologists, school counselors, school social workers, and school nurses. These leaders are extremely important to the successful operation of a school yet are frequently underutilized or relegated to administrative tasks.

Educational Importance

Auxiliary leaders such as school psychologists, counselors, social workers, and nurses have the potential to greatly alleviate the overwhelming load that is typically placed on school leaders and administrators. Despite their specialized skills, such auxiliary leaders have not been included in the commentary and research about school leaders employing distributed leadership (Hargreaves & Fink, 200; Harris, 2004; Spillane et al., 2007; Tian et al., 2016). By adequately attending to student discipline, social-emotional learning, and counseling to name just a few, auxiliary leaders may alleviate the workload of school leaders (Hochbein & Meyers, 2021). Currently, in many schools in the United States, there is an inappropriate resource allocation at play where auxiliary school leaders are relegated to administrative tasks, while administrators are forced to pick up the burden of student support issues (Wang, 2022). This is an economic and political failure and is leading to inefficient and ineffective educational practices. The appropriate use of these professionals may also lead to positive outcomes, such as more appropriate student discipline practices (Richardson et al., 2019), improved student and teacher mental health (Paternite, 2005), and smaller racial gaps in academic achievement (Zink & Anderson, 2023) as well as disproportionality in exclusionary discipline (Darensbourg et al., 2010). This is due to the specialized training that these professionals have but are not using. The appropriate allocation of these professionals will lead to more effective schools.

Format and Approaches

In this session, participants will be encouraged to share techniques which they have utilized auxiliary school leaders across different educational settings and locations. A discussion surrounding potential professional development options will be conducted, where participants will have the chance to share their ideal utilization of these professionals and suggest recommendations for professional development and training that may aide in obtaining such a utilization.

Connection to Conference Theme

This session is particularly relevant to the conference theme, quality professional education for enhanced school effectiveness and improvement. Improving professional education and professional development for administrators and teachers on the effective use of these auxiliary leaders will help make schools more efficient and safer for students. The appropriate allocation of resources will also lead to a greater productivity by school personnel, as administrators and teachers will be free to pursue other work and auxiliary administrators will be relieved from administrative burdens that lead to a lack of productivity. These auxiliary leaders may also be recruited into leadership preparation programs, which would lead to a more diverse workforce.

The EdEco Initiative is an ongoing experimental process designed to support a deeper level of connection and education ecosystem coherence in South Africa. Initiated in February 2021, and supported within the South African Department of Education’s Innovation Unit, DBE-E3, the initiative supports education actors to co-sense and co-evolve a model to deepen levels of trust, connection, collaboration, systems insight, co-creation, and learning ecosystem emergence within South African education sector, using a variety of systems change modalities.

Participants are drawn from diverse segments of the education landscape, and include Civil Society, Education NGO’s, Business, Philanthropy, and Public Private Partnership actors. The process has successfully fostered dialogue, leading to deeper levels of shared and generative understanding.

To achieve education outcomes fit for an uncertain future (in particular, the critical learning competencies of character, citizenship, collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking), education systems need to transform to allow for more humanised, experiential, and individuated approaches to learning. This requires a reconfiguration of the underpinnings and philosophical approaches to education, with a shift in the ability of all actors to operate collaboratively and coherently towards the transformation of education, understanding their synergistic roles. This is a Systems Transformation process, requiring Systems Thinking and Systems Action capacity to become embedded within the education system itself.

Globally, this systems approach is being explored through the “learning ecosystem” model. The United Nation’s Transforming Education Summit in September 2022, the work of UNESCO’s International Commission on the Futures of Education, the OECD Handbook for Learning Innovative Environments and World Innovation Summit in Education Learning Ecosystems Playbook all reference the key importance of the establishment of education networks able to support the exchange of ideas and facilitate collaboration and shared learning. This work is relatively unchartered in the South African context. It is this transformation towards systems thinking and approach that we are seeking support in South Africa through the EdEco Connect Initiative.

Despite the common perception that alignment around a unified, compelling purpose is sufficient to enable genuinely collaborative, indeed co-creative work to occur, it has proven extraordinarily difficult to achieve multi-stakeholder collaboration and coherence around compelling global issues such as education. As expressed by Jean Oelwang in her book “Partnering”:

“We mistakenly expect groups and individuals to be able to collaborate spontaneously. Yet this is like expecting a group of amateur gymnasts to come together and instantly perform a gravity-defying double backflip in unison, before they have even mastered how to spot each other in a simple cartwheel”.

The EdEco Connect initiative has been designed as a space to explore, discuss, practice, and build a collective capacity for experiencing and stepping into connection, relationship, and trust, as well as for seeding additional spaces that enable this for others within the sector. Our goal, rather than “scaling this initiative” is to diffuse this capacity into the system, through equipping participants to hold similar spaces in their own workspaces, networks, and geographies, and through connecting and learning from others who are doing similar work.

Research indicates that leadership development programs often have disappointing results in terms of the application of ideas, leading to changes in practice and subsequent impact. Indeed, in their meta-analysis, Lacarenza and colleagues (2017) reported that only a small minority of organisations believed that their leadership development programs are effective. In this session, we will explore a leadership development program that has obtained highly promising results in the two years of its implementation with over 100 participants from a wide range of leaders from various primary, secondary, co-ed and single-sex schools, located within the Melbourne Archdiocese (MACS).

The ‘Igniting Leadership Potential Program‘, based on Five Ways of Being (Danvers, De Blasio, Grift, 2020), has been demonstrated to have a significant impact on not only the knowledge but the practices of participating leaders. And ironically, perhaps, through its primary focus on ‘being’, it has bridged the knowing/doing gap, perhaps supplying a hitherto missing link in leadership development programs.

The purpose of this session is to provide participants with increased knowledge and understanding of the specific design and delivery features that have led to the success of this agile and research-informed leadership development program. These features include, but are not limited to:

- The extended nature of the program (over 5 months), spaced training sessions, regular check-ins between participants and facilitators, needs analysis, regular and ongoing feedback, attendance policy, deliverables expected of participants, regular small group coaching sessions;

- Evaluation (ongoing and iterative), immediate feedback and agile capacity to respond and adapt in the moment and from one session to the next;

- Inbuilt and ongoing accountability and commitment measures and requirements;

- Co-constructed design-– delivering a bespoke leadership program

- Going beyond competency checklists to focus on who we need to ‘be’ and ‘become’ and the consistent and intentional embodiment of our leadership identity/ies;

- Focusing on the compelling why: connecting participants to meaningful work and contribution.

This paper shines a light on the issues related to leadership development programs, in particular, the implementation gap: the gap between 'knowing' (what I know and have learned) and doing (how I am applying that learning in my leadership practice) and impact (how I know that my leadership is having an impact). In so doing, it offers a model that can potentially be applied to improve the impact of existing and or new leadership development programs: a model that with its celebration of being human also offers hope to extinguish the flames of disillusionment and despondency that can afflict and engulf leaders in our challenging times.

Program lead and co-author, Heather De Blasio, will engage participants in a direct experience of some of the strategies and protocols of the Five Ways of Being Igniting Leadership Potential program, as well as exploration of the evaluative data.

Objectives

Extend and expand upon our ICSEI 2023 session by:

1.Discussing key elements of an innovative inquiry approach to nurturing the thinking and practice of school leaders.

2. Sharing themes from our data to describe:

a) the competencies that school leaders self-identify as important to developing their inquiry-based thinking,

b) the contexts and processes which invited, supported the development of those competencies.

3. Sharing research findings and stories from participating leaders related to the key features and approaches taken within facilitated inquiry groups that led to significant impact on their leadership thinking and practice.

Educational Importance

Leithwood (2020) has affirmed that strong leadership had the strongest effect on positive outcomes for administrators participating in network learning. Seven Oaks School Division in Manitoba, Canada and Superior Greenstone District School Board in northern Ontario, Canada have adopted a powerful approach to supporting school leaders that nurtures an inquiry habit of mind as they explore their challenges and learn the power of interrogating their own practice.

Louis and Robinson (2012) affirm that professional learning opportunities need to develop in principals the capabilities required to engage in effective instructional leadership. These include the capacity to challenge, support, reflect on, and change their professional practice (Robertson, 2010). Robertson (2010) calls for deep leadership learning that will “facilitate the self-awareness to create the disposition to change one’s practice” (p. 223).

In both districts, various opportunities were created for authentic inquiry including Leadership Inquiry Groups, Critical Friends sessions and 1:1 coaching. Each provided sustained opportunities for school leaders to think collaboratively with colleagues about their leadership moves. Small groups allowed for building a climate conducive to critical inquiry, responsive coaching and meaningfully connecting with colleagues.

Our initial data is revealing that participants strongly value the structures and opportunities for facilitated critical inquiry into their practice. As facilitators of professional learning of school leaders, we seek to identify the key features and approaches taken within learning opportunities that led to significant impact on their leadership thinking and practice.

Format and Approach

In this interactive Innovate session, we will share our key learnings with respect to processes and contexts that administrators report has had a significant positive impact on their leadership development and practice. We will engage session participants by inviting their own personal reflection and facilitate a discussion on how the critical inquiry approach supports school leaders.

Connection to the Conference Theme

We connect to the subthemes:

“Exploring the evolving research and evidence base for leadership education and capacity building” and “Policy and practice learning to support teacher and school leader development”.

Objectives or purposes of the session

The field of professional learning networks (PLNs) is heavily populated by theory and research. While this evidence-base is critical, this session seeks to complement the research with lived experience. Reflecting on their collective experience from over 80 collective years of leading networks in Africa, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, the 5 presenters will share their stories of challenges and opportunities in leading large-scale PLNs. During this session the presenters will explore the following issues:

• Practical experience with the nuances of leading networks

• How to navigate and actively create conditions to support a “living” network for effective change

• Similarities and differences among a wide geographical range of PLNs across Australia, Africa, USA, UK and Canada; and

• Inherent tensions to manage at different stages of PLN development, growth, and change

Educational importance for theory, policy, research, and/or practice

There is an acceleration of what is being published on PLN theory, research methods, design principles and elements, and effectiveness, but far less about what is happening on the ground for network leaders. This session addresses this gap by focusing on the experience of 5 women educational network leaders from different countries and continents as they navigate and respond to a variety of policy and practice challenges.

The format and approach(es) that will be used in the session to engage participants in the exploration of the area of practice

This presentation will be highly interactive, dynamic and responsive with a focus on collective sensemaking by the presenters and the audience. The audience will be invited to be a part of the collective storytelling experience by adding words to the “Pandora’s Box” and responding to the reflections by the presenters.

The session will engage the participants through four stages.

1. The Pandora’s Box. Presenters and audience will sit in a circle with a ‘Pandora’s Box’ in the centre. Audience members will be provided with blank cards and invited to write words that come to mind when they think of network leadership. The presenters will have already provided a collection of words (e.g. disruptive, opportunistic, fortuitous, engagement, juggling, abstractness, humour).

2. Individual wisdom – One by one, the presenters will pull a word from the ‘Pandora’s Box’ at random and use the word drawn as a stimulus to share their experience of leading networks in their context. Each word chosen will then be placed in the middle of the circle.

3. Collective sense-making – As the words in the middle of the circle increase, the presenters and audience will be invited to categorize the words chosen and include reflections and/or responses to create a collective and living story of network leadership.

4. Collective wisdom – the presenters will lead the audience in drawing out insights and key take-aways to support ongoing conversations.

Education is central to securing a better future for students in Out-of-Home Care (OOHC; ‘students in care’). Education is essential both for a person’s own development and well-being; and for their contribution to society. However, the educational outcomes of students in care lag well behind other students internationally (Garcia-Molsosa et al., 2021; O’Higgins et al., 2015) and in Australia (AIHW, 2015; Knight & Rossi, 2018; Townsend et al., 2020). We argue that any intervention intended to improve school outcomes for students in care has a crucial prerequisite: that these students actually are at school and in class. Previous research has shown that:

a) Double the amount of absence per term: average of 7 days versus 3.4 days (Armfield et al., 2020).

b) More than four times the amount of chronic truancy (defined as 10+ days unauthorised absence in a school term): 46.3% versus 10.7% (Armfield et al., 2020).

c) Almost four times the proportion of students suspended: 23% versus 6% (Graham et al., 2020).

Children are placed in OOHC by relevant state/territory child protection services when the service determines that they are unable to live safely at home due to risk of abuse or neglect. There are three main types of OOHC provision in Australia: relative/kinship care (with a relative), foster care (with a non-related carer), and residential care (small group homes). There are 36,084 school-aged children (age 5-17) in care in Australia (AIHW, 2022). Of these, 14,949 (41%) were Indigenous (AIHW, 2022), which is a significant over-representation.

Educational outcomes for students in care are poor. Fewer students in care meet the National Minimum Standard in NAPLAN-Reading in year 3 (82% versus 95% nationally) and the gap grows for Year 9 (69% versus 93%) (AIHW, 2015). Only 57% of young care leavers (aged 18-25) completed Year 12 (McDowall, 2020), while 85% of 20-24-year-olds nationally have completed Year 12 or equivalent (ABS, 2020).

Addressing educational improvements for our most vulnerable cohorts of learners at system, school leadership, school community and teacher knowledge and capacity levels is an ongoing but often unresolved issue in schools with indicators that disruptions due to covid have made this an even more challenging space for schools.

This innovation presentation will discuss the research work being undertaken within ARC LP220100130, Fostering school attendance for students in Out-of-Home Care and the Learning Without Barriers Education Strategy. lwb.org.au/ctfassets/2SBT8kE6V77cWne8HWZnum/ Where the author leads the national education strategy as Executive Director of Education for Life Without Barriers and is a Lead partner with the ARC team in his capacity as an Adjunct Researcher at the University of Tasmania. This research will bring politicians, policymakers, educators, and the child protection sector together to shape innovation that ensures each young person in care meets their learning potential.

The focus of The SOL (Student Ownership of Learning) foundation has been on educational culture. During previous ICSEI sessions we were able to share our thoughts and practises on how to identify the educational culture of a school or a school system. Using the theoretical framework of John Macbeath, we developed a table game that can be played by all the participants of the school community: students, teachers, and school leaders. The game is not only an excellent tool to stimulate a debate on ownership, but it also generates data about how the whole school community thinks about ownership of learning. Is the school a formal, a pragmatic, a strategic, an incremental, a competent or a cultural school? The result of the game is then used to produce graphs and charts that help the specific school define the direction it wants to follow.

Currently our research path focuses on the ‘experience of ownership’. How does it feel to have ‘ownership” This is a more psychological, a more inward-looking angle. We developed a questionnaire to find out about these experiences. This is a new tool that can be used in different schools with different educational cultures.

The most interesting question is of course: how are the school culture and the experience of 'ownership of learning' related? That is what SOL’s new research is about. The first set of schools that SOL would be looking into is a group of so called ‘Agora schools’ in the Netherlands. These schools can be described as democratic schools. In the Netherlands exist twenty schools where students not only determine their own leaning content, but also their own learning style, and pace of learning. They are an interesting group to work with. SOL wants to investigate the relation of Agora’s liberal educational system with the kind of ownership students experience.

Further on in the process, Sol will also continue the same research with other types of schools. The outcomes will help to sharpen ideas on what the effects on school culture are to the experiences of learning.

During this innovate session we will share the theoretical framework of school culture, the way we use the board game, the way we define the ‘experience of ownership’, the Agora school system and the first outcomes of our new research with those schools. We are very interested in the feedback of all members of the ICSEI community.

A strategic priority for ICSEI involves supporting regional and virtual conferences and events that build on and extend the conversations and networking between our annual Congresses. To build on the conversations from the ICSEI 2024 Congress in Dublin, we are working on a regional event for July 5-6th, 2024 in Wales that will focus on issues of social justice, central to ICSEI’s purpose: “To enhance the quality and equity of education for all students in schools in all countries.” This invited innovate session will showcase the theme of the regional event in Wales, considering different aspects of the challenge of repurposing education for all children.

This regional conference is for educators who are willing to step up and step out of their local or national comfort zone, to lead the change with others, to share knowledge and to cross boundaries by learning from others working in different education systems. This conference is aimed at school leaders, teachers, policy makers and academics, who are interested in contributing to a cross-national, international, and global community. The programme will have a deep social justice theme and will focus on the possibilities of enhancing school effectiveness and improvement for all rather than for some. The conference will also have a practical orientation and will facilitate the sharing of knowledge and experience about leading educational change at the micro and macro level.

While educational inequality and inequity persists, our collective mission must be to create a world where success for every child in every setting is not just an aspiration but a lived reality. We cannot do this alone or independently. Working collaboratively is essential. Isolation is the enemy of improvement, so it is important that we learn across systems not to policy borrow or to replicate but rather to collaborate authentically and meaningfully across educational boundaries and fault lines. The moral imperative is to ensure that now, and in the future, all children and young people learn and live well, whatever their context, setting or circumstance. Education has never been so important locally, nationally, and globally right now. Creating the right educational future for our learners to survive and thrive depends on collective learning and collaborative action to lead the way for school effectiveness and system improvement.

Objectives Of The Session

- Discuss what we might affirm and refine about our current practices related to gathering and responding to student voice.

- Examine potentially impactful practices for increasing student agency in creating more equitable, inclusive, and supportive classrooms, schools and systems.

- Share practical and powerful approaches for elevating student generated data as a central element of our school and system improvement planning.

Educational importance for Theory, Policy, Research, and/or Practice

The demands on teachers, principals, and senior administrators to engage with data are significant and are often seen as unwelcome accountability measures causing resistance or mere compliance. However, by redefining data as guidance, we can adopt a powerful approach that encourages every member to actively seek, gather, and comprehend data, empowering them to feel confident and competent in critically analyzing their own practices. In these efforts, engaging with student-generated guidance and feedback is key.

As schools and educational systems face increased expectations to use data as part of intentional improvement planning, student voice data is often sought but practices to thoughtfully gather, analyze, interpret and respond to the data collected remain limited in scope and impact.

Research has pointed to approaches that connect student voice with curriculum development, agency, and student leadership (Biddulph, 2011; Quinn & Owen, 2016), and focus on student voice participation and the knowledge they carry as researchers at schools and broader communities (Bahou, 2011). The general agreement in the literature is that young people have unique perspectives on learning, teaching, and schooling and should have the right to shape their education actively (Cook-Sather, 2006). However, many questions are yet to be answered about their level of involvement, authenticity, the extent of co-creation of data gathering and analysis methodologies, and which student voices are being listened to. Engaging genuine student voice is work that centers students to identify, analyze, and inform action about issues in their schools and learning that are considered relevant to students (Cook-Sather, 2020). It is crucial to deepen the examination of the spectrum of practices that involve student voices and their role in school and educational system change.

Format and approach

In this interactive session, participants will engage with the critical inquiry question: How might we meaningfully centre student experience and effectively use their guidance for our planning? They will examine a powerful approach to engaging students in providing feedback and guidance to inform school and system improvement and consider connections to their own contexts.

Connection to the conference theme

We connect to the conference theme: “Leading schools and education systems that promote equity, inclusion, belonging, diversity, social justice, global citizenship and/ or environmental sustainability”. Data can act as both a window, providing insight into the lives of students and their school experiences, and as mirror, helping us to see ourselves and the impact of our practices more clearly through students’ eyes. Meaningful efforts to promote more equitable and inclusive environments will require us to find ways to investigate both the window and the mirror provided by student voices.

The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTC Scotland) is the teaching profession’s independent registration and regulation body in Scotland. GTC Scotland works to maintain and enhance trust in teaching, through teaching standards and registering and regulating the teaching profession. The Standard for Provisional Registration (GTC Scotland, 2021), the Standard for Full Registration (GTC Scotland, 2021) and the Code of Professionalism and Conduct (COPAC) (GTC Scotland, 2012), together, provide the framework for teacher professionalism. Becoming a teacher, including mandatory teacher education is underpinned by this framework.

This paper highlights work undertaken with the teaching profession to prepare for policy review, highlighting strengths of the approach alongside the need to divert initial plans in light of feedback about current implementation. Consideration is given to the tensions between individual policy content and policy use as well as relationships with existing policy with regard to professional ethics.

A refreshed suite of Professional Standards for teachers in Scotland was published in 2021.The current version of COPAC has been in place since 2012. Its revision in 2012 was not a detailed review and it did not significantly amend what had been in place before. Along with the work to refresh professional standards for teachers, a revised professional code was subject to public consultation in late 2019. The outcome of this was that further review should be considered.

The 2012 version of COPAC, with much of it seen as exemplary at the time, received international recognition(1). However, GTC Scotland believed that revision should be considered to ensure that the messages and the tone articulated well with the refreshed 2021professional standards.

A new two-year strategy was devised. A systems approach was adopted in recognition of the complexity involved in any meaningful consideration of a contemporary professional code. During the first year all teachers and college lecturers were offered the opportunity to engage with professional learning opportunities and discussion sessions. In the second year, all would be included in the wide consultation on the first draft of any revised/new policy produced. Notably, time and space were to be devoted to collaborative learning before attempting to revise or replace the existing COPAC.

However, the data gathered showed that there was no consensus about the need and scale of required change. This led to a decision to retain COPAC in its current form, republished in a modern digital format reflecting up to date terminology. At the same time, planned year two work was refocused to allow education about and engagement with COPAC through GTC Scotland’s Education and Standards work. This work to support the embedding of COPAC and its effective use, aims to support the creation of conditions that will benefit future exploration of a more significant revision to COPAC alongside greater consideration of how it works along with the professional standards to define what it means to become, be and grow as a teacher in Scotland.

(1) Recognition from both Committee on Standards in Public Life (2013) and Council of Europe (2016) ETINED Council of Europe Platform on Ethics

As part of a major social and economic regeneration initiative in Dublin’s North-East Inner City (NEIC), the P-TECH pilot initiative was launched in 2018 to provide post primary students in the area with an enriching educational experience to develop new skills and to help them to connect to new learning and career pathways.

P-TECH is an innovative model of education-industry collaboration that was developed in the USA by IBM and local educators to build technology skills. In Ireland, the model has been adapted within a partnership collaboration across HE, schools, government and industry. The National College of Ireland (NCI), as academic partner, has had the responsibility of designing, developing and supporting the delivery of a new Certificate in P-TECH programme. On completion of the programme - which spans the senior cycle in post primary schools - students gain a 10 ECTs higher education award.

On the Certificate in P-TECH programme, students learn about the worlds of work and higher education and have experiences in both environments to build their familiarity, sense of belonging and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1997). Students have opportunities to develop skills in areas such as technology, business, communications, design thinking and project management. They also have a highly structured work experience which is completed with one of the industry partners as part of their school's Transition Year programme.

For the P-TECH students, the programme offers unique opportunities and pathways for learning to enhance their potential. In addition to their development of specialised skills and knowledge, students participating in the programme also have important personal development opportunities which build their confidence, resilience, self-awareness and learning skills. This aspect of the programme represents an underlying belief that students’ learning will be enhanced with a continued emphasis on their wellbeing and ongoing personal development (Sen, 1999; Nussbaum, 2011).

The key to success of the development and delivery of the Certificate in P-TECH programme is an ambitious and innovative curriculum which is supported by a committed partnership approach across participating industry partners and schools. The industry partners provide a range of supports including mentoring, digital badges and work experience opportunities as part of their commitment to supporting students. The participating schools have also made significant commitments including the timetabling of classroom hours for the programme and the support of teachers to complete a bespoke P-TECH teaching award.

The focus of the presentation is to share the innovations of the P-TECH curriculum and to explore the experiences, impact and learning of the school and industry partners. Recent stakeholder research will inform the discussion but speakers will also share examples of learning and practices. The format will comprise a presentation on the Certificate in P-TECH curriculum innovations (NCI), industry partner experiences and school experiences of P-TECH.

As the pilot comes to a close, this exploration and discussion is timely and useful. It is hoped that by sharing the experiences and learning, it will offer ideas and opportunities for further innovative developments and partnerships in the education landscape.

Objectives

Extend and expand upon our ICSEI 2023 session by:

- Discussing key elements of an innovative approach to online professional learning that engages teachers in inquiry learning about anti-racism and using critical inquiry to decenter white narratives in primary literacy

- Sharing completed learning modules created through collaborative development

- Share findings from participating teachers

Educational importance

Critical Race Theory (CRT) investigates the systemic nature of racism by questioning how it creates racist structures and status quos that further the interests of white supremacy (Stefanic & Delgado, 2012). CRT also contains an activist element that calls us to both understand systemic racism and change it. In her work on CRT in education, Ladson-Billings (1998) urges scholars and teachers to bring CRT out of academia by translating theory into classroom practice.

The Limestone District School Board (LDSB) in Ontario, Canada has answered CRT’s call to action by developing anti-racism professional learning focused on building primary teachers’ capacities to decenter white narratives and develop student racial literacy. LDSB collaborated with Usha James (The Critical Thinking Consortium) and Clarissa de Leon, an anti-racist teacher educator, to develop a critical inquiry approach to learning about anti-racism. Critical inquiry is a powerful approach that, when properly implemented, deepens student understanding, increases engagement and develops competency in critical, creative and collaborative thinking (Gini-Newman and Case, 2015).

As part of this project, a series of online modules were created. These modules involve identifying and disrupting how white supremacy manifests systemically in education and beyond, including biases present in primary literacy and normative racial narratives reinforced in children’s books.

In these modules, teachers are prompted to:

- Interrogate their own identities and positionalities;

- Work through challenges encountered during their journeys towards anti-racism;

- Explore mentor texts that decenter white narratives and question how to critically use “imperfect” texts;

- Engage with critical inquiry questions related to anti-racism and primary literacy

- Use a Thoughtbook (Gini-Newman et al., 2016) to develop and observe their own growth.

Format and Approach

In this session, participants will engage with the critical inquiry question: What are the most powerful decisions I can make to decenter white narratives in the primary years in order to increase student racial literacy? At the end of the presentation, participants will share their thinking.

Connection to the conference theme

We connect to the subtheme of “Leading schools and education systems that promote equity, inclusion, belonging, diversity, social justice, global citizenship and/ or environmental sustainability”. Critical learning experiences about systemic oppression and racism often require space for vulnerability and meaningful connection. Current educational circumstances have made it increasingly challenging to create these spaces for teachers due to factors such as limited release time for synchronous professional development. This presentation explores how online learning may be reimagined to capture the deep reflection and community needed for anti-oppressive and anti-racist teaching and learning while remaining accessible to teachers.

Objectives

Expand upon our ICSEI 2023 session by:

• Describing a transformative framework and an innovative approach to collaboration that supports improved outcomes for First Nations students.

• Sharing 120+ collaboratively developed resources for 6 high school courses that embody culturally relevant, responsive and respectful pedagogy and content and explore their key features

• Sharing a powerful decolonized approach that is designing a Traditional Knowledges course directly with Matawa First Nations community members, Knowledge Keepers, and Elders.

• Sharing early findings on the impacts of the teaching and learning materials.

Educational Importance

“... it is precisely because education was the primary tool of oppression of Aboriginal people, and miseducation of all Canadians, that we have concluded that education holds the key to reconciliation.” (Sinclair, 2014)

The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action clearly highlights the significant role that education must play in the process of reconciliation. While it is true that “on average” students in Canada consistently perform well on provincial, national, and international standardized assessments, these measures do not accurately reflect the quality of education for Indigenous students in Canada with Indigenous students graduating at approximately half the rate of non-Indigenous populations (Assembly of First Nations, 2011; Styres, 2017).

First Nations students who relocate to urban centres experience an educational environment and curriculum that is not reflective of their cultural identity. Students face significant obstacles including discrimination and racism; difficulty in securing shelter; shortage of healthy food; and the inability to access mental health and addiction support services. These barriers often result in students abandoning personal and academic goals. The Matawa Education and Care Centre (MECC) is striving to mitigate these areas of concern by implementing a culturally responsive and holistic approach that promotes mental health support and a safe space to succeed academically.

The Critical Thinking Consortium (TC2) and the MECC are continuing their successful partnership to encourage meaningful collaboration with Matawa communities, Elders and Knowledge Keepers to develop engaging, culturally relevant and respectful resources across many subject areas. These resources guide and support teacher practice helping them nurture high quality thinking, centre students’ identities, histories and experiences to intentionally ensure the proper reflection and respect of Indigenous perspectives and worldviews.

Our successes to date include:

- Significant increase in achieved/completed credits

- 75% in-person regular attendance each week

- Overall improved student wellness

- Engagement with 16 school boards and other educational organizations across Ontario

- Development of a website to freely share resources freely

Format and Approach

In this interactive Innovate session, we will engage participants in critically examining our collaboratively developed resources to surface key components and provide thoughtful feedback on our approach.

Connection to the Conference Theme

We connect to the subthemes of this conference: “Engaged and purposeful dialogue between politicians, policymakers, academic researchers, educators, and the wider school community”. We have discovered principles and approaches that support the development and implementation of effective teaching and learning resources and professional learning that promote equity, inclusion, diversity, social justice, global citizenship, and environmental sustainability.

Purpose

In this session, we introduce frame shifting, an approach developed in the context of a school-university partnership to help experienced educators address persistent teaching dilemmas. The frame shifting approach entails the re-interpretation of a dilemma using a different domain of teaching as a frame, allowing the teacher to explore new strategies for a solution using this new view. Frame shifting can also be applied by school leaders, teacher educators, and researchers.

When frame shifting, teachers consider their dilemma differently by relating it to three domains of teaching (Kennedy-Lewis, 2012):

1. Relationships: Sustained patterns of interaction among individuals in the class;

2. Classroom management: Rules, routines, and teacher behaviors that structure teaching and learning;

3. Curriculum and instruction: The content taught and activities used to support students’ learning.

For example, a teacher we worked with first framed students’ unruly behavior at the beginning of class within the domain of classroom management because she presumed the dilemma stemmed from having lenient rules. However, since the behavior persisted despite tightening her rules, frame shifting was a useful approach. We coached her to reframe the dilemma within the domain of relationships by exploring whether students were unruly because they did not feel connected to her, and within the domain of curriculum and instruction by exploring whether students did not understand or care about the class warm-up. After shifting the frame, she practiced building stronger relationships with students and making warm-up activities more relevant to students’ lives, strategies that improved the start of class in ways that adjusting rules alone did not.

While using this approach during the partnership, we recognized the need for educators to have three foundational habits of mind when frame shifting (Costa & Kallick, 2008):

1. Habit of Deliberate Interpretation: Separating observation from interpretation in order to view a situation more clearly.

2. Habit of Asset Identification: Combating deficit-thinking by identifying and focusing on students’ assets.

3. Habit of Personal Attribution: Engaging self-efficacy and personal responsibility for solving the teaching dilemma.

Session Format

We will begin with a 12-minute presentation introducing the domains of teaching, frame shifting, and habits of mind. Participants will then complete an interactive exercise to engage with these concepts.

Educational Importance

Frame shifting propels educators to solve persistent dilemmas by changing their views in ways that open up different possible solutions. How teachers think about and respond to dilemmas cannot be divorced from considering how race, culture, and other social groupings affect teaching and learning (Ladson-Billings, 2017; Milner, 2013). We examine these issues as we discuss teaching dilemmas as powerful opportunities for implementing approaches that can lead to social change. Developing the habits of mind and the skill of frame shifting empowers educators to tackle dilemmas throughout their careers, which could improve student learning and job satisfaction.

Connection to Theme

This session illustrates how university researchers can leverage research to improve educators’ practices. We will model specific content we have used in professional learning with practicing teachers. 

Objectives or purposes of the session

During this innovate session participants will explore their own and others’ lived experiences of staffrooms in education settings. Staffroom users can create habits, cliques, and community. Staffrooms can feel physically or emotionally inclusive or excluding. The session will reveal the hidden curriculum of staffrooms and provide an opportunity for reflection, dialogue and re-imagining.

Educational importance for theory, policy, research, and/or practice

Staffrooms may have overlooked potential as sources of teacher wellbeing and learning, professional solidarity and a sustainable workforce. However, the research evidence indicates that there is a loss of staffroom space and reduction in use in many education settings, due to reallocation of existing space to other purposes, the designing out of staffrooms in new buildings and the reduction of document-based communication. In terms of professional learning environment staffrooms can recreate cultures of micro-management or can encourage more exploratory thinking.

The format and approach(es) that will be used in the session to engage participants in the exploration of the area of practice

This will be an interactive session of provocations interspersed with staffroom ‘chatter’. We will reflect on how staffrooms can be places of professional formation, solace and collaboration. Participants will be invited into a part-planned and part-responsive session. There will be opportunities to consider the potential of staffrooms, to reflect on research evidence and connect with each other as social learners.

There will also be an exhibition of photographs which have been used to elicit reflections on staffrooms from over 70 educators working in a range of roles, across different international settings and diverse education phases.

Participants will be invited to add their own image-elicited reflections.

Connection to the conference theme

Quality professional learning can happen by design and can also occur in the interstices of school communities. Much of what is now planned for and programmed in terms of induction, coaching, collaboration and knowledge mobilization does (or used to) exist in staffrooms. However, staffrooms are not always inclusive spaces, and can be overlooked in terms of their possible positive value or constraining influences on professional learning. Viewing staffrooms as creating a hidden curriculum of professional learning offers new ways to explore the realities of the drive to build momentum and sustain quality in educational improvement.

Objectives or purposes of the session

This session explores how we at the Center for Technology and School (CTSC), based in Teachers College, Columbia University, partner with educators through an asset-based, and interactive approach to professional development (PD) in order to build inclusive, authentic inquiry-driven, project based learning (PBL) experiences, units, and curricula for diverse student populations.

During the first 30 minutes, we will share our approach to PD, informed by decades of research at CTSC, and brought to thousands of teachers around the world. We will explain how and why PBL provides critical opportunities for minoritized students to address real-world problems, and in doing so, build their agency as global change makers. We will emphasize that while most PD tends to only passively involve teachers and provide general tools, our sessions are interactive and contextualized, and draw upon teachers’ assets. We will explain how and why educators must experience inquiry and collaboration in order for their designs to authentically support student inquiry. In the second 30-minute session, we will walk attendees through a condensed version of our PD, in which they will begin to design a project-based learning experience. In the last 30-minute session, we will guide participants through a reflective discussion to explore how our PD process and PBL design approach connects to their own professional goals.

Educational importance for theory, policy, research, and/or practice

Our theory of action offers practitioners and leaders a process for developing more just and equitable education for all students. In order for educators to create learning opportunities that are responsive to students’ background and contexts, elevate student voice and assets, and highlight student agency -- PD with educators must reflect those qualities as well. This approach is critical during a time when multiple global crises call for all young learners to collaboratively innovate and problem-solve across social, racial, gendered, and economic lines toward a more just and equitable world. Without educators who have themselves experienced real-world inquiry and collaboration, students are not as likely to be equipped to answer that call.

Format and approach

We will be offering interactive sessions that can be accessed virtually and in-person. We encourage the use of technology, and that participants bring devices, though this is not required for participation.

Connection to the conference theme (and sub theme)

We believe that all students, particularly those from communities challenged by racialized divestment, need meaningful inquiry opportunities in order to become self-directed learners and grow as leaders for global change. Effective teacher learning includes a focus on inclusive and culturally responsive practices that address the diverse needs of their students, including those from different cultural backgrounds, with disabilities, or with varied learning styles. The learning sciences and adult learning theory support active learning, teacher choice, social connectedness, constructive feedback, contextualized learning, and opportunities to reflect. When teachers are able to engage in collaborative, asset-based inquiry, their students are more likely to experience a sense of empowerment, develop critical thinking skills, and actively participate in their own learning process.

Objective: This research studies how 69 mandated networks of five Local Services of Public Education (SLEP in Spanish) define a common purpose with their participants and analyze the relationship between their purpose and the development of collaborative practices to strengthen systemic improvement.

Research questions: How are the purposes of mandated networks of the new public education administration in Chile defined? What is the collective coherence of different mandated school networks among their diverse members? How do the defined purposes of mandated networks relate to their main collaborative activities?

Theoretical framework and context: Educational networks are defined as at least two educational organizations working together to achieve a common purpose (Muijs, West, & Ainscow, 2010). It has been emphasized that a key element for the successful functioning of an educational network lies in having a clear, meaningful, and shared purpose among its members (Armstrong & Ainscow, 2018; Chapman, et al., 2016; Rincón-Gallardo & Fullan, 2016). The implementation of the new system to administrate public education in Chile mandates the development of school networks. School leaders have received these networks positively (Uribe et al., 2019). However, a study conducted in 2018 indicates that networks are coordinated from hierarchical approach, which has hindered their appropriate connection with the interests and challenges of their participants (González et al., 2020). It is relevant to determine whether in recent years these networks have undergone improvement in their collective activities, from a hierarchical to a more horizontal and distributed leadership, specifically in how their purposes are defined and shared, and if these purposes are related to its members' expectations and challenges.

Methods, techniques, and data sources: This is a mixed methods study (Greene, 2007). A questionnaire to analyze the purpose, activities, and functioning of school networks validated in Chile (Authors, 2019) was involving 69 networks with a total of 398 responses. An analysis of the functioning and coherence of the network purposes was conducted, then 8 networks were selected as cases based on their good functioning. In each case, an interview with their facilitator, and two observations of the network meeting were conducted.

Findings: The findings show that out of the five SLEPs, only two have a majority of their networks with a high level of coherence regarding their purpose. In the other three SLEPs, networks have a medium level of coherence and only one SLEP has a low level of coherence. Only three selected cases exhibit a high coherence and the remaining five are characterized by a medium level of coherence. The main activities include presentations by the facilitators, followed by successful projects presented by their members. There is a presence of inquiry groups within some networks, focused on educational practices, although to a lesser extent, which seems to be related to the higher coherence of their purposes. These findings are relevant for educational systems for the design of mandated school networks and can be used to support the continuing professional development of educators, and for networks to support collaborative systemic school improvement.

Exploring the Inception and Growth of Two Professional Learning Networks in Africa: An Ethnographic Case Study of Inception and Growth from Africa Voices Dialogue and Morocco

Abstract This paper presents an ethnographic case study that explores two innovative models of professional learning networks (PLNs) in Africa: Africa Voices Dialogue (AVD) and Inventors' Playground (IP). The existing literature on PLNs in Africa is limited and tends to focus on specific geographic regions. Therefore, using an ethnographic approach, this study aims to transcend territorial boundaries within Africa and between Africa and the rest of the world by examining how AVD and IP exemplify outward-looking PLNs through their missions, visions, values, and actions.

The study documents the inception of AVD and IP, their navigation of early growth challenges, and their sustained evolution driven by a shared mission to enhance teaching and learning through collaboration. Additionally, the study explores how these emerging networks practice resilience in the face of uncertainty and foster resilience among their network members.

The researchers of this study actively participated in AVD and IP as participant observers. They combined their personal reflections on the establishment and growth of these PLNs with inputs from members and participants through content and artifact analysis, surveys, and interviews. The analysis of the collected data sheds light on the milestones achieved by AVD and IP, as well as the extent to which their actions and development prospects contribute to the strengthening of PLNs and the improvement of teaching and learning.

This research not only fills a gap in the understanding of PLNs in Africa but also carries significant policy and practical implications. From a policy perspective, the study aims to garner support for PLNs as a means of peer-to-peer support that cultivates teachers' commitment to continuous improvement in instructional practices. At a practical level, the study acknowledges the issue of professional isolation, which is prevalent in Africa as well as in other industrialized nations. Nurturing PLNs within and across schools can alleviate this isolation and enhance collaboration, particularly in an era where teacher leaders who bridge professional boundaries and engage students, families, and communities in virtual support systems are crucial for improving learning outcomes.

This study holds value as it traces the evolution and development of learning networks in an understudied geography and context. It serves as a reflection of the transformative potential of PLNs, emphasizing concepts such as agency, experimentation, grit, resilience, learning, and mastery for teachers and learners alike.

Objectives

Literacy coaching is an international phenomenon, but there is a lack of sufficient research on the role of literacy coaches’ leadership at the system level, particularly in the Chinese education context. In the Chinese school system, literacy coaches are called jiaoyanyuan (teaching research officers), and they aid in-service teachers. Literacy coaches in China are considered teacher educators and researchers, and they may impact school policies and curriculum design (Zhang & Yuan, 2019). Because studies about literacy coaches’ leadership roles are limited and incomplete (York-Barr & Duke, 2004), the purpose of this study is to explore the leadership roles of literacy coaches at the system level in China. This study will contribute to educational leadership theory and the educational policy cycle in China and to the international literature at large.

Research questions

The main research question of this study is: How do literacy coaches enact system-level leadership in Chinese education system reform？

Theoretical framework

Literacy coaches, working as system leaders, may bring positive changes to school systems (Timperley, 2008). Scholars believe that educators’ capacity construction plays a significant role in their professional growth, and it is important for literacy coaches to become system managers (Fullan & Knight, 2011). As a system leader in a school, a literacy coach may improve teacher leadership (Guiney, 2001). Literacy coaches can work as change agents to foster the learning environment in schools (Saphier & West, 2010). Since many literacy coaches have a good professional relationship with teachers, a variety of teachers are willing to implement curriculum changes under literacy coaches’ supervision (Coburn & Woulfin, 2012). In addition, coaching activities can promote school staff’s learning experiences, which may influence students’ achievement (Killion et al., 2012). Moreover, literacy coaches are an excellent tool for teacher capacity construction because they are involved in teacher assessment systems (Woulfin & Rigby, 2017).

Methods and data sources

A qualitative research method was used in this study. Nine well-experienced literacy coaches were selected through the snowball method to take part in interviews, and each interview lasted for 45 to 90 minutes. Then, the data were analyzed through comparative analysis.

Findings

According to the data analysis, literacy coaches can perform as system leaders through promoting professional teaching improvement, launching educational evaluation transformation, conducting curriculum development, enacting learning leadership, and promoting academic research and projects in Chinese education system improvement.

Significance

This research theoretically provides empirical evidence of how literacy coaches enact system-level leadership to promote education system improvement. It therefore enriches the international literature on this topic.

Connection to the conference theme

Through exploring how literacy coaches perform in system-level leadership roles, the quality of professional education will be enhanced. This will promote school effectiveness and improvement.

Objectives, purpose, problem of practice:

What meaningful, purposeful connections does history provide for adolescents? Interesting learning is often left until post-secondary education (Mitra, 2020). It is the belief that students require a level of sophistication in a discipline before they can access the more complex elements; the work presented here belies this assumption, highlighting emerging learners delving into the complexity of research, contributing to a database aligned with a national Casualty Identification Program.

Placing high school students in the role of historian (Sandwell, 2012; Barton and Levstik, 2004), two Canadian school boards invested in a multi-faceted approach to learning history that seeks to place the human experience of the Great War as the catalyst for learning.

Research question or focus:

How can real-time, world-centred education connect teacher professional development and student learning in a dialogue between the past and present?

Techniques and approach to inquiry:

- employing Peter Seixas and Tom Morton's "Big 6 Historical Thinking concepts" (2013) with students conducting primary evidence research of First World War soldier service files as the skill-building method;

- encouraging students to learn as historians (Clark, 2012), engaging in the human element of the past to personalize and make connections to their present;

- implementing a responsive professional development (Katz, Earl, & Jafaar, 2009) where teachers and students engage in a continuous learning experience (City, Elmore, Fiarman & Teitel, 2009; Sears, 2011) to address skills gaps in both teachers and students (Barton & Levstik, 2004)

- showcasing student artefacts in public, community-connected exhibitions that span local, provincial, national, and international contexts (Osborne, 2003; Biesta, 2022);

Theoretical Framework:

Considering notions of "deep learning", Biesta's (2022) conceptual framework of "world-centred education" acts as a bridge between personal and social transformation. A student as an "'I' in the world", must learn and be pointed towards something greater than themselves, something greater than my education to our collective education. In becoming a historian charged with a life now represented by a service file, a student finds connection with the past, and an obligation to bring focus, attention, commemoration and memory to that life in a manner that they uniquely provide. Students evolve into Gardner’s synthesizing mind (2022), crystallizing the past with the present, a life lived with a life being lived, and a story left untold to tell.

Focus:

Outlining an integrated approach to teacher professional development using the student learning experience as the means to professional learning. Drawing on case studies from local, provincial, and national contexts, the paper will explicate connections across change leadership, pedagogical transformation, and reveal innovation in learning that engages learners uncovering stories of diversity as the means to learning history.

Methods, Data, and Impact:

- a digital archive of student artefacts created in response to the project that evidences new literacies, and directions for learning writ large.

- explicit links between professional learning, student learning, and recognized experts in the field that are connected to the student work.

- student and teacher interviews documenting real-world learning on teaching practice.