OTJ'S & TARGET GROUPS Term 1, Week 9, 2014

PD 27.03.2014

MICHAEL FULLAN CONFERENCE:

I was asked: what is the one thing that I'll take away from the conference today.

This is it:

BELOW ARE MY NOTES:

What are my hopes for ICT / Digital learning?

Instant access to the world.

Transference of skills as they age.

Students would take more control of their learning.

What are my biggest fears?

Loss of control as the ‘font of knowledge’.

ENABLING LEADERSHIP: 

Empower

Listen

Support

Kaplan & Kaiser, Fear your strengths, 2013

The unplanned digital revolution:

CHANGE KNOWLEDGE

TECHNOLOGY

PEDAGOGY

DISENGAGED STUDENTS:

It’s our goal to make learning and our classrooms an amazing place to come to everyday.

NEW LEARNING-

It has to be irresistible, elegantly efficient, technologically ubiquitous 24/7, and steeped in real-life problem solving.

THE TYPES OF CAPITAL:

There are a few that we discussed, however the one that struck a chord with me was:

SOCIAL CAPITAL- the quality and quantity of interactions and relationships among people. In a school, it affects teachers’ access to knowledge, and information, their sense of expectation, obligation, and trust; and their commitment to work together for a common cause.

To what extent do you work in a collaborative way for students in the school?

Social capital is powerful.

If you can mobalise the peers in a group, you’ll create synergy.

Let’s turn human capital on its head.

IN CONCLUSION, one of the greatest messages from the days conference was the following:

WHAT HAS A GREATER IMPACT ON TEACHER LEARNING?

3 strategies- WHICH HAS THE BIGGEST IMPACT?

1) Teacher appraisal

2) Professional development

3) Collaborative cultures

NB-

1) Episodic teacher appraisal is not a root to improvement as a driver

2) Essentially there are so many registered, experienced and excellent teachers in any one school that making some teachers 'learn' through PD is like preaching to the converted.

3) The most powerful of the 3 is collaborative cultures in a school.

YOU DON’T GET SHARED DEPTH AT A WORKSHOP: YOU DON’T GET IT JUST BY HIRING GREAT INDIVIDUALS; YOU DON’T GET IT JUST THROUGH CONGENIAL RELATIONSHIPS. YOU DEVELOP SHARED DEPTH THROUGH CONTINUOUS LEARNING BY SOLVIN PROBLEMS, AND BY GETTING BETTER AND BETTER AT WHAT YOU DO. DEVELOPING EXPERTISE DAY AFTER DAY BY MAKING LEARNING AND ITS IMPACT THE FOCUS OF THE WORK IS WHAT PAYS OFF EXPERTISE, INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE, IS WHAT COUNTS. (P 82)

THE PRINCIPAL: THREE KEYS TO MAXIMIZING IMPACT (FULAN, 2014)

MY NEXT STEPS AS A LEADER IN LITERACY:

1. Name it
2. Model it
3. Monitor it
4. BE AN: Agent of change, a system plater and a leading learner.
5. Be specifically involved in instruction so that I am knowledgeable about its nature and importance.
6. Focus on actions that will shape the culture of learning more powerfully.
7. Develop a capital of teachers.