Introduction to OER4Schools
The OER4Schools Professional Learning Resource
Review of homework
Small group activity (11 min).: (30 mins) Get into your small group of last week’s ‘making use of enquiry ideas A-D’ activity to discuss your homework tasks.
All the participants should have tried out a mini-EBL lesson or have organised an extended EBL ‘field or project day’. Check with each other that you have the following documentation that should be included in your portfolio:
1. Students’ recordings (on sheets of paper) of their data collection, analysis, findings and any other presentation documents (e.g. models, charts, pictures) and audio/video recordings of students’ presentations.
2. Your audio reflections of the planning and implementation of all parts of the EBL mini-lesson, field trip or project day.
3. Your written reflections about EBL, major take-away messages (e.g. using PMI to think about the planning and implementation of EBL) and ideas on what you would like to try out for your future planning and implementation of EBL in your class.
4. Questionnaire on how much you have learnt and tried to practise EBL in your classrooms.
Spend about 5 minutes scanning through all the homeworks (in the form of some of the documents listed above) that have been completed by yourself and your colleagues.
Discuss as a small group, what you feel has gone well and what are some areas for improvement in the planning and process of EBL. As far as possible, make use of the evidence in the documents to support your views. Nominate a spokesperson to present to the bigger group your group’s assessment on how successfully you feel you have learnt and tried out EBL in the last three or four weeks. Your group should also provide a recommendation of how you would help OTHER teachers in the school get to know and learn about EBL.
Leadership for Learning – Introduction
Reading (11 min). Read the following text.
Leadership for Learning is a way of thinking, doing, communicating, working, and reflecting about educational leadership in schools for the singular purpose of promoting the activity of learning.
Five principles of Leadership for Learning are as follows:
- Focus on learning
- Conditions for learning
- Learning Dialogue
- Shared Leadership
- Shared Accountability
In this unit you will explore the five LfL principles in practice with a view to contributing your own ideas about Leadership for Learning through interactive learning opportunities.
LfL is not something that can be implemented, ‘done-to’ a school or imposed on a person. LfL provides a framework that creates an opportunity for change; for expanding leadership capacity in schools and improving the quality of learning. The OER4schools programme adopts an approach similar to the one in LfL in how it defines professional learning. You will have an opportunity in this unit to reflect further on the application of LfL in every aspects of your own professional learning.
Small group activity (11 min).: Form a different small group of three to four teachers and discuss these questions:
- What is your initial impression of the terms ‘leadership’ and ‘learning’?
- Who are the leaders and learners in your school?
- Who are the leaders in your school who are responsible for learning within the school?
- Can you be a leader on learning in your school? Why?
Make sure that the participants think about this broadly. For instance, “Who are the leaders and learners in your school?” should include the head teacher, both as a leader and a learner. There may also be others (such as cleaners) who have a very low status in the school, but actually play an important role: To keep the school clean and tidy so that the school can operate.
What is LfL? Introduction to LfL: It's all around
Leadership for learning is happening all around you.
If you know what to look for you will see elements of LfL in classrooms and schools, in your own community, and even in the setting in which you might be working through this unit!
You may be wondering, If Leadership for Learning is all around me already, why am I doing this unit? Well … the short answer is that even though the LfL principles describe common attributes of many classrooms and whole schools, they are not present, coordinated or sustained at levels that support consistently positive learning effects.
Objectives
The objectives of this session are to:
- Explore the idea of a “lense” (which is used metaphorically) for describing how we can start to ‘look at and see’ Leadership for Learning in classrooms and schools
- Identify and explore the 5 LfL principles
- Watch teachers in action, and see if some or all of the 5 LfL principles can be identified.
Practical: Seeing is believing
Let’s start by considering a few ideas about LfL, its 5 principles, and how we might observe and identify these in classrooms and schools.
We like to think about ‘seeing’ the LfL principles by using what we have come to call an ‘LfL Lens’ or set of ‘LfL Lenses’. What do we mean by lens? We use a familiar image of spectacles or glasses to depict or serve as a useful metaphor for clarifying what we mean by an LfL Lens.
Stimulus (11 min). What do you think we mean by an LfL lens as illustrated by the spectacles or glasses metaphor?
Pedagogy: Think, Pair, Share
THINK: Suggest each person works independently for 1 minute and identifies/thinks of 1 -3 responses/contributions. Participants make a note of each (mentally, or preferably, written down to support recall and reference).
PAIR: In pairs, participants discuss and compare ideas.
SHARE: The whole group comes together, with each pair contributing one or two ideas from their discussion.
Sample responses: “It helps you see things differently”, “An LfL lens makes you focus on LfL”, “It’s a way of describing how we look at the world differently depending on our attention or interests.”
Practical: The five lenses
Let’s take our metaphor of the LfL lens a step further, and suggest that there are 5 different LfL lenses (spectacles) needed in order to ‘see’ all 5 LfL principles:
- Focus on learning
- Conditions for learning
- Learning Dialogue
- Shared Leadership
- Shared Accountability
Consider the 5 LfL Lens and their usefulness for focusing on learning practices.
- What are the kinds of things you might see in a classroom if you were looking through the LfL lens ‘Focus on Learning’?
- What are the kinds of things you might see in a classroom if you were looking through the LfL lens ‘Conditions for Learning’?
- What are the kinds of things you might see in a classroom if you were looking through the LfL lens ‘Learning Dialogue’?
- What are the kinds of things you might see in a classroom if you were looking through the LfL lens ‘Shared Leadership?
- What are the kinds of things you might see in a classroom if you were looking through the LfL lens ‘Shared Accountability’?
You can use the following background reading to help you understand these terms.
Pedagogy: Jigsaw (or small group plenary) - creating and sharing 'expert' knowledge. ‘Extending the lens metaphor from the previous exercise, create five groups each focusing on one LfL principle to discuss “what are the kinds of things you might see…”. Either jigsaw, creating new groups with 'expert' envoys from each of five LfL principle groups, Or representatives from each group share with everyone in plenary. Identify natural overlaps and links across the 5 LfL principles and re-direct new questions back to the group for elaboration. This is a purely exploratory exercise, with no incorrect answers.
Use the background reading to explain the terms. There is another educator note below this background reading, that gives further details for each point in turn. Make sure that you have spent time reading and thinking about this before the session.
Focus on Learning
- Everyone is a learner
- Learning relies on the effective interplay of social, emotional and cognitive processes
- The efficacy of learning is highly sensitive to context and to the differing ways in which people learn
- The capacity for leadership arises out of powerful learning experiences
- Opportunities for leadership enhance learning
Conditions for Learning
- Cultures nurture the learning of everyone
- Everyone has opportunities to reflect on the nature, skills and processes of learning
- Physical and social spaces stimulate and celebrate learning
- Safe and secure environments enable everyone to take risks, cope with failure and respond positively to challenges
- Tools and strategies are used to enhance thinking about learning and the practice of teaching
Learning Dialogue
- Practice made explicit, discussable and transferable
- Active, collegial inquiry focussing on the link between learning and leadership
- Coherence through sharing of values, understandings and practices
- Factors that inhibit and promote learning are examined and addressed
- Link between leadership and learning is a concern for everyone
- Different perspectives explored through networking with researchers and practitioners
Shared Leadership
- Structures support participation in developing learning communities
- Shared leadership symbolised in day-to-day flow of activities
- Everyone encouraged to take a lead as appropriate to task and context
- Everyone’s experience and expertise is valued and drawn upon as resources
- Collaborative activity across boundaries of subject, role and status are valued and promoted
Mutual Accountability
- Systematic approach to self-evaluation embedded at every level
- Focus on evidence and its congruence with core values
- Shared approach to internal accountability is a precondition of external accountability
- National policies recast in accordance with school's core values
- Choosing how to tell own story while taking account of political realities
- Continuing focus on sustainability, succession and leaving a legacy
This educator note is meant to be read in conjunction with the above background reading. It provies additional prompts for each of the points above.
Focus on Learning
- Everyone is a learner.' Are students the only learners in our school? How about the teachers? Parents? Headteachers?
- Learning relies on the effective interplay of social, emotional and cognitive processes. Do we think about what is learning about? Is it about memorising and applying certain facts? Managing emotions? Being able to make friends with one another? Making good decisions?
- The efficacy of learning is highly sensitive to context and to the differing ways in which people learn. Are we aware about the differences in ways which people learn and to what extent their background (e.g. family, age, interests) will influence the way they learn?
- The capacity for leadership arises out of powerful learning experiences. Who are some of the most influential teachers in my life? When did we encounter such teachers and why did they create such powerful learning experiences for ourselves? How can we do the same for others?
- Opportunities for leadership enhance learning. Are we given the opportunities to make decisions on our learning?
Conditions for Learning
- What kind of background (e.g. families, age, interests) would be most helpful to support learning?
- Are there opportunities for everyone to reflect on the nature, skills and processes involve in learning? What are they?
- Are the physical facilities and other form of support (e.g. the community and family support) able to support learning? What are these facilities and support?
- Are we providing a safe environment for learners to take risks, cope with failure and respond positively to challenges? How are we doing that?
- Are we updating ourselves and reflecting about the various tools and strategies to enhance the way we teach and learn? How are we doing that?
Learning Dialogue
- Do we have the language to talk about learning so that we can discuss and reflect about it more fruitfully? How do we do that?
- Do we discuss and find out how we can take the lead to decide what learning should be like in our school (and not just be directed by the authority?) How can we go about doing that?
- Do we discuss and share the values and understanding of the ways we learn and teach? What are they?
- Do we examine and address the factors and inhibit and promote learning? What are they?
- Do we prioritise the link between leadership and learning? What kind of concerns on learning do we raise and act upon?
- Do we network with researchers and other practitioners to explore different perspectives of learning? How do we do that?
Shared Leadership
- Are there ways we can participate in learning or be involved in starting learning communities within the school?
- Can we see leadership being shared by various colleagues and students in the day-to-day flow of activities in the school? How is that like?
- Do we take the initiative to take a lead in various learning or research projects in accordance to what we are interested in and capable of? What kind or projects or research can we embark on?
- Do we draw on everyone’s experience and expertise as we value all of them as important resources to support learning? How do we do that?
- Do we value and promote collaborative activities across subject, levels and roles within the school?
Mutual Accountability
- Is there a systematic approach to self-evaluation that is evident at all aspects of our works?
- Is there a focus on documentation of teaching and learning that would be consistent with our beliefs on the values of education?
- Do we take the initiative to be accountable to ourselves in ensuring the quality of teaching and learning, rather than to be dependent on an external authority?
- Do we critically examine the national policies and how they are relevant with the school’s core values?
- Do we maintain an individual stance of our own views of teaching and learning, while being very cognisant of the political realities that we are living in?
- Do we try to look forward towards the future, on how we can sustain our current efforts and to be able to leave a legacy for our future generations?
Thinking ahead, you are probably already wondering why we don’t simply put all the LfL lenses together, in one! This way we could see all the 5 LfL principles at once in classrooms and schools.
Consider the Figure above.
- What do you think might be the benefits of combining all LfL lenses into one?
- What do you think could be the drawbacks of looking at classrooms and schools with a single, combined lens?
Pedagogy: Debate preceded by snowballing and prioritisation.
SNOWBALL AND PRIORITISATION: Firstly create two groups, one considering the ‘benefits’ and the other the ‘drawbacks’ of looking at practice through a single combined lens.
In each group the process proceeds in stages: people first work independently, then in pairs, then two pairs join to create a four, then two fours join to create an eight and so on, until each of the two groups has ‘snowballed’ together.
At each stage, the task is: (a) to think about the benefits or drawbacks (depending which half of the whole group) of looking at practice through a single combined lens, and (b) to prioritise them into the top five items. Prioritisation should be achieved through dialogue to reach consensus. Once the snowball has brought together everyone considering each of the aspects (benefits / drawbacks), only three items should be prioritised.
DEBATE: Each half-group considers their agreed top three items and draws together the arguments for each point in preparation for the debate. Moderate a turn-by-turn debate about the benefits and drawbacks of observing/reviewing classrooms and schools through a single, combined lens.
Sample responses: Participants will understand that there are benefits of focussing on one thing (one LfL principle) at a time: “Focusing on one of the 5 LfL principles really helps to identify the specifics of practice”. Participants will also acknowledge that people, classrooms, and schools are complex, and begin to recognise that the LfL principles don’t naturally occur in isolation of the others. A global view is also an essential component of observing the effects of practices in action.
Application of LfL lenses to a classroom situation
Small group activity (11 min). Let’s try putting this idea of looking at classroom teaching and learning through an LfL lens into practice.
We are going to watch a short teaching/classroom video.
Before we do, choose only 1 LfL lens that you will use as your ‘critical lens’ to ‘see’ the practices in this classroom. By choosing your 1 LfL lens, you should only ‘see’ and note down those things that your lens helps you to focus on. Decide as a group, what exactly you want to look out for based on the lens that you have chosen.
For example, if you choose, ‘Conditions for Learning’, then try looking only for those things that you believe contribute to promoting conditions for learning in the video.
It is helpful if different participants choose different lenses so at least two, ideally more, are represented.
Pedagogy: ‘Table mats’ to record observation and reflection (2s or 3s)
Invite participants to work in 2s or 3s, and prepare a ‘table mat’ for recording. Each group has a large piece of paper, in the middle of which they draw a quadrant (if pairs) or a triangle (if 3s) big enough to record the outcomes of the group discussion. Divide the outside area of the paper into half or third (to match the group size).
Agree which LfL principle each group will adopt as their critical lens for watching the video.
As they watch the video, participants make notes in their outside area of the table mat.
After watching, participants share their observations and reflections, and together agree the salient points of the lesson from the perspective of their chosen LfL principle to record in the central area of the table mat.
Emphasise that there are no wrong answers, and groups should try their best to focus their attention using their chosen LfL lens.
Extension: The table mats could be collected and displayed for whole group, firstly comparing any that focused on the same LfL principle, then comparing those that used differing lenses. Exploration of the similarities and differences is likely to reinforce the understanding that using a single lens brings specific aspects of a lesson into sharper focus, and that the five principles are interrelated and overlap.
OK, watch the video now, wearing your chosen LfL spectacles!
VIDEO
Is a bat a bird?
Is a bat a bird?
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TEXT TO BE ADDED
Whole group discussion (11 min).
- Was there a supportive environment for pupil participation and dialogue in this lesson? If so, how did the teacher achieve this?
- How did she help pupils to work out whether the bat was a mammal? Did this discussion move their thinking forward?
- What did you think about teacher control and pupil learning in this video clip?
- How would you manage something similar in your classroom? How would you encourage pupil talk without losing too much control?
This video clip shows the highlights of a lesson study (also known as research study) going on in an American primary school classroom. Lesson study is another form of ongoing professional development activity whereby teachers come together to decide on an area of teaching or learning that they would like to understand and improve on, in order to help students learn better. The teachers observe learners in a class being taught by how one of their colleagues teach in the class, and collect specific, detailed data for discussion with the lesson study group later. In this video clip, the teachers want to find out whether the students are able to recall and retell the sequence of a story read to them by their teacher.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDksU13FZtc&list=HL1349038827&feature=mh_lolz
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LfL across the OER4schools programme
Reading (11 min).
LfL is not only an effective framework for exploring others’ teaching and learning, it is also very useful for reflecting upon your own learning pathways. Teachers, student teachers and other participants are autonomous thinkers and learners, doing their own learning both individually and collectively. We hope that the new (and familiar) ideas presented in all the past units and the supporting resources are feeding into your understanding of learning, classroom conditions and your leadership role, impact on student learning and what you can do to enrich and enhance learning opportunities.
There are no "right ways" but lots of possibilities to explore; in this sense you always a "leader" – leading learning in your classroom. Hopefully you can also share the responsibility for leading learning within your school or institution. We will explore this in 6.2 and 6.3.
Adapted from "Creating Learning Without Limits", by Maddock, Peacock, Hart & Drummond, p.108-9. OUP, Maidenhead."
Think-Pair-Share (11 min).
Consider all of what you have learned in the sessions leading up to this point in the programme. Did your workshop facilitator and/or the materials ‘focus on learning’, create the ‘conditions for learning’, promote and enable ‘learning dialogue’, provide opportunities for ‘shared leadership’ and ‘mutual accountability’? Also, using the 5 principles, why not consider evaluating yourself, your own involvement and contribution to increasing the learning capacity throughout the programme for you and your colleagues? LfL is an effective way thinking about your learning, the learning around you, and how you can go about improving learning capacity.
Think about these questions and pair up with one other colleague to share your ideas.
Reflecting and Sharing your Learning
You now understand that LfL is about a journey on learning. In this journey, you have seen and responded to many different ways of what learning, teaching and leadership can be about. We have given you many ‘big pictures’ and also concrete examples of how the different aspects of teaching, learning and leadership can be like in the classrooms, schools and communities.
By seeing things differently, through the 5 LfL lenses (or all at once with a combined lens when you are ready to give it a try) we hope you are able to better understand what a teacher-leader should do to support the activity of learning within and outside the classrooms. The knowledge and insights of the leadership for learning principles challenge your previous views of learning, teaching and leadership. It helps you to reflect upon and share your current learning and teaching experiences with your colleagues, school leaders and parents. We will explore all these in greater details in 6.2 and 6.3.
HOMEWORK
We would like you to practice using the LfL lenses when you are back in your own classroom settings, or even when you are watching others in the act of teaching and learning.
1. Take time to think about the course, your own learning and how you both contributed to and were supported in your learning. Use the LfL framework to organize your mental and audio reflections, enabling you to return to our next session with 5 categories that will help you shape your discussion with your peers.
2. Please undertake a 30-minute peer observation, where you explore aspects of a colleague’s principles and practices using the LfL lenses. You can choose to use just one lens, or more than one – whichever you feel is most appropriate for the exercise. We suggest that if you use more than one lens, that you configure your notes in sections – perhaps even dividing your note taking paper into labelled, headed sections prior to the observation. That way you can jot down elements you observe under each heading in your prepared framework.
We won’t be surprised if you report back that certain LfL headings are observed more often than others. If you find this to be true, consider proposing an explanation for this to your colleagues at our next session and what you might suggest we can learn from your findings.
Acknowledgement
This page was authored primarily by Stephen Jull, drawing on collaborative work with Sue Swaffield and John MacBeath of the Centre for Commonwealth Education, University of Cambridge.
