Week 2 - 21st Century Skills and Key Competencies/Reflective Practise and Key Competencies in Leadership

Week 2 - DCL - 21st Century Skills

Considering my reflection "I've fallen into the teaching trap of doing what has always been done by teaching with the industrial model as my guide." this week's quote was timely and succinct. 

Some of the you tube clips for class preparation were interesting and thought provoking. 

Innovative Teaching and Learning Research - Having never heard of this resource I am keen to further explore the possibilities for our school as we continued with the ICT journey. I was struck by this quote from 

”It’s time to act, to put these things into play and really take advantage of the potential for technology and what we’ve learned to really transform and renew education ecosystems around the world.”

                                                                      Maria Langworthy, Global Director, ITL, Microsoft Partners in Learning

Teaching in the 21^st Century

·         Challenging questions – if Teachers are simply providers or transmitters of Knowledge then are we obsolete since students can find information  whatever/whenever/wherever?

·         Teachers are NO longer the main source of information so how do we teach students to handle these resources?

Have they been shown how to:

o   Validate information.

o   Synthesize information

o   Leverage information

o   Communicate information

o   Collaborate with information

o   Problem solve with information

Week 2 - LDC - Reflective practice and Key Competencies in Leader

The value of these weekly reflections are they do have me question my doing and therefore my thinking. I realised that I automatically go the the DCL before I do the Leadership readings and tasks. I'm beginning to understand that is because I do not see myself as a leader especially given I've only been teaching for 2 years. So my thinking about the readings for this week.

Looking at the Key Competencies especially resonates with me. I can remember my first week of my teaching degree and the NZC was the first official document I was introduced to. I can remember leaving after the week feeling overwhelmed and not at all sure I would be able to do this study. I had to strip back to my purpose of why I wanted to teach. I then wrote out the NZC vision and had to pinned to my study wall for the 3 years. "Young people who will be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners"

I was also very fortunate that my study with the University of Canterbury placed such an emphasis on the importance of the Key Competencies in our personal teaching philosophy and our planning. It seems to me that this forward thinking document that is the NZC was well ahead in terms of thinking about 21st Century teaching and learning.

So my thinking and reflections on this week's notes:
Class Notes:

• Learners are most likely to develop and strengthen their capabilities for living and learning when they learn with teachers in a school whose leadership creates conditions that stimulate key competencies. - " so far in my two years we have included the KCs in our staff discussions during PD but I would challenge whether we have had the opportunity to look at any/all in any details especially pertaining to our teaching."
• Giving effect to key competencies in ways that address their complexity will entail significant challenge and change.Effective leaders create the conditions required for key competencies in teaching and learning. They need to ensure that the culture, pedagogy, systems, partnerships, and networks in their school support key competency development.

Key Competencies in Leadership – Mary Anne Murphy

• Mary Anne Murphy links the key competencies with the skills and qualities of leadership. She challenges leaders to embody the key competencies with the same expectations we have for our students.
• While Mary Anne was thinking within a rural school context her challenge could more more widespread -" We are asking students to show the KC but how many of our leaders are displaying these ourselves."

Thinking:

• Strategically
• Outside the box
• Collectively
• Collaboratively

Relating to Others:

• Open to learning conversations (Vivian Robinson)
• Relational Trust (Stephen Covey Jnr)
• Make links and form relationships with other schools

Using language symbols and texts

• ·         Using MOE sites.
• ·         Don’t be afraid to ask

Managing Self:

• ·         The theory of the flow – lack of stimulation vs too much
• ·         Maintain our balance and keep flow
• ·         Need to be aware when we move out onto the fringes of that flow
• ·         Having communication thru virtual networks
• “KC are vital for us as leaders and think about how we are showing those.”   

"The thinking about the flow in relation to work/life balance stood out for obvious reasons. However it also had me thinking about my flow and energy within the classroom and my use of my school time for planning, assessment and thinking. Upon reflection I realised that I have not had a clear understanding of where my students were with their learning, what were their next steps, did they understand them too? I now can see that I had regular and robust communication with other beginning teachers but not so much with more experienced or those teachers who were constantly reflecting or forward thinking. Even my mentor teacher while she was willing as much as she could within her limited time available I was not so willing as I didn't want to come across as a beginning teacher, I've actually made the unrealistic statement that I wish I could be a teacher now with 10 years knowledge and experience. I'm starting to understand that the learning is as much in that cliched saying about the journey versus the destination."

Hattie's 8 Mindframes

JH’s golden rule for teachers – Know thy impact

1. My fundamental task is to evaluate the effect of my teaching on my students’ learning and achievement.

2. The success and failure of my student’s learning is about what I do or don’t I am change agent.

3. I want to talk more about learning than teaching.

4. Assessment is about my impact.

5. I teach through dialogue not monologue.

6. I enjoy challenge and never retreat into ‘doing my best.’

7. It’s my role to develop positive relationships in class and staffrooms.

8. I inform all about the language of learning

While all of value the two standouts for where I currently am are numbers 1 & 5. The first I can look back and realise that I put more thought into my planning and virtually none into regular, robust reflection and evaluation of each lesson or strategies applied. I don't do enough tracking, monitoring and assessing of my student's learning. This includes those feedback/feedfoward conversations with them so that they are also informed and empowered to drive their own learning.

The second is the amount of teacher talk - monologue versus dialogue I do in class. The very thing I vowed I would now do - easy to commit to during study and in theory while you have no 'real' children. When I did attempt to increase the dialogue between the students especially I look back on the energy, animation and engagement of the students as some of the stand out moments of my two years. Think, Pair, Share took a lot of set up, perseverance BUT it worked. It was worth the time. Again more reflection and evaluation needs to be done after the event."

Towards Reconceptualising Leadership: The Implications of the Revised New Zealand Curriculum for School Leaders

Towards Reconceptualsisng Leaderships: The Implications of the Revised NZC for school leaders/Wayne Freeth University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand with Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti University of Oulu, Finland

• Knowledge conceptualised as a noun tends to enable autocratic and bureaucratic styles of leadership, while knowledge conceptualised as a verb may enable democratic, distributed and transformational styles of leadership.
• However, teacher leadership is different from leadership associated with administrative or managerial roles, as it moves away from top-down, hierarchical reward/punish (transactional) practices towards practices of shared decision making, teamwork and community building.
• Gilbert challenges long-held views about education and knowledge, In her outline of the differences, knowledge conceptualised as a verb is something we do something with, rather than something we have; it is linked with performativity rather than truth, and it is more like an ‘energy’ than building blocks that can be accumulated.

"Having come off 3 years of experiencing Knowledge as a noun and then 2 years teaching and experiencing Knowledge as a verb I am interested in exploring this concept of Knowledge as energy that can be part of a community built rather than planned for."