REFLECTIONS



 30 years of diverse roles n QLD Education Department of primary Teacher ,Principal,English Language Arts Adviser, Regional Curriculum Officer,Inspector of Schools ,Support Centre Co-ordinator , District Education Manager , , Ministers Representative on the Board of the Brisbane Teachers Centre ,Member of the Central Leadership and Culture Team,and Senior Policy Adviser  provide the context for these reflections 

The following experience have shaped my thinking 

• Designed conducted and reviewed over 100 school reviews,and regional culture change projects in QLD and Victoria   as an internal agent and  as an external paid consultant
• Investigated public complaints and reviewed school suspensions and exclusions at a district level. (District Education Manager)
• Lead the transdisciplinary team that conducted research into professional learning, made SUBMISSION TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES INQUIRY INTO TEACHER EDUCATION etc( Chair The Queensland Consortium for Professional Development in Education)

• Lead the team of Families Matter  consultants , delivered the program in  every state of Australia ,reviwed program implementation.(CEO of the social enterprise  Global Institute for Learning and Development) 

Structural change is the preferred instrument for transactional  change that tweaks  roles and reporting relationships but rarely  changes the culture or the practice

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WHO does /could/should make the complementary contributions to support lifelong/lifewide learning ?​BOUNDARY ACTORS 

The emphasis on lifelong AND lifewide learning diversifies the people involved and reframes the essential capability  base for learning design and delivery beyond traditional "educational"institutions  to include commercial enterprises  Not for profits ,social enterprises,Foundations  ,health and wellbeing gurus and three levels of government departments etc etc \

• Business sponsored foundations and policy thinktanks increasingly frustrated with  traditional educational institutions that are percieved to be  consistent "late adopters/laggards " in implementing  new evidence on learning
• eg.UNICEF ;  GATES FOUNDATION ;      KETTERING FOUNDATION ;  2009 MAP OF POTENTIAL PARTNERS ​
• The usual suspects  ACARA ;DEET ; DETE ; QCPCA ACSSO APC AISQ  QSA uNIVERSITIES  ETC ETC 
• New players in the game Coursera The Khan Academy ;edX ;​ providing free access to accredited learning with large Universities joining the wave 
• People are using social media to learn from each other ,share information 
• Assessment and analytic companies contracting to  make sens eo fdata to enablre teacher to apply information and get on with the job of helping students to learn
• Progress partners  are one example of incubators engaged in the billion dollar industry of online learning ​
• Publishers providing free on line interactive  text books 
• Universities providing MOOCs and free 
• THINK TANKS ( 16 and counting )
• circle of moms ( 232,000 members !) one of countless hundreds of blogs with people sharing with people about parenting ,life etc 
• yelp rate my teacher 

WHAT  results are must have OUTPUTS,like to have OUTCOMES,love to have  IMPACTS

​Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians December 2008

Goal 2: All young Australians become: 8
– Successful learners – Confi dent and creative individuals– Active and informed citizens​

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Seven Survival Skills in The Global Achievement Gap (Basic Books 2010):

Critical Thinking and Problem-solving
Collaboration Across Networks and Leading By Influence
Agility and Adaptability
Initiative and Entrepreneurship
Effective Oral and Written Communication
Accessing and Analyzing Information
Curiosity and Imagination.



Ontario and Fullan 

• Character education— honesty, self-regulation and responsibility, perseverance, empathy for contributing to the safety and benefit of others, self-confidence, personal health and well-being, career and life skills.

• Citizenship — global knowledge, sensitivity to and respect for other cultures, active involvement in addressing issues of human and environmental sustainability.

• Communication — communicate effectively orally, in writing and with a variety of digital tools; listening skills.
• Critical thinking and problem solving — think critically to design and manage projects, solve problems, make effective decisions using a variety of digital tools and resources.
• Collaboration — work in teams, learn from and contribute to the learning of others, social networking skills, empathy in working with diverse others.
• Creativity and imagination — economic and social entrepreneurialism, considering and pursuing novel ideas, and leadership for action.

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There appears to be an emerging counter argument to standards based reform(* Teacher standards;​Standards driven leadership reform; high stakes testing regimes on a global comparative scale  etc ) with some believing that this top down approach has pushed aside many of these so-called “non-cognitive” or “soft” skills . CHILD DEVELOPMENT These remain largely unmeasured and unrewarded  despite considerable gains in understanding of Social return On Investment ( SROI) practices 

Others believe that capabilities such as  real life problem solving ,entrepreneurial skills,computer coding skillls etc etc  are essential outcomes in a world of rapid change ,

• Plethora of "well being programs not always linked to evidence base or implemented with integrity  META ANALYSIS 
• My 2008 analysis of the proposed National Curriculum Framework suggests  interdependent role for parents ,community 
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REVIEW OF TWO ARTICLES ON PRINCIPAL EFFECTS
Reviewed By Margaret Terry OrrBank Street College of Education March 2013

The most important policy-relevant conclusion that can be derived from this report is that estimating principal effectiveness is simply not possible given current methodology and sample size restrictions. Thus, such estimates should not be used to evaluate principals.

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HOW  do we engage the people with the mission/mandate/capabilities  to add value to learning? SYSTEMS RESOURCES TOOLS

Learning via selective imitation can lead to cumulative directional change

if successful innovations are passed along to the next generation (e.g.,Maestripieri, 1996). Intergenerational social learning with cumulative modifications
can result in “progressive” historical development of information.1Because the current information pool is based on experiences of past generations,
this type of learning involves historical constraints. Most definitionsof “culture” involve learned information of this sort and the behavior it
produces (McGrew, 2003).

Personal Learning Environments 

 

1.  

​WHERE are the emergent transdisciplinary trends /patterns with the potential to amplify  "next practice parent engagement " in lifelong/lifewide learning?​​ FACTORS

​School choice factors 21 positive attitudes were identified. Close distance of school to home was the most frequently stated reason (31 respondents), followed by good academic reputation (16),religious reasons (15), same school as friends, relatives and neighbours’ child there (11), local reasons (8), multicultural reasons (8), connections (6), parents and siblings’ ex school (6), social class reasons (5), discipline reasons (5), sporting reasons (4), small number of class size (4), special needs reasons (3), parental involvement (3), safety (3), strict selection criteria (2), single sex (2), child related (happiness / friends) (2), less costly (1), large school (1), and good

facilities (1). The main reasons for not considering a school were: poor discipline (15 respondents), followed by far distance from home (9), transport difficulties (6), poor academic reasons (5), racial reasons (5), cost reasons (4), wrong emphasis (3), safety reasons (3) and negative impression of public schools (1).complete model of culture must include the effects of (a) social integration and shared information,“reverberation throughout the individual’s social group”; (b) history, “the ongoing cycle”; (c) individual psychological and informational development(ontogeny); (d) the noncultural environment (e.g., flora and fauna, geography,

and demography); (e) chance or accidental events; and (f) evolved psychological mechanisms that underlie mental representation and communication.



The rapid pace of translating the promise of Anyone ,can learn Anything ,@ Anytime  Anywhere Anyhow  into practical,opensource programs and personalised  learning opportunities  for fun, for just in time learning and just in case accreditation.-

• --- Juxtaposed with The emergence as the education industry as  both a National ,brandable commercial enterprise and a source of future  economic competitive advantage​

 EVIDENCE BASE

The  2000 + articles ,reports,opinions organised under the given headings and

dating back to 2003 show my interests  in the educational dialogue  Happy to share eg Horizon Report 2012 

My DIIGO library  holds my bookmarks that reflect a peripatetic meander through the bazaar of educational

paradigms,programs /theories and the bizarre  emergent thoughts of those at the edge of understanding 

LIFELONG & LIFEWIDE LEARNING SYSTEMS  (68 SITES )  ; EDUCATIONAL TRENDS (52) PARENT ENGAGEMENT  (12)

DEMAND DRIVERS FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION (10)  EVALUATION METHODOLOGY ( 79 )

LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOURS (25)​

the EDUCATION MAP OF MAPS 

WHY should we do things differently?VALUES ​

Single program interventions ( training parents to build young peoples 'resilience ) meet log frame accountability regimes preferred by pure research methodologies , funders  policy  implementation teams  institutions who buy branded programs . At other times we avoid accountabilities by pointing to the complex interdependent factors that impact on learning ( eg Student variables in Social,intellectual,financial ,cultural  capitals )

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The blurring of boundaries between public and private spaces enabled by big data ,social media,infographics etc levels the playing field when everybody has access to the same information.

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Transparent access to funding and board membership questions the motives of so called independent Foundations etc   "He who pays the piper calls the tune, and with money in their pockets, many are eager to sing the Common Core song and eat the funeral meats".By Susan Ohanian on February 19, 2013 9:29 pm /



Educational institutions at all levels (primary, secondary and higher education) need to adopt 21st century methods and tools to develop the appropriate learning environment for encouraging creativity, innovation and the ability to think “out of the box” to solve problems. Embedding entrepreneurship and innovation, cross-disciplinary approaches and interactive teaching methods all require new models, frameworks and paradigms. It is time to rethink the old systems and fundamentally “reboot” the educational process.

Unlocking Entrepreneurial Capabilities to Meet the Global Challenges of the 21st Century
Final Report on the Entrepreneurship Education Workstream World Economic Forum Global Education Initiative

June 2011Standards driven community engagement ??

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The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching​

Elective Community Engagement Classification



meta analysis of school wellbeing programs conducted under evidence based frameworks of the medical profession 

Innovation Ahead for Higher Education

 

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Higher education is facing unprecedented levels of change – MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) providing remote access, new providers developing new approaches, students’ expectations and demands rising. These changes will increase competition and require radical innovation from existing organisations in order to survive

 

​Preserving/spanning home school communication boundaries through social media ? 

Standards driven leadership reform u

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