Servicios

Schools and systems that foster highly collaborative practices and purposefully build social capital are places where new pedagogies thrive. In particular, teacher isolation is the enemy here. But not all places begin with high levels of collaboration and, in such cases, one of the critical roles of leaders is to begin to demonstrate and model collaborative practices, taking a non- judgmental stance on how others engage, especially at the beginning. In the examples we saw of new pedagogies spreading effectively, teachers and school leaders were engaged in processes of

continuous, collaborative evaluation of what worked and how to best achieve improvement.78

These processes were deliberatively developed and the beginnings were often messy. But let us

share what can happen using a vignette from the video of Park Manor:79

So whenever we did staff development [in the past], they were all over the map in terms of different knowledge and expertise with different high yield strategies. So a big question was how to have them be comfortable with learning and sharing from each other. Because I’m a big believer that within a school or a system, you have the expertise – if you can just connect the people and have them learn from each other. That was our big focus.

James Bond, Principal, Park Manor School, Ontario, Canada76

76 _{See more of the Park Manor story at Fullan 2014, Motion Leadership Film Series, www.michaelfullan.ca/ontario-park-manor/} 77 _{DeLorenzo et al 2008}

78 _{See more about how this kind of collaborative teacher inquiry works in Ontario at:}

www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/CBS_Collaborative_Teacher_Inquiry.pdf

79_{www.michaelfullan.ca/ontario-park-manor/}

Four teachers sat around a table in their ‘shared staff learning center’ at Park Manor School in Ontario, Canada. The walls of the room were completely covered with individual ‘student stickies’ for every student in the school. Each student page had coloured markers showing that student’s success and challenges by subject. Notes from different teachers were included behind each page. Any teacher could come into the room and have a clear and immediate visual picture of their students – and an ability to see if students who were struggling in their classrooms were having more success with other teachers. Teachers regularly shared the teaching strategies they were using with other teachers, discussing what worked to engage a kid, and what didn’t.

Through such collaboration, teachers develop common theories of practice, sharing their insights about strategies that impact individual students. A collaborative climate decreases teacher isolation and, at the same time, enables greater risk-taking. In schools and systems with collaborative climates, the risk of trying new approaches becomes shared. When leaders support such risk-taking and – more significantly – embrace the practice of talking openly about mistakes, collaborative climates establish the pattern of learning from mistakes.

Just as students build grit and perseverance through struggling with hard challenges, so too do teachers and leaders. While tremendously exciting, beginning new pedagogies is still a hard challenge. Partnerships, feedback, learning while doing – all these elements apply at the school and system level, and are all supported by collaborative cultures. Finally, it is critical to note that such collaboration is focused, specific, and purposeful. It zeroes on the actual new pedagogy that needs to be created.

These positive developments are all the more crucial in the face of recent problematic developments in the U.S. toward greater instructional micro-management. The role of school leaders is not to try and influence instruction in a direct one-to-one fashion but rather to enable and help develop focused collaborative cultures-use the group to change the group, as we say.

Capturing the Vision and Building Shared Commitment

One of the most important roles leaders can play in spreading the contagion of new pedagogies is to continuously develop, define and communicate the new vision. This is not an individual or a small group of leaders making up the story and telling it to others; it is non-stop partnering with teachers, students and community stakeholders to build a common vision, collaborating to internalise the concepts, and identifying shared stories and examples that realise the vision as it becomes a reality.

Sharing stories and examples can go beyond the boundaries of one school or system. Some schools and systems are developing online platforms for broader sharing of such examples. As described above, High Tech High uses large public exhibitions of student work. These broaden awareness of what it is possible for students to achieve.

The number one thing is having a director or leader at a school who gives you permission to try things and fail – that is most important. When a teacher tries something new, they are scared that if it doesn’t work a parent will call and complain. That teacher needs to know that they will have someone at their back.

In both culture and capacity building, an essential part of a leader’s role is to gauge a school or learning community’s readiness for change. Every classroom, school and education system

is at a different stage of development and faces its own unique context.80 _{For a school that}

has challenges with student violence, the appropriate starting point might not be a focus on risk-taking, but rather on the development of trust, student voice and shared responsibility. For systems with low levels of pedagogical capacity, developing teachers is likely to be the first step in the process. The ideas we present here are not intended as a universal prescription, but as a framework from which to develop ideas. It is a framework that leaders and learning communities can draw from in the course of change efforts. As we describe below, ongoing self- assessment is the foundation of effective implementation. Throughout, leaders in the new mode must have a broad vision, openly inviting others to explore new possibilities. Such leaders are

non-judgmental: they practice that it is okay to make mistakes. They like teachers to lead the way.

And as experience accumulates, they help the group to assess what is working in order to get to the next phase.